The air in Veilgrove felt different after the Rite—denser, as if truth had a weight that could alter gravity. Kael and I hadn’t spoken since the Spiral Garden. We had been separated the moment the Seers declared the bond intact, ushered down separate paths through the undercity, as if the magic that bound us might still explode if left unchecked.

I had been given new quarters. Not in the temple, not among the guests or dignitaries. A room carved into the cliffside itself, with windows that opened to nothing but air and clouds. A moonstone basin sat in the corner, its waters glowing faintly in rhythm with my heartbeat.

It was a place for reflection without reflection. For isolation masquerading as honor.

And yet, I wasn’t alone.

A voice came with the dawn.

“You didn’t scream.”

I turned to find a figure in the doorway—a woman clad in armor the color of midnight rain, her hair braided back into a crown of obsidian cords.

“Should I have?”

She smiled faintly. “Most do. The Rite of Thorns is... cleansing.”

“It didn’t feel like cleansing. It felt like burning.”

“Sometimes they’re the same.”

She stepped forward, boots silent despite the stone beneath them. “I am Marshal Syra Valen. Commander of the Moon Court Guard.”

I dipped my chin in acknowledgment. “Thessia.”

“We know who you are now,” she said. “And we know what you might be. That changes things.”

“For better or worse?”

He gave one short nod. “Both.”

She handed me a scroll, sealed with a broken crest—the image half-scorched, as though someone had tried to erase it from existence.

“What is it?”

“An invitation. From the eastern border. The rogue packs have begun moving. Not openly. Not yet. But they’ve sent word they’ll parley—with you. Only you.”

I unrolled the parchment. The script was jagged, almost violent.

Luna of Forgotten Blood, Come to Ashfall Hollow. Bring no blade. Bring no Alpha. The east remembers its daughters.

I looked up slowly.

“They think I’m one of them.”

“Aren’t you?” Syra asked. “You disappeared beyond the Shadowfang border. You rose again from exile. You survived what no Alpha-blooded should.”

“And now they want to meet me.”

“No,” Syra said. “Now they want to test you.”

***

Ashfall Hollow lay beyond the moonlit marshes, a region once ruled by the Bloodhowl Clan before it fell to infighting and fire. No envoys had returned from its borders in years. The fact that a message had come at all was miracle or trap—perhaps both.

I was given two companions. Not guards. Not quite. Syra called them witnesses.

The first was Elyan, a silent, silver-eyed male with the demeanor of wind through ruins. The second was Priestess Mavienne, who spoke to shadows and read omens from bird bones.

We departed at dusk.

The road to Ashfall was overgrown and twisted, lined with trees that bled sap the color of old wine. The air was thick with the sour tang of the sap, and when it stuck to my boots it pulled at each step, slow and reluctant, like the forest itself wanted us gone.

The first sign came on the second night: a ring of bone around our camp, laid while we slept. No footprints. No scent trail. Only bones.

Mavienne burned them at dawn.

“They’re watching,” she whispered. “Waiting to see if you walk like prey.”

I thought of Kael then—how he would have read this as a challenge, not a warning. The thought surprised me. Not because it was true, but because I wanted him here to see it. Not to save me. To see me walk where he couldn’t.

***

On the fourth day, we reached Ashfall Hollow.

It was less a village than a memory of one—scattered stone circles, hollowed ruins, moss-choked altars. And wolves.

Dozens of them, in hybrid form, crouched on ledges and branches, their eyes glowing violet or gold. One figure in the back did not crouch. A tall male with hair like white ash stood upright, arms folded, his gaze fixed on me with the stillness of someone imagining a dozen ways to kill me. When the others bowed, he didn’t. His lips curved, not in greeting, but in a dare.

Until I stepped forward.

Then, as if summoned, a figure emerged from the largest ruin.

She was old—not in body, but in aura. Wrapped in leathers and bones, hair tangled with charms, eyes sharp as obsidian. Her presence sucked warmth from the air.

“You wear the Moon’s brand,” she said.

“I didn’t choose it.”

“But you carry it. That’s enough.”

Her gaze slid past me, to the shadows just beyond the firelight. “The Crescent Prince sends eyes everywhere,” she said, voice low. “Sometimes they wear wolfskin. Sometimes they wear the faces of friends.”

She circled me once, examining.

“What name do you carry now?”

“Thessia of Shadowfang.”

A snarl rippled through the gathered wolves.

“Shadowfang bleeds the east. Always has. Always will.”

“I am not their blade.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because you called. Because I want to know the truth.”

The old wolf bared her teeth—not in threat, but approval.

Her approval felt heavier than any threat. Approval meant expectation. Expectation meant a debt I hadn’t agreed to owe.

“Then enter. Let the Hollow show you.”

***

Beneath the ruin was a cave. Deeper than it should have been. Older than any map.

We descended by torchlight. Mavienne chanted softly. Elyan remained silent, eyes scanning.

At the cave’s heart was a pool. Black as pitch. Still as death.

The old woman gestured.

“Look.”

I knelt. Gazed into the water.

My reflection stared back. Then shifted.

I saw a girl in chains.

A temple burning.

Kael, bleeding, cradling my body.

And then a throne of bone beneath a bleeding moon.

A voice, not mine, not anyone’s, whispered:

“Moonborn.”

I recoiled.

“What did you see?” the old wolf asked.

“A lie. A warning. A future.”

“All three.”

She handed me a blade.

It shimmered with whispersteel, the metal that could cut through memory and magic alike.

The hilt was colder than stone, but the moment I wrapped my fingers around it, heat flared up my arm—sharp, deliberate, searching. I jerked, almost dropping it. The old wolf’s mouth curved, as if the blade had just told her a secret about me she already suspected.

“Take it. Lead with it. Or fall to it.”

Somewhere in the shadows of the ruin, a young wolf bent toward another, his voice low—just enough for me to catch the words “shadow-marked envoy” before they both slipped out of sight.

We left Ashfall at dawn.

No words were spoken. None were needed.

But the east had answered.

Not with surrender.

With allegiance. And a promise of war.

As the Hollow disappeared behind us, the whispersteel at my back began to hum—low, insistent—like it already knew whose blood it wanted next. The hum didn’t stop, not even when the wind changed, not even when the road bent west—toward Shadowfang.