The forest slept uneasily.
Mist clung to the roots like breath, and the air shimmered with a faint metallic taste — the echo of moonlight left behind.
Kian walked alone through the aftermath.
Each step pressed against damp soil that pulsed faintly beneath his boots, as though the ground itself remembered what had happened. His fingers still tingled from the light that had torn them apart.
"Lyra," he said softly, though there was no one to hear it.
The name hung in the air and dissolved.
He crouched, brushing the dirt where the silver crescent had fallen. It was gone now — dissolved into the ground, leaving only a faint scar, a pale mark shaped like a fading moon.
Around him, the forest was wrong.
The trees leaned closer, their bark threaded with veins of silver light. The wind whispered in patterns that almost formed words. Somewhere, deep in the woods, a wolf howled — not wild, not living, but hollow, its voice carrying like an echo through stone.
He straightened slowly. The bond mark on his wrist still glowed faintly, though it was dimmer than before.
He pressed his thumb to it, feeling a weak pulse — her pulse — fluttering somewhere far away.
"You're not gone," he murmured. "You can't be."
A shadow rippled through the fog, tall and fast. Kian turned sharply, his instincts sharpening into a growl. "Show yourself."
A figure stepped out from between the trees — not a spirit, but flesh and blood.
An old woman, wrapped in tattered gray furs, her eyes clouded but sharp enough to see through time. The Witch.
"You've cracked the seal," she said. Her voice was a rasp, low and edged with regret. "The moon bleeds again."
Kian's jaw tightened. "You knew this would happen."
"I warned you both," she said simply. "The heart that carries the moon cannot walk beside another. The light chooses. Always."
He took a step closer, rain-soaked hair clinging to his temples. "Then tell me how to find her."
The witch's expression softened slightly, though her eyes remained ancient, weary. "She's not lost — only shifted. The silver eyes mark her as the Moonbearer. But that bond you forged… it defies the curse. It will draw you together, even when fate forbids it."
"Then there's still a way."
"There's always a way," she said. "But it demands a price."
He didn't hesitate. "I'll pay it."
She studied him, the silence stretching between them. "Be sure you understand what that means, Alpha. To reclaim her, you'll have to walk the same path the first wolves did — through the ruins of the Echo Vale, where the moon's shadow touches earth. The living seldom return."
"I'm not most men."
A faint smile ghosted her lips. "No. You're the one she chose to remember."
The mist thickened, curling around her until only her voice remained. "Follow the howl that answers your name. When it finds you, the hunt begins."
Then she was gone.
Kian stood there for a long moment, rain dripping from his hair, heart heavy but steady. He could feel it — the faint tug through the bond, somewhere north, beyond the dark line of the trees.
He turned toward it.
Every step away from the clearing carried him deeper into silence, but he welcomed it. Silence meant focus. Focus meant survival. And survival meant reaching her — before the moon decided her fate for good.
Far ahead, in the distance where the forest thinned and the sky began to silver again, a single, haunting howl rose — deep, clear, and unmistakable.
Kian froze.
It was his name.
He lifted his head, eyes burning gold again.
And without another thought, he ran.