Chapter 32. A Wolf’s Oath

The air in the Sunkenwood camp was thick with the scent of fear, gunpowder, and the strange, cloying aroma of the corrupted Alpha Roric’s magic. The ambush was immediate and overwhelming.

Neriah was a blinding nucleus of resistance. The Ashen Flame erupted from her, not as a blanket of fire, but as surgical, white-hot bursts, carving protective arcs around her makeshift followers. Caius was at her side, his blade a silver blur, defending their flanks with the desperate precision of a warrior fighting not for victory, but for a single, precious life.

“It’s a containment force!” Caius roared over the clash of steel, grappling with a Bloodmoon scout. “They aren’t trying to win, Neriah—they’re trying to hold us until that monstrosity is online!”

He nodded toward the western perimeter where four massive, armored wolves were hauling a terrifying contraption: the Silver Cage. It was a towering lattice of dark metal woven with strands of purified, heavy silver, pulsing wit