The forest was quieter than it should have been.
After the night Kian's wolf broke loose, the land itself seemed to breathe differently—slow, uneven, as if the trees were nursing wounds. The moss beneath Lyra's boots released a faint metallic scent, wet and unfamiliar, and the air shimmered with the residue of old magic. Somewhere far behind them, thunder rolled though no storm followed.
Lyra pushed a strand of hair from her face. "It feels wrong," she murmured. "Like the forest remembers what happened."
Kian walked a pace ahead, his shoulders rigid, every movement measured. The torn sleeve of his shirt revealed a faint burn where the talisman had seared his skin the night before. When he spoke, his voice was low, almost careful.
"I left marks on everything I touched. The forest, the pack… you."
"You also saved them," she said. The words came gentle, yet they landed like a challenge.
He stopped. For a moment, Lyra thought he might turn and meet her eyes, but he only looked toward the distant mountains.
"Sometimes saving is the same as breaking."
They continued in silence. A dry wind stirred the leaves, carrying the smell of smoke and wild sage. Lyra's senses stretched outward: every heartbeat of the earth, every faint echo of power felt too near, too personal. The bond between them hummed beneath her skin, neither comfortable nor painful—just alive.
Hours passed before the path began to climb. The trees thinned, replaced by black rock veined with silver lichen that caught the fading light. The ruins appeared then: the witch's temple, half buried beneath the slope, its broken archway tangled in roots. The stones pulsed faintly, as if breathing in rhythm with the mountain.
Kian hesitated at the threshold. "This place hates me."
"It hates everyone," Lyra replied, though she wasn't sure that was true. "Come on."
The air inside was thick and warm, carrying the taste of ash and herbs. Shadows flickered across the curved walls where candles floated, untethered, burning blue. The witch's voice came from somewhere within that haze—aged and dry, but not unkind.
"You return sooner than I expected, child of the two moons."
Lyra flinched. She had not told the witch about the second mark that had appeared beneath her collarbone after the Blood-Moon night. She caught Kian's brief glance but said nothing.
"We need answers," Lyra said. "The curse… it's changing."
The witch stepped forward from the mist, her gray eyes reflecting the blue candlelight. "Everything changes when the blood and the bond refuse their order." She looked at Kian, and for a heartbeat the air trembled. "And you, Alpha. You carry the echo of something older than your line."
Kian's jaw tightened. "Then tell me what it is."
The witch's smile held neither mockery nor comfort. "I will tell you what it was meant to be."
She lifted her hand, and the air between them rippled like water. Shapes formed—silver threads spinning themselves into an image: a wolf of light and a woman crowned with shadow standing beneath a bleeding moon. The vision quivered, then shattered into sparks.
"The curse is not punishment," the witch said quietly. "It is remembrance. One of you was born to carry it; the other to end it. The moon has not decided which yet."
Lyra felt the words settle in her chest like stones. Kian turned to her, eyes unreadable.
"So one of us destroys the other."
The witch said nothing. The silence itself became the answer.
The witch moves deeper into the ruined temple and motions for them to follow.
In the inner chamber stands a black mirror—its surface alive with drifting silver light. The witch tells them that the mirror does not predict but remembers. She warns that each reflection shows what the bloodline itself still owes.
Lyra sees in the mirror a woman who could be her ancestor—or herself in another lifetime—standing beside a white wolf. A crown of moonlight cracks and falls apart. Then the image dissolves into a pool of red.
Kian steps forward and the mirror flickers again, showing his wolf rampaging through the same forest they walked through earlier, but the trees are burning silver, not green. He recoils. The witch says softly,
"These are not futures. They are debts."
The revelation shakes them both. The witch's meaning is unclear, but her words suggest that the curse is older than their pack and bound to the very first Alpha and his mate.
The bond between Lyra and Kian pulses painfully. Each feels flashes of the other's memories: Kian's guilt when he nearly killed his pack, Lyra's years of isolation after her rejection. The raw intimacy frightens them both.
Kian breaks the silence:
"If the moon wants one of us gone, how do we stop it?"
The witch replies only:
"By learning which of you it truly fears."
Her tone makes it sound less like guidance and more like a warning.
Lyra's instinct is to argue, to demand more, but Kian takes her hand—something unspoken passes between them, a fragile truce that neither of them fully understands.
From beneath her robes, the witch brings out a talisman shaped like a broken crescent of stone veined with light. She presses it into Kian's palm.
"When the moon bleeds again, this will reveal the one who must fall and the one who must rise."
The moment the talisman touches his skin, both Kian and Lyra feel their bond surge with heat. The witch's temple begins to shudder as though it cannot bear the energy.
Before fading back into mist, the witch whispers:
"When love and fate clash, the moon decides which heart endures."
Outside, night has turned unnaturally still. The stars seem too close, their light cold. Kian opens his hand to show the talisman—but a faint glowing mark now mirrors it on Lyra's chest. They realize the object has bound itself to both of them.
They stand together in the half-light, the bond between them steady but heavy.
Lyra whispers, "Whatever this is, it's not done with us."
Kian answers, "Then neither are we."
A quiet rumble rolls across the sky, though no clouds gather. The last line of the chapter leaves the reader hanging:
Far above, the moon brightened—not red, not silver, but a color neither of them had ever seen—and something unseen answered its call.