The silver light flooding the mountains felt wrong.
Not cold.
Not hostile.
But alien.
Elara woke with a gasp, drenched in sweat, her heartbeat thunderous in her ears. Around her, the ruined temple of Lyria stood silent. The wind was still. Even the flames from the earlier battle had frozen mid-flicker, like the world itself was holding its breath.
"Kaelen…"
She whispered his name not with grief—but with certainty.
He was still here.
Somewhere.
Somehow.
Aiden stirred beside her, a shallow wound across his ribs bandaged in haste. He winced as he sat up, eyes flicking to the light cresting the mountain ridge.
"That's not Selene's moon," he said hoarsely.
"No," Elara replied. "It's his."
The survivors of Lyria gathered in hushed awe.
Children stared skyward.
The old priests wept.
And among them, an ancient wolf with silver fur—the last of the Moon Seers—approached Elara.
He did not bow. He did not speak.
He simply reached into his robes and handed her a relic.
A stone pendant carved with Kaelen's crest.
Elara took it with trembling fingers.
"What is this?"
"His anchor," the Seer rasped. "His resurrection."
Aiden stiffened. "What do you mean 'resurrection'?"
The Seer turned his milky eyes toward the sky. "He is not returning as a man. Nor as a wolf. He is becoming a force. A god born of sacrifice, not worship."
Elara's heart pounded.
"Then... he's ascending?"
"No," the Seer said grimly. "He's being forged. By pain. By memory. And by blood."
That night, Elara sat alone with the pendant.
She held it in her palm, its edges sharp, the weight disproportionate.
Kaelen's voice echoed in her mind—soft, mournful.
> "You'll have to choose again. And this time, you won't be choosing between men. You'll be choosing between realms."
She looked to the sky.
The moon pulsed once.
Boom.
It was not a sound. It was a feeling. A heartbeat in her bones.
Aiden came to her side.
"Do you trust this?" he asked.
"I don't know."
"If he returns as something else... he might not be Kaelen anymore."
"I know," she whispered. "But we need him."
Aiden's expression darkened. "Do you need him, Elara? Or are you still trying to undo the choice you made?"
Before she could answer, the earth trembled.
The silver moon split—not in destruction, but in birth.
A tear opened across the surface like an eye.
And from it, something emerged.
A figure of starlight and ash, falling through the sky.
Elara stood, the pendant glowing in her palm.
"He's coming," she said.
The skies cracked open.
They found him at dawn.
Where the starlight fell, a crater formed. Blackened earth. Crystalline ash. And at the center—him.
Kaelen.
Naked. Unconscious. Covered in runes that pulsed with energy.
But he was... changed.
His hair, now white as frost, shimmered in the light. His body bore scars that hadn't been there before—ancient symbols of godbinding and void-forging. His eyes were closed, but beneath his skin, silver veins pulsed rhythmically.
He was breathing.
Barely.
Elara rushed forward, dropping to her knees beside him.
"Aiden!" she cried. "Help me!"
But Aiden didn't move.
He stared at Kaelen with disbelief. Anger. Fear.
And something worse: recognition.
Aiden stepped forward slowly.
"He's not just changed," he murmured. "He's been... rewritten."
"What are you talking about?"
"This magic—it's not wolf. It's older. It's forbidden."
Elara looked at him sharply. "You recognize it?"
Aiden hesitated. Then nodded.
"I've seen it once. Before the war. In the Catacombs beneath Crescent Hollow. They called it 'The Binding of the Beyond.' It was meant to lock away the first Betrayer."
Elara's blood ran cold.
"You're saying... Kaelen has become him?"
"No," Aiden said darkly. "I'm saying Kaelen always was him. And we just helped him awaken."
Back in the Shadowborn capital, a storm brewed.
The Mourning King stood atop his obsidian throne, watching the new moon rise.
He smiled, revealing fangs like daggers.
"So... the Oathbreaker returns," he growled.
A priest bowed beside him.
"He has been reforged in the Hollow."
"Then it begins," the Mourning King said. "The true war. Not for land. Not for blood."
"For reality."
He raised a black chalice and drank deep.
"The Godwolf walks," he whispered. "And the world will kneel—or burn."
Back at the crater, Kaelen stirred.
His eyes fluttered open—and they glowed silver.
"Elara..." he rasped.
She leaned closer. "I'm here. You're safe."
He gripped her wrist with sudden strength.
"No one is safe," he said. "Not anymore."
And then he screamed—a howl not of wolf, but of divinity—
A sound that shattered mountains.