The night the old Pack came, Crooked Ash held its breath.
The air changed. The sky burned faint orange, though no fire had touched the ground. The animals fled, and even the rivers ran slower. The wolves of the Silver Pack had gathered at the temple ruins, heads bowed—not in reverence, but in terror.
They had felt it.
Cassia's mark now burned into the ancient stone.
A woman crowned in flame.
A warning.
A return.
⸻
Elias stood at her side as they approached. He wore no armor, no fur. Just a single black thread around his neck—the last tie to his Pack, now broken.
Cassia wore no crown, but the moonlight seemed to bow around her. She did not hide what she had become. Her hair fell silver down her back, and her skin shimmered like the stars. Her voice was calm, but it echoed even when she whispered.
The Seer was there, too. Serah stood a few paces behind Cassia, her face unreadable, her white eyes reflecting every movement in the dark.
"They're coming from the west," Serah said quietly. "The forgotten bloodline. The ones who swore loyalty to the first moon and no other."
"They want me," Cassia said.
"They want to chain you," Elias growled.
Cassia didn't argue.
She could feel it in her bones—the call of blood. Old blood. Not the kind that ran through the wolves of Crooked Ash, but something more ancient. Older than the stars. It wasn't a song.
It was a claim.
⸻
The Forgotten Pack arrived at the edge of the forest just before dawn.
They moved like shadows, tall and pale-eyed, half-wolf even in their human forms. Their Alpha, a man named Rowan Thorne, rode at the front of the line on a beast that looked stitched from smoke. He was silent, but his eyes locked on Cassia's the moment he arrived.
"So," he said, voice like winter. "She lives."
Cassia didn't move. "I woke."
"That was not your right."
She smiled. "No one asked what I had the right to be."
Rowan tilted his head, amused. "You belong to the ancient bond. You were marked before the moon rose. You do not get to choose your place."
"And yet I did."
At her words, the ground trembled. Just slightly. Enough for Elias to reach for her hand.
"You dare challenge your bloodline?" Rowan asked.
"I'm not choosing between bloodlines," Cassia replied. "I'm choosing between freedom and control."
Rowan dismounted. "Then choose now, girl. Kneel—and lead beneath the old moon—or stand, and be destroyed."
⸻
The wolves behind him began to shift—claws extending, fangs growing, eyes glowing silver.
Elias stepped forward.
"I won't let you touch her."
Rowan smirked. "You think love will save her?"
"No," Cassia said, stepping past Elias. "But love is what made me dangerous."
She raised her hands—and the forest caught fire.
Not with flame.
With memory.
The trees lit with gold. Every stone glowed with old symbols. The temple ruins shivered and rose from the ground like a beast returning to life. A wind tore through the clearing, carrying the scent of moonlight, blood, and birth.
Cassia's voice rose—not in song, but in command.
"Enough."
And every wolf—Elias, Fen, the Seer, even Rowan—froze.
⸻
"You wanted me as a weapon," she said. "You tried to seal me beneath time, beneath bone, beneath forgetting. You feared I would rise. That I would remember."
She turned to Rowan.
"You were right."
She stepped forward. Rowan tried to move—but couldn't. Not when her eyes burned with violet fire.
"I do not lead for the moon," she said. "I do not kneel to wolves."
And she pressed her hand to his chest.
A pulse of silver light burst through him.
He dropped to his knees—not in death, but in surrender.
⸻
The other wolves followed. One by one. Some with fury. Some with awe. But none could resist the call in her blood.
The daughter of the moonless sky had returned.
Not to burn the forest.
But to rewrite its law.