The fires of Ashwood burned higher than they had in months.
Flames licked at the crumbling walls, throwing jagged shadows across the bloodstained stones.
Above, the Savage Moon bled across the sky, casting everything in shades of crimson and black.
Tonight was not for mourning.
Tonight was for binding.
Lyra stood before the gathered Pack — her Pack — feeling their gazes claw at her.
Half of them were still wild-eyed from the Moonfall.
The rest barely clung to their sanity.
And among them, woven like strands of smoke and steel, were the newcomers: the Ashfang Clan.
Their bodies bore scars like roadmaps across their skin, each one a story of violence and survival.
Their loyalty would not be given freely.
It had to be claimed.
In blood.
Varra Bloodbane stood at Lyra's side, her face painted with the ash of the fallen.
In her hands, she held the twin daggers of her line — blackened steel that had tasted the hearts of a hundred foes.
She offered one to Lyra.
"Blood to blood," Varra intoned.
"Bone to bone."
"Pack to pack."
"Under the Savage Moon, we bind."
Lyra took the blade.
Its hilt was warm, slick with unseen memories.
She pressed the dagger to her palm and drew it across with a practiced motion.
Blood welled up, dark and thick.
The shard embedded in her chest — Mourning King's ember — pulsed once, hungrily.
Varra mirrored her.
Their blood dripped onto the cracked stones between them, soaking into the earth.
A low hum rose in the air — ancient magic stirring, older than the Pack, older than the moon.
Lyra raised her bleeding hand.
Varra did the same.
And when their palms met — skin to skin, blood to blood — the magic ignited.
Pain tore through Lyra.
White-hot.
Relentless.
Consuming.
Visions crashed into her mind:
The Ashfang wolves, roaming endless deserts of bone and fire.
Battles fought under alien stars.
Oaths sworn in the dark, sealed with the marrow of their own dead.
Betrayal. Exile. Hunger. Death.
And always, always, the pull of the Savage Moon, drawing them onward like a cruel god.
Lyra staggered, almost falling to her knees.
But she held.
She would not break.
Not here.
Not now.
Through the haze of agony, she heard Varra's voice, distant and guttural:
"You are of Ashfang now. We are of Ashwood. Blood calls to blood. Huntmother to Alpha."
The ground itself seemed to tremble.
The wolves howled — a low, rising tide of sound that rattled the bones of the ruined Keep.
The Savage Moon hung closer still, as if it too wanted to taste the blood spilled below.
When the magic finally broke, it left Lyra gasping, her body slick with sweat, her heart hammering a war rhythm in her chest.
But she was not alone.
The Pack — her Pack — had changed.
She could feel them.
Every heartbeat.
Every ragged breath.
A single living, snarling entity, bound by oaths older than memory.
For the first time in what felt like lifetimes, Ashwood was whole.
And yet…
Something was wrong.
As the cheering died down, Lyra caught a glimpse of herself reflected in a pool of rainwater.
And she did not recognize the woman staring back.
Her eyes were wrong.
Not silver.
Not human.
Black.
Bottomless.
Alive with something vast and ancient and hungry.
She stumbled back, clutching at her chest.
The shard pulsed again — faster now — bleeding cold fire through her veins.
Whispers curled at the edges of her mind, indistinct but insistent.
Take them.
Rule them.
Devour them.
You are more than wolf. You are Mourning's heir.
"No," she rasped aloud, but no one heard over the howling winds.
Varra was speaking, rallying the warriors, preparing for the night hunts.
Callan barked orders, organizing patrols.
Drenna sharpened her blade, her face grim and set.
None of them saw the cracks spidering through Lyra's soul.
None of them saw the war she fought inside.
She stumbled into the shadows of the Keep, seeking solitude, seeking to outrun the voice that grew louder with every step.
In the deepest part of the ruined castle — the Old Crypts — she collapsed against the cold stone, breathing hard.
And there, in the silence, she finally heard it clearly:
The Mourning King's voice.
"Daughter of Ash. Child of Sorrow."
"Why do you run from your birthright?"
Lyra pressed her bloody hands to her ears, but it did nothing.
The voice was inside her.
In her marrow.
In her blood.
In the very beat of her cursed heart.
"They will betray you, in time," the Mourning King whispered.
"They will fear you. Hate you. Hunt you."
"Better to rule with an iron claw than to beg with a broken heart."
Visions slammed into her mind:
Her Pack, turning on her, faces twisted with rage and horror.
Callan's body broken at her feet.
Drenna's blade buried in her gut.
Ashwood burning.
The Savage Moon smiling.
"No!" she screamed, slamming her fist into the stone wall hard enough to crack bone.
Pain bloomed, bright and sharp, cutting through the dark.
Anchoring her.
She forced herself to her feet.
She would not yield.
Not to the moon.
Not to the Mourning King.
Not even to herself.
She was Lyra Ashborne.
Alpha of Ash.
And she would fight.
Above, the Savage Moon loomed ever closer, a great bleeding eye gazing hungrily down at the world.
And somewhere beyond the mountains, something ancient stirred.
The Hollow Court had heard the howls.
And they were coming.