Chapter 2. The Tower of Whispers

The tower chamber was quiet, but not in the way silence usually settles. It was a sentient stillness, thick and waiting, as if the very stone held its breath. Only the Moon Court built places like this—sacred, layered with silence like prayer. Brin had once whispered of the old noble houses: Shadowfang, Dusk Spire, Hollowborn. Names with teeth. Names with history. Dusk Spire—where loyalties go to molt. She never said where Hollowborn kept its dead, only that their graves were always shallow.

I didn’t know what they meant yet. But I would..

I hadn’t slept. My body had rested, yes, but my mind was a thicket of broken images and tangled instincts. Dreams had come in flashes—white eyes in the dark, claws on stone, fire licking the edges of a memory I couldn’t fully grasp. And always, always that voice.

You are mine.

I pressed my fingers to the mark at my collarbone, half-hoping it would no longer burn. It didn’t. Not now. But it hummed faintly beneath the skin, like something dormant but alive.

I rose from the bed and crossed to the mirror. Last night, the glass had cracked, thin spiderweb fractures spreading like a scream frozen in time. Now it was smooth again. Polished. Untouched. The glass had been replaced—or warded. Either way, someone didn’t want me seeing what I’d already cracked.

But I remembered.

The girl in the reflection was still unfamiliar—pale skin, dark eyes ringed with shadow, and that silver brand that pulsed softly, beating its own rhythm like a second heart. I leaned closer. There was something feral behind my gaze, something not quite human.

Back in Brin’s cottage, I’d overheard a traveler mention “Luna-bloods”—rare wolves said to be marked by the Moon herself. Sacred. Dangerous. Unfit for packs. It had meant nothing to me then. But now...

Something waking.

A knock, abrupt and sharp, snapped me from my reverie. The door opened without waiting for an answer.

A woman stepped inside, tall and sharp as a blade. She wore ceremonial robes of navy and silver, her hair pulled into a knot so tight it made her already angular face seem carved from stone. Her gaze swept over me, impersonal and unflinching.

“You are to come,” she said.

“For what?”

“To be evaluated.”

“Evaluated for what?” I asked, but she was already turning.

Left with little choice, I followed.

The guards stationed outside the door joined us—two this time, cloaked in armor etched with the Shadowfang crest. One of them glanced at me, briefly, then looked away as though he’d seen something he shouldn’t have. I tried to read his expression, but his features remained locked in that strange, brittle mask of disciplined neutrality.

The silver-eyed one—Elyan, I would learn later—kept his gaze pinned to the floor. His thumb worried a pale ridge of scar along his knuckle as the robed woman murmured, almost to herself, “Luna-bloods are to be evaluated, not indulged.”

He didn’t look at me. He didn’t have to. The word itself made his jaw lock.

We descended through the keep, winding down stone staircases that spiraled ever deeper. The upper floors had been built with precision and power—sharp lines, blackened wood, thick silver-veined stone—but the lower halls were something else entirely. Older. Raw. The air changed as we moved, growing colder, denser, as if we were passing into the lungs of some ancient, sleeping creature.

Eventually, we came to a chamber set into the base of the western wing. Its doors were carved with lunar sigils that shimmered faintly in the torchlight. As they opened, I felt it—a pull, like gravity, dragging at my bones.

Inside, the room was circular, the floor etched with glowing glyphs in a language I didn’t recognize but somehow understood. Moon glyphs. Ancient magic tied to bloodlines and prophecy, older than any Alpha’s claim. Brin had warned that this kind of power didn’t heal—it revealed.

Pale fire floated midair in suspended lanterns, casting a spectral light over the stone. Four figures in moon-colored robes waited at the center, arrayed around the circle like points of a compass.

The woman beside me gestured toward the center. “Step forward.”

I hesitated. Every instinct told me this was a test I hadn’t agreed to take, a ritual I wasn’t ready for. But instinct was all I had—and mine whispered that refusal would bring no answers.

As soon as my feet touched the circle, the glyphs flared. Cold climbed into my molars; my fingertips went numb. Moon-work always bit back.

White light surged through the patterns, then turned blue, then a deep, bleeding red. I gasped and dropped to one knee as a searing pain radiated from the mark at my collarbone, curling through my chest like fire threading through veins of ice.

One of the robed figures stepped forward. His veil shimmered as he spoke.

“The mark remembers you,” he said, and his voice, though quiet, carried the weight of mountains.

“What is this place?”

“The Circle of Knowing. You were brought here to determine what remains of who you once were.”

I wanted to ask who had ordered this, but I already knew. Kael. Of course it was him. He who looked at me like a blade pointed at his own throat.

The man raised his hands, and the glyphs responded—rising from the stone like smoke, wrapping around my arms, spine, skull. They were not solid, not entirely, but they held weight. They pressed into me. They entered me.

My breath caught. A sudden flood of images tore through my mind like a dam breaking.

Flames. A forest burning. I was running barefoot through smoke and ash, someone behind me with a silver blade and no face.

Then snow. Endless white. A hall made of moonlight. A kiss so sharp it left blood on my lips. A voice whispering my name like it was both a blessing and a curse.

And then blood—so much blood. My hands were soaked in it. Around me, wolves bowed their heads in silence. At my feet, a crown shimmered in the light. Moonstone. Sacred.

A voice—mine, but not mine—echoed in the darkness.

You were never just a Luna. You were born to rule.

The light vanished.

I collapsed to the stone, trembling. My body felt hollow, like the visions had scooped me out and left only the shell.

One of the robed figures stepped forward and lifted his veil. His eyes were completely white, sightless—and yet he saw straight through me.

“She is fragmented,” he said softly. “But not lost.”

“What am I?” I managed to ask, though the words felt brittle in my throat.

The seer placed a single glowing hand to my temple.

A final memory crashed through me like a storm tide.

Kael, holding me as I bled, whispering against my hair: They’ll come for you. Hide your power. Hide your name.

And then darkness.

When I opened my eyes again, I was no longer in the circle. The vision had passed. The robed figures were whispering among themselves in a language I did not understand—but one I knew I would soon remember.

They said nothing more to me.

The guards escorted me back to the tower. No words were spoken. The silence was heavier than before.

That night, I did not sleep.

The dream returned, but it had changed.

I was the hunter now. Running through a forest steeped in moonlight, my body sleek and wild, my breath sharp in my lungs. Ahead, Kael walked—never looking back, never waiting. I called out, but no sound came. He disappeared into shadow.

I awoke to shouting.

Beyond the window, the courtyard blazed with movement—guards running, silver blades drawn, smoke curling from the outer walls. Someone screamed. A shape moved across the stone, dragging something limp.

My heart dropped.

It was Brin.

Her hair tangled and soaked in blood, her body slack as the guards yanked her toward the gates. I could just make out the shimmer of a crescent burn on her wrist.

She had hidden something.

Someone had found out.

I ran to the door, pounded on it until my fists bruised.

No one came.

I backed away, shaking, chest heaving. Cold radiated from the brand, threading up my throat until it sharpened my voice.

It was a growl.

Run.