The Wastes were not marked on any map. They began where the green of the world faltered—where the trees grew twisted and bone-white, where the wind whistled like a lament through jagged rocks, and the stars blinked out early each night. The villagers of Glenhollow spoke of the Wastes only in hushed tones, calling them cursed, home to the dead and things worse.
But Aiden had no choice.
The beast within him grew stronger with each moonrise. He'd nearly mauled a hunter two nights before—one of his childhood friends. The guilt was unbearable. The village elders would soon brand him a danger. He needed answers. Not from priests. Not from scrolls. From someone who understood the power now raging through his blood.
And so he entered the Wastes.
The land rejected him.
Thorns tore his cloak. Shadows moved on their own. The sky churned with unnatural clouds, and he walked in circles until he bled. But he kept going. Something drew him forward—not a voice, but a presence.
Finally, atop a ridge of petrified trees, he found her.
The forest witch.
Mira.
Her hut seemed built from the forest itself—woven from roots, bone, and starlight. Pale lanterns swung from its eaves, casting violet fire over a garden of skulls and thorny herbs. Animals watched from the trees—owls with too many eyes, foxes with black fur and no shadows.
Aiden stepped forward.
Mira emerged as if she'd always been there: a tall woman cloaked in layers of moss-green and ash-gray, her face both ancient and young, eyes glowing with silver irises that never blinked.
"You stink of change," she said before he could speak. "Moonbound. And not by accident."
He dropped to one knee. "Please. I don't want to hurt anyone. I need to understand."
"You want control. But control is a fool's leash."
She gestured him inside.
---
Her hut was larger on the inside—lit with soft blue flame, every wall covered in talismans and books that whispered when he passed. She set herbs to boil in a pot and circled him once.
"You're marked," she said, touching his chest.
The silver crescent birthmark glowed faintly under her fingers.
"A gift," she whispered, "but not from the gods of men. This is old magic. Moon-wrought."
She spoke then of the Moon Wars—an ancient conflict lost to history, when werewolves were not curses, but champions. They were guardians of balance between the wild and the civilized. They served the Moon Accord, a pact between the primal spirits of the world and the first human tribes.
"But the Accord was broken," she said, pouring bitter tea into a carved bone cup. "Men turned greedy. The beasts, wild. The guardians fell. Most were slaughtered. Others twisted into the Lost."
Aiden stared into the flames. "And my bloodline?"
"Your ancestors swore themselves to the Moon Accord," she said. "Your transformation is not punishment—it is awakening. You are meant to guard the balance."
"Then why now?" he asked. "Why me?"
She turned and swept back a curtain, revealing a wall of starmaps. One burned bright with a red crescent.
"Because the North stirs again. Darkness moves beneath the ice. The Accord frays. The world cries out."
Aiden's heart thundered. "So what am I supposed to do?"
Mira walked to a chest and drew out a cloak of raven feathers, a dagger carved from obsidian, and a scroll sealed in moonwax.
"You must go where the balance tips. Seek the Silver Circle in the Frosted Vale. Learn who you are. And when the time comes—choose what you'll become."
He hesitated, hand on the dagger. "Will I lose myself?"
She looked at him, eyes soft. "You already are. The trick is deciding who finds you."
---
A storm came that night. Not rain, but winds thick with whispers. Aiden dreamed of wolves with white eyes and burning forests. Of a woman in chains beneath a black moon. Of his own face, split with a snarl.
He woke to Mira standing at the doorway, her hair streaming like ink.
"They hunt you now," she said.
"Who?"
"Those who remember what the Moonbound were. And those who fear what they could be again."
Flames rose outside. Shadows moved.
Mira pressed the scroll into his hand. "Run. And when the moon is next full, do not fight the beast. Embrace it."
He fled into the Wastes, the forest alight behind him.
But he did not run blindly.
Now, he had purpose. And the first piece of truth.
The curse was a calling. And the war had already begun.