The wind in the Fractured Wastes howled like a dying god.
Dust devils spiraled across the cracked earth, and jagged stones jutted from the ground like broken teeth. The sun here didn't shine—it bled through a hazy red sky, casting everything in hues of rust and shadow.
This was no place for the weak. And now, it was Damien Thorn's prison.
Two sentinels in silver armor shoved him forward, his wrists still bound in enchanted cuffs. The ground beneath his boots shimmered faintly, reacting to the cursed chains that glowed against his skin.
"You'll die here, traitor," one of them spat.
Damien didn't flinch. "I've already died once. This is just... the waiting room."
They dropped him at the edge of a massive canyon—a jagged scar in the earth stretching into oblivion.
Then they turned and left him.
No food. No water.
Only exile.
And silence.
But the Wastes were never truly silent.
At nightfall, the wind shifted, and the ground trembled faintly.
Damien sat still, unmoving, though sweat dripped from his brow. His connection to the void was severed—Selene had seen to that. But the echo of the dark still whispered beneath his skin.
And now, something was whispering back.
Damien…
His eyes flicked open.
He wasn't alone.
From the shadows of the canyon, a figure emerged—robed in rags stitched from bone and shadow. Its face was hidden beneath a wolf skull, its fingers tipped with obsidian claws.
It did not walk. It glided.
Damien rose slowly. "You're late."
The creature laughed, voice like a thousand echoes. "You failed to complete the gate. You angered the Deep."
"You promised me power," Damien growled.
"I gave it. You burned it."
Damien's fists clenched. "Then give me more."
The figure drifted closer, lifting one hand.
"You wish to return? To rise again?" it hissed. "Then kneel. And let the Abyss finish what it began."
Damien's pride flickered.
And then, he knelt.
Meanwhile, in the heart of Ironclaw…
Selene stood beneath the Moon Tree, deep in meditation. Saria watched her from a respectful distance, feeling the pulsing energy of the sacred site thrum like a heartbeat.
When Selene finally opened her eyes, they were glowing faintly—moonlight caught in irises of silver.
"He's not dead," she said.
Saria approached. "You felt him?"
"No," Selene whispered. "I felt something awaken. Something buried far beneath the Wastes. Older than the Voidfang. Older than the packs."
Saria's face paled. "You think Damien... is trying to bond with it?"
Selene nodded. "He won't stop. Not until he becomes something no one can kill."
Back in the Wastes, Damien's body convulsed as the hooded figure pressed its hand to his chest.
Dark energy surged into him, and his scream echoed across the barren land.
But his scream wasn't pain.
It was rebirth.
The creature hissed.
"You will no longer be Alpha. No longer wolf. You will be vessel. You will be voice."
Damien collapsed, body glowing faintly with violet fire.
His eyes opened again—empty. Voiceless.
But something else looked through them now.
At Ironclaw's watchtower, Kael called an emergency council.
Scouts had gone missing on the western border. Strange signs appeared in the earth—symbols carved with no hands, bloodless animals dropped in circles of salt, and the sky occasionally turning an eerie violet at dawn.
"These aren't cultist games," Kael warned. "Something ancient stirs."
Korren bared his teeth. "Then we hunt it before it hunts us."
Selene stared at the map.
"No," she said. "We don't hunt shadows. We bring them into the light."
She placed her hand on the Wastes.
"I'm going there."
Everyone froze.
Jace stepped forward. "Absolutely not. You just rebuilt unity. If you walk into the Wastes—alone—you risk everything."
Selene looked at him, calm and steady.
"I've faced rejection. War. Darkness. But this thing hiding out there? It fears me."
She drew Moonfire, and its silver blade glowed hot in her hand.
"Because I carry the light it cannot devour."
Far away, in the heart of the Fractured Wastes, Damien—reborn and twisted—stared into the sky with empty eyes.
And smiled.
The real war had only just begun.