Chapter 42. Bloodline Unsealed

They called it the Hollow Circle—yet paradoxically, it had never known emptiness. Deep in the blackened heart of the Ebonwild, where ancient oaks and half–withered yews wove their limbs so tightly that no sunbeam dared slip through, the Circle lay coiled in mute, sentient vigil. The air here was thick with damp rot and the iron tang of old blood, as if the forest itself exhaled memories too heavy for living creatures. Mushrooms glowed faintly along the trunk bases, casting sickly green halos on bone-white lichens, while coils of living root formed a tangled, breathing ring upon the leaf-strewn floor.

This was no man-hewn monument of polished granite or carved marble: it was a living work of writhing root, bleached strips of bonewood, and ossified skeletons from the first Kin—ancient wolves whose arched spines and jagged fangs proclaimed unspeakable power. Each fang-shaped marker stood at a cardinal point, hollow eyes staring outward, runes carved along their edges like frozen