The return to Whisperwood should have felt like victory. They had the keystone. The trade route was secured. Kiera's favor was his.
But the mark on Echo's forearm — the one left by the wolf-kin captain — had begun to ache. A deep, throbbing pain that pulsed in time with his heartbeat.
"It's a tracking mark," Mira confirmed, her healer's senses brushing over his skin. "And a curse. It weakens you, slowly. We need to purify it."
They were a mile from the village, in a narrow pass between towering moss-clad stones, when the ambush hit.
Not from the front. From above.
The wolf-kin captain — the same one from the village raid — dropped from the cliffs, landing with a crack of stone. But he was not alone. Four other wolf-kin flanked him, and he… he was different.
A shadowy aura clung to him like a second skin. His eyes burned with a faint red light that wasn't reflection. The air around him tasted of iron and ashes.
"You," the captain growled, his voice layered with a deeper, distorted echo. "The outworlder. The Anomaly."
Echo froze. Anomaly. The same word from his vision.
Leyla sprang forward, a silver blur. Her Moon-Touched claws slashed toward the captain's throat.
He caught her wrist. Effortlessly.
"Your bloodline is weak, little cat," he snarled, and flung her into the rock wall. She hit hard, gasping, her claws scraping stone.
Mira cried out, throwing a packet of blinding powder. The wolf-kin beside the captain coughed and stumbled, but the captain just inhaled the cloud, his shadow-aura absorbing it.
"You smell of the Forgotten War," the captain said, stalking toward Echo. "Of dead gods and broken universes. What are you?"
Echo's mind raced. His Error-Sight flared, showing him glitches in the captain's aura — pockets of unstable energy. But they were moving, shifting. Unreliable.
The captain struck. Echo dodged with Feline Grace, but a backhanded blow caught his ribs. He felt something crack. Pain blinded him.
Leyla tried to rise, but one of the other wolf-kin pinned her, a dagger at her throat. "Watch, outworlder," the captain sneered. "Watch your bond die."
No.
Echo's inner world went quiet. The pain. The fear. The cosmic visions. All of it funneled into one point: Leyla's wide, defiant eyes.
His Charm wasn't enough. His skills weren't enough.
But he had something else.
[ Bond: Leyla – Level 2 ]
[ Bloodline: Silvermane Clan (Dormant) ]
[ Awaken? Cost: 10 BP ]
[ Available BP: 12 ]
He didn't think. He reached.
Not with his hands. With the part of him that was anomaly, the spark born between dead multiverses. He pushed it through the bond, through the tether of trust and shared survival that connected him to Leyla.
Spend 10 BP.
Awaken Bloodline: Moonstalker Panther – Stage 1.
The world held its breath.
Then, light — silver, pure, and cold as the heart of a moon — erupted from Leyla.
The wolf-kin holding her screamed, his flesh smoking where her fur touched him. She didn't just stand. She uncoiled.
Her form blurred, not with speed, but with a subtle shift in reality. Her claws were no longer just bone and keratin — they were shards of solidified moonlight. Her eyes glowed like pale suns.
The captain stumbled back, his shadow-aura recoiling. "What—?"
Leyla moved.
It wasn't a pounce. It was a teleportation of intent. One moment she was against the wall. The next, she was behind the captain, her claws buried in his back.
He roared, twisting, but she was liquid shadow and silver. She flowed around his strikes, her every movement leaving afterimages. She wasn't fighting him. She was unmaking him.
The other wolf-kin fled. The captain, bleeding silver fire from a dozen wounds, collapsed to his knees. He looked up at Echo, hatred and something else — fear — in his eyes.
"They will find you," he gurgled. "The Corrupted… never stop hunting…"
He fell face-first into the dirt. Dead.
Silence.
Leyla stood over the body, panting, her silver glow slowly fading. She looked at her claws, then at Echo, wonder and terror warring in her expression.
"What… did you do to me?"
Echo walked to her, ribs screaming. He touched her cheek. Her fur was warm, vibrating with new power. "I didn't do anything. I just unlocked what was already there."
She leaned into his touch, then her eyes widened. "Echo… when you awakened me… I saw something. In your eyes."
"What?"
"Stars," she whispered. "Dying stars."