The dawn after the serpent's death was red — not with sunrise, but with the echoes of what had been spilled upon the sea. Waves lapped gently against shattered hulls, carrying strips of torn sail, broken shields, and the drifting scent of scorched flesh. Frostfang had won, yet its defenders carried the ache of victory like a fresh wound.
Aldric moved along the battered ramparts of Frostfang, each step slow, deliberate. The sea wind caught in his hair, lifting the scent of salt and ash. Below him, survivors patched holes in the harbor palisades, dragging half-sunken boats to shore, and burying their fallen. Even in triumph, the cost was cruel.
Rowena stood waiting near the great gate, her cloak dark as ravens' wings. When Aldric approached, he saw exhaustion carved into her features, but her eyes burned with a quiet, unshakable resolve.
"They say the serpent's bones are still stirring beneath the tide," she said, voice hushed.
Aldric grimaced, gripping the hilt of his sword. "Let them stir. If they rise again, we will break them."
"Brave talk," Rowena answered, a sad smile dancing across her lips. "But even wolves must rest, my king."
He nodded. "Not today."
The Mourning
Through the day, the courtyards of Frostfang filled with laments. Women washed the bodies of their husbands and sons, braiding their hair with sea-lilies as an old Northern blessing. Children carried stones to build little cairns, stacking them with clumsy reverence over the graves.
Kaelin moved among them in battered plate armor, her hammer slung across her back like a holy relic. She knelt to press a hand against the brow of each dead knight, whispering their names into the cold air, refusing to let them slip into silence.
Torven helped pile the broken Reaver weapons on the pyre, every splintered axe a reminder of the sea's wrath. He scowled at the flames as if he might yet wrestle them for the right to weep.
Rowena tried to find the words to soothe the grieving. But nothing she spoke could soften the loss. Sometimes, she only held their hands and let the tears come.
A Shadow in the Fog
That night, frost settled over Frostfang, turning the bloodstains on the stones into dark, glassy veins.
Kaelin stood watch on the western parapet, eyes hard as flint. A creeping mist had begun to drift in from the open sea, swallowing the moon's pale face.
Something moved in that fog.
A shape.
Tall. Thin. Wrapped in ragged seaweed robes that clung to limbs like rotted silk. Its face was a drowned horror, skin gray and pulled tight across bones, with eyes blacker than the deep.
Kaelin's grip on her hammer tightened. "Name yourself!" she shouted into the swirling white.
The figure did not reply, only stepped closer. Bits of coral clung to its crown, and barnacles crusted its throat where no breath should pass.
Kaelin felt a shiver crawl down her spine. She had slain men, beasts, monsters — but this thing was wrong, as if it had been stitched together from the sea's nightmares.
She raised her hammer. "Last warning!"
Still no answer.
With a roar, Kaelin surged forward, swinging with bone-shattering force — but the blow passed through the apparition like water through a net.
The thing tilted its head, as if amused, then spoke in a voice like a chorus of drowned sailors:
"The sea remembers. The sea reclaims."
Then it vanished, leaving only the smell of brine and the hush of fog.
The Gathering Storm
By morning, the tale of Kaelin's phantom spread like wildfire. Soldiers glanced nervously at the ocean beyond the walls, as if expecting its waters to stand upright and march upon them.
Aldric listened, jaw set, brow drawn into a stormy line. "We have no time to fear ghosts," he told his war council. "The Reavers will return. They will see the serpent's fall as a challenge, not a warning."
Rowena laid a calm hand on his shoulder. "Then let us be ready."
At her words, the commanders nodded. Plans were drawn. Defenses repaired. New alliances drafted. Word was sent even to the distant mountain clans, those who once refused Aldric's banner — now, they would be offered brotherhood or death.
Kaelin sharpened her hammer upon a whetstone, the rhythm steady as a heartbeat. "Next time," she growled, "the sea's nightmares will find me waiting."
Torven gathered his sailors in the dockyards, ordering them to build a new fleet, stronger, faster, more fearsome than anything the Reavers had ever known.
"We'll cut their throats," he promised, "before their boots ever touch our shores."
A Crown of Iron
In the heart of Frostfang's keep, Aldric stood before the old iron crown of his forefathers. It rested upon a block of stone, dented and scarred by centuries of battle.
He remembered the old woman's prophecy, the serpent's riddle of stolen names and memories. The darkness behind it all was still moving, he could feel it, like a predator sniffing at the edges of his mind.
His reflection in the crown's polished metal seemed… wrong, as though a stranger looked back through his own eyes.
Aldric closed his eyes, steadying himself.
You are the Wolf-King, he reminded himself.
Your pack needs you.
He reached out, lifted the iron crown, and set it upon his brow. The weight of it was terrible — not just iron, but the burden of every soul he was bound to protect.
Rowena came to stand beside him, quiet as the hush before a snowstorm. "Will you bear it?"
"I will," Aldric said.
Her eyes glistened. "Then we will bear it with you."
A Blood-Soaked Oath
As the banners of Frostfang rippled in the sea wind, Aldric gathered his captains on the rampart. Beneath a gray sky, before the men and women who had given him their trust, he raised his sword.
"Swear to me," he called, voice ringing like a bell. "Swear you will never yield to the dark. Swear you will never let our name be stolen, our memory be stolen. That you will fight until the sea itself breaks."
Kaelin raised her hammer. Torven raised a harpoon. Rowena lifted her bow.
One by one, the soldiers followed, steel catching what little sunlight broke through the clouds.
"WE SWEAR!" they shouted as one, the cry rolling down the cliffs and across the restless sea.
In that single moment, the bond was forged in iron, salt, and blood.
Aldric lowered his blade, and a chill went through him — not fear, but a strange sense of destiny, as if the gods themselves watched, weighing his heart.
So be it, he thought. Let the sea remember the wolves.
Into the Depths
That night, sleep would not come for Aldric. Visions stalked him behind closed eyelids — a shadowed woman in seaweed robes, the serpent reborn with a thousand jaws, and the drowned walking upon dry land, hungering for the living.
He woke with a cry, chest heaving.
Rowena was there, instantly at his side. "What did you see?"
He wiped sweat from his brow, voice hoarse. "A war beyond anything we have yet known."
Her grip on his shoulder was iron-strong. "Then we will fight it. Together."
Aldric managed a broken laugh. "You sound more a king than I ever could."
Rowena smiled, fierce as a hunting falcon. "Then I shall be your queen."
Threads of the Future
As dawn crept into Frostfang once more, the scent of snow and sea wrapping around its towers, a silent resolve burned through the keep.
The Reavers would return.
The serpent's bones might yet stir.
And darker things — witches, curses, nightmares born of the drowned — would come hunting.
But so long as the wolves stood together, they would never bow.
Aldric took up his sword, stepping into the courtyard where warriors gathered. His eyes found Kaelin, Torven, Rowena — his family in all but blood — and in that moment, he knew:
Frostfang would stand.
And should the sea rise against them again, it would break upon their spears and their unyielding hearts.