Morning arrived with a heavy sky and the scent of iron on the wind.
Rain still clung to the earth like regret, pooling in the stone cracks of the courtyard and soaking the training field into a muddy mess. But it wasn't the weather that unsettled me.
It was the silence.
The pack grounds buzzed with muted energy low, tense, whisper-thick. Wolves spoke in hushed tones. Eyes flicked to me and then away, too quickly. I felt like a storm walking through fog. No one dared meet me directly, but no one could ignore me either.
Kieran had disappeared before dawn, leaving only a brief note on my door:
"Stay close. Don't wander. Someone is watching."
I didn't need the warning.
I felt it.
Something in the shadows still lingered. A presence pressing at the edge of my mind. Not Lucian. Not Nerissa. Something older. Something wrong.
And yet, despite the fear still clawing at my ribs, I went back to the library.
This time, I wasn't just looking for fragments of truth.
I was looking for something hidden.
The library had never been organized well. Books were shelved by whim, not order. It took me over an hour just to search the old locked cases in the southern alcove most of which held nothing but torn genealogies, pack war journals, and dust.
Until I found the hidden compartment.
It was a carved symbol that gave it away a crescent moon etched subtly into the base of a shelf, only visible when the light hit just right. I brushed my fingers across it, felt a shift, and pressed down.
Click.
A thin door opened with a whisper.
Inside: a box wrapped in black leather and tied with a rust-colored ribbon.
It pulsed with energy. My wolf immediately growled, not in fear, but reverence.
I untied the ribbon and lifted the lid.
Inside lay a scroll old, rolled tightly, bound in silver thread. My breath caught in my throat as I reached for it. The second my skin touched the parchment, a pulse of heat ran up my arm and down my spine.
My wolf stilled.
The scroll was covered in ancient writing glyphs I couldn't read, but that echoed in my blood as if I should understand them. The drawings were clearer: a she-wolf standing before a ruined Alpha house, a dark shadow rising from the earth, and a moon ablaze in flame.
At the bottom, words in the old tongue had been translated in smaller ink:
"When the Alpha fails, the vessel shall rise.
Crowned in rejection, she will bind the flame.
But should her blood be spilled by the mate's hand,
the world will fall to shadow again."
I swallowed.
Hard.
The mate's hand.
Lucian.
If he killed me… something worse would be unleashed.
And if I survived him?
I would become something more than Luna.
I would become the flame's keeper.
I wasn't just fated.
I was dangerous to him, to the structure, to the ancient order.
I tucked the scroll under my arm and hurried back to my room, heart hammering.
But I didn't make it far.
Lucian was waiting for me at the corridor's end.
Leaning against the stone wall like a statue, dressed in black, arms crossed, storm in his eyes.
And not alone.
Two guards flanked him both large, loyal, and heavily armed.
My wolf lunged, snarling inside me. I forced her back, steadying my steps, but the weight of his stare was like a blade pressed to my throat.
"Aurora," he said, voice cool.
I didn't answer.
"What are you carrying?"
I clutched the scroll tighter. "Books. For reading."
He stepped forward, gaze sharp. "You've been snooping. Digging in places you shouldn't. The archives were sealed for a reason."
"So I should stay blind?" I asked coldly. "Like you want me to be?"
He moved too fast to react.
One second, he was three feet away.
The next, his hand was at my throat, pressing me against the wall. Not choking but close enough to warn me.
The guards didn't move.
"Do you really think I won't end you just because the Moon favors you now?" he growled, breath hot and bitter.
My wolf surged.
And this time, I didn't hold her back.
I shoved him.
Hard.
He stumbled backward, not from strength but from shock. His eyes widened, just for a blink, before narrowing to slits.
"You are not the girl I rejected," he said.
"No," I spat. "You rejected a girl who loved you. Now you've made an enemy."
He looked down at the scroll in my hand.
His voice dropped to a whisper. "You don't know what you're playing with, Aurora. That prophecy… that blood oath… it was hidden for a reason."
"Because it reveals the truth?" I snapped.
"No." He shook his head. "Because it kills every she-wolf who tries to fulfill it."
My breath caught.
"What?"
"You think you're the first?" he said, eyes dark. "There were others. Girls like you. Wolves delayed. Dreams haunted. Each time, the scroll appeared. Each time, the pack tried to harness them. And each time death followed."
"Who killed them?" I demanded.
Lucian said nothing.
But his silence was answer enough.
"You did," I whispered.
"No." His voice was low. "But I was made to. My father. The Elders. The law of our kind. The Moon's vessel must either rise fully… or be silenced before the shadow uses her."
A bitter laugh escaped me.
"So you're here to silence me?"
He stepped forward again, slower this time. "I don't want to. But I will if I have to. You don't understand the magnitude of this power."
"I'm starting to."
He stared at me for a long moment.
Then said something I didn't expect.
"I saw you in my dream last night."
I froze.
Lucian never shared dreams.
"You stood on a hill of bones," he continued. "The moon burned red above you. Wolves howled. A shadow crawled from beneath your feet… and bowed."
My blood ran cold.
"You're not just blessed," he said. "You're changing something. Breaking something. And I…" His jaw clenched. "I don't know what I'll do when the time comes."
He turned away and walked into the hall, guards following.
But before disappearing, he looked over his shoulder.
"You've got one moon cycle," he said. "One. After that, if I even sense the prophecy stirring I finish what I started."
And then he was gone.
Later that night, I sat at the base of the old ash tree near the training field, the scroll laid out before me on a flat stone. The words glowed faintly in the moonlight, silver against the parchment.
My fingers trembled as I reached for the center of the scroll, where a shallow indentation shaped like a drop of blood marked the spot.
A blood oath.
A vow to destiny. To fate. To power.
My wolf was silent. Waiting.
I pricked my finger with a shard of glass and let a single drop fall into the mark.
The scroll shimmered.
The glyphs rearranged.
And then, in a voice only I could hear, the Moon spoke:
"Daughter of fire, keeper of light,
the throne awaits your wrath or mercy.
You may burn…
or become the blaze."