Chapter 2. The Binding

Cold stone. Damp air. Water dripping in slow rhythm.

Ismeria stirred. Every nerve screamed. Her arms refused to move. When she tried again, a sharp bite closed around her wrists. Shackles.

She blinked against the dark. Chains glinted faintly—smooth and gray, not the dull brown of rusted iron. Silver.

Her breath hitched. Panic clawed up her throat. She remembered the burn of it from childhood, the way it scorched like fire when she brushed an Elder’s charm. Silver was poison to wolves. It seared through flesh, turned blood to ash.

But now… nothing.

Her wrists ached from pressure, the silver biting cold.

The realization chilled her deeper than pain could.

Why doesn’t it hurt? What am I?

Her heart thudded. Fragments of memory returned—firelight, blood, the Alpha’s voice, Aeron’s eyes wide with horror, the Elders shouting monster. Then—chains of light. Screaming. Nothing.

A noise broke the silence.

The creak of a door. Boots scraping stone. Slow. Deliberate.

She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing her body limp. The steps stopped beside her. She smelled cloth, oil, smoke.

Something pressed against her mouth and nose—a rag drenched in something bitter. She tried to twist away, but her strength failed. The world folded in on itself.

And the dark took her again.

***

When she woke, the air pulsed with chanting.

Her eyes opened to a ceiling of shadow and light. She lay flat on a slab of stone, arms outstretched, wrists bound above her head, ankles shackled. Dozens of candles burned around her. Symbols carved into the floor glowed faintly beneath her.

Figures stood in a circle. Hoods. Robes. Faces lost to shadow.

The language spilling from their mouths was ancient, but her blood understood it. Every syllable struck something inside her—something primal.

Light bled from the runes. Her veins flared in answer, silver bright beneath her skin. Pain followed, sharp and sudden, flooding every nerve.

She screamed.

Her wolf howled back—raw and furious, trapped behind walls of flesh. It clawed at her bones, desperate to rise. The spell coiled tighter.

Her body arched. Joints cracked. The air hummed with heat and pressure. She couldn’t tell if she was breathing or burning. The sound in her ears grew until it was no longer chanting but thunder.

“Stop. Please stop.”

The words never reached her lips. The chains of light struck again, and something inside her tore.

Her wolf’s voice went from rage to panic. She felt it to realize—too late—that this wasn’t a sanctification. The spell wasn’t closing to protect her; it was sealing her away from herself.

The light pierced her, burrowing through muscle, threading through her thoughts. It filled her skull, pressing outward until it hurt to think.

She felt the split happen—not clean, but ripping. A scream rose inside her mind as the wolf was dragged backward through her veins, silver threads snapping one by one. Her bones felt hollowed, her heart suddenly too quiet. The last thread clung near her spine, burning, until it, too, was torn free.

A surge of pain followed—white-hot and blinding—then a crack of silence so complete it roared.

Not peace—an absence.

The wolf’s voice vanished. The link between breath and instinct went dead.

The void it left wasn’t still; it throbbed. Pressure built behind her eyes, pulsing with every heartbeat, as though the severed bond still tried to find its way back through the closed door of her mind.

It would never stop trying.

***

The chanting ceased.

The air smelled of burnt herbs and sweat. The hooded leader stepped forward, her voice rasped thin by power. “It is done,” she said. “Her wolf is bound. Her scent is veiled.”

The others exhaled, relieved. But the leader didn’t relax. She studied the girl on the altar—skin pale, veins still flickering faintly beneath the surface.

“The bond will hold,” she went on, softer now. “But her body will bear the cost. The mind was not made for such division. The pain will follow her. It will remind her what was taken.”

A young acolyte lowered his hood. His face was barely more than a boy’s, frightened and awed. “Why spare her?” he asked. “After what she did… she should have been purged.”

The sorceress turned her head, “Because the prophecy is not ours to break.”

Her tone was neither merciful nor kind. It was reverent, cold, absolute. “We serve powers older than loyalty or love. The Goddess marked this one. Her fate belongs to the Moon, not to us. To kill her would be to defy the will we were sworn to obey.”

She looked down again. Ismeria’s chest rose and fell, shallow, uneven.

“Do not mistake this for compassion,” the sorceress said. “She is not saved. She is hidden. For now.”

The boy swallowed. “Hidden from who?”

“From the Alpha,” the woman answered. “From the Elders. From any who would use her blood to crown themselves kings.”

She hesitated, gaze flicking toward the entrance of the cavern, where the candlelight thinned into darkness. A faint vibration trembled through the stones beneath their feet—distant, rhythmic, like drums.

“He’s already searching,” she murmured. “Magnus’s hounds have crossed the river. He smells the prophecy on the wind. If he finds her, he’ll carve the power from her bones and call it devotion.”

The acolyte’s face blanched. “Then we don’t have long.”

“No,” the sorceress said. “We do not.”

She stepped closer to Ismeria, “But understand this—no binding lasts forever. When the Moon calls, she will answer. Whether she wants to or not.”

She straightened. “Take her.”

The followers obeyed without hesitation, their movements were quick now, not ritual but flight.

When they emerged, night still ruled the forest. They moved through the trees until they reached the cliffs above the sea.

Beneath the wide arms of an old oak, they laid her down. Moonlight spilled over her face.

The sorceress knelt. For a heartbeat, something human flickered across her expression—pity, maybe regret. She brushed a lock of hair from the girl’s brow.

“Live, child of the Moon,” she whispered. “The Goddess isn’t finished with you yet.”

She rose and turned away. One by one, the others followed until only the wind remained.

***

The forest held its breath. Then—footsteps.

A lantern bobbed through the trees, its glow haloing a small, sturdy woman muttering to herself about wayward herbs and sleepless nights.

“Should’ve waited till morning,” she grumbled. “Knees’ll have my head for this.”

She bent near the oak to pluck valerian—and froze.

A body lay half-hidden in the roots. A young woman, draped in torn cloth, her skin almost luminous in the pale light.

The older woman gasped, dropping her basket. She knelt beside the stranger, fingers trembling as she brushed away dirt and blood. The girl’s skin was cool, but not lifeless. A faint pulse beat against her throat.

“Oh, heavens,” the woman whispered. “What have they done to you?”

She wrapped her shawl around the girl’s shoulders and lifted her with surprising strength. Beneath the grime, the woman thought she saw something glint—a trace of silver beneath the skin.

But when she blinked, it was gone.

“Shh,” she murmured, starting down the path toward the cliffs. “You’re safe now. Whoever hurt you, they won’t find you here.”

Her lantern swung gently in the dark, scattering light across the ferns.

The woman’s cottage waited ahead—warm light flickering through its windows, the faint smell of herbs and smoke drifting from its chimney. She pushed the door open with her shoulder and carried the stranger inside.