The northern wind carried a different scent—sharper than the woods around Lycanthra, colder than the castle stone. It smelled like snow that had never thawed… and blood that had never dried.
From my window, the jagged mountain ridges stretched across the horizon like a line of spears. Beyond those icy peaks, legend said, lay the second key—buried in the ruins of a city frozen by the betrayal of a Luna who once spilled her blood across the land.
And now, I was going there.
Lucan's old map lay rolled open across the stone table. The ink was faded and crooked, hand-drawn, and nearly impossible to decipher. But I could see it—my path winding through the northwest forests toward Black Lake, then deeper, where no path was marked.
There were no guards. No safe passage. Just snow, silence, and creatures never named aloud.
I took a long breath.
"You're going alone?" Yana stood at the door, her voice soft but firm.
I turned toward her. Her gaze wasn't disapproving—it was worried, but not the kind that cages you. The type that watches you fly, hoping you won't fall.
"I'm not doing this because I'm brave," I said. "I'm doing it because… part of me is out there. And I can't summon the rest of who I am if I don't find it."
Yana stepped closer and placed a small velvet pouch in my hand.
"Silverroot powder," she said. "For wounds—inside or out."
I nodded. "Thank you. For everything."
Lucan stood in the throne room, his back to the massive window. He didn't turn when I entered.
"You leave tomorrow?" he asked.
"At dawn," I replied.
"You don't want guards?"
"This isn't a royal mission," I said. "It's a bloodbound journey."
Lucan finally turned.
His expression wasn't stern this time. It was… still as though weighing something he couldn't name.
He stepped to a weapons rack and retrieved a short dagger with an obsidian handle, etched with the image of a wolf beneath a crescent moon.
"This belonged to your mother," he said. "She used it to seal her blood the day she saved you."
I accepted it gently. It felt cold—but right. As if it had been waiting for my hand all along.
"I'll return it when I'm done," I said.
Lucan shook his head. "If you return… it's yours."
**
That night, I walked the gardens alone.
The dried grass beneath my feet crunched softly, and the wind whispered stories in my ears. I sat beneath the old ash tree and opened my mother's book one more time.
The once-empty page now bled with ink—without water, without light.
"Your path will take you far from what you know, but not from who you are. You are not only Luna's blood. You are her choice—to free this world, or destroy it from within."
I closed the book.
I wasn't searching for answers anymore.
I was becoming one.
**
The sky was gray when I left.
Yana wrapped my traveling cloak around me, her eyes unreadable. She hid the dagger beneath the folds and gave my arm a final squeeze.
A dark stallion waited at the rear gate. Its eyes were black, steady like it knew exactly where I needed to go.
Lucan stood near the gate.
No grand farewell. No speeches.
"I'll return," I said.
"It's not your return that worries me," he murmured. "It's… who you'll be when you do."
"I don't know that yet either," I said. "But whoever she is—she'll be stronger than the Elara standing here."
Lucan nodded once.
It was enough.
I didn't look back as I rode away.
The wind grew colder, and the mist thickened. The forest darkened with every mile. Shadows stretched long across the path, and silence nestled into every branch.
Something was waiting beyond the trees.
And I wasn't a guest anymore.
I was heir.
**
Lycanthra's forest looks different when you're inside it. From the castle towers, it was only a dark mass—a painting. But down here, the trees breathe. The shadows speak.
And tonight, they were whispering my name.
The tall pines blocked the sunlight. Only slivers of gold reached the moss-covered ground. The fog moved low across the forest floor, curling around my horse's hooves.
The animal stopped abruptly.
At first, I thought I was afraid. But then I realized… it was me who trembled.
Not from cold—but from something else.
A presence.
Like something just beyond my sight… watching.
I climbed down slowly.
"I know you're there," I said aloud.
No answer.
The fog swirled, thickened—then parted. A woman stepped forward. Clad in black, hood covering her face, her eyes as hollow as the night sky.
"Are you a guardian?" I asked.
She didn't respond. She only raised her hand, and the ground beneath me rippled—darkened—then disappeared.
I fell.
Not into the dirt.
But into nothingness.
I screamed—but no sound came.
I wasn't falling anymore—I was floating. Then finally, I landed.
But not in the forest.
I was standing inside a space without walls, ceiling, or floor.
And across from me stood myself.
Not exactly.
Another version of me.
Her eyes glowed faint violet. Her hair lifted in a nonexistent wind. Her voice was ice.
"Who are you?" I whispered.
"I'm you," she said. "The part you avoid. The power you reject."
She stepped closer.
"I'm the voice you silence every time you hesitate. But I don't stay silent forever."
I took a shaky breath. "I didn't reject you."
"Didn't you?" She moved again. "You're afraid of becoming your mother. Afraid of becoming someone who can't be loved."
I flinched.
No blade cuts deeper than the one you refuse to say out loud.
"Everyone sees the Luna's heir," I murmured. "But who sees the girl who was cast into a world she didn't ask for?"
The other Elara smiled. "At last… honesty."
Then I heard her voice—my mother's.
Not in the air.
Inside my bones.
"Daughter… strength is not born from comfort. It is born from wounds you no longer deny."
Tears slid down my cheeks.
I looked into the eyes of the girl who mirrored me. I no longer feared her.
"I won't deny you anymore," I said. "But I won't let you control me either."
I held out my hand.
"Let's walk together."
She smiled—truly smiled—and stepped into the light.
The room pulsed.
And I woke.
I was lying on the forest floor.
My horse stood nearby, calm.
As if nothing had happened.
But my hands—my blood—were humming with something new.
In my palm, my mother's ring glowed faintly.
I smiled to myself.
For the first time since I arrived in this world…
I knew who I was.
And the next step—into the frozen North—no longer felt like a journey into danger.
It felt like walking toward home.