Chapter 7 – The Blood That Burns in Sleep
Rowan doesn't fall asleep. He crashes. Like his body finally gives up the fight and lets the black water pull him under. But it's not sleep. Not the kind that rests. It's the kind where his bones ache and his lungs feel drowned, and when the dream hits, it isn't a dream at all—it's memory. It always is.
The fire comes first.
Not just fire—that fire. Orange roaring like a beast loosed from its cage, swallowing the carved oak halls of the fortress he once called home. The banners with the royal crest—wolf's head crowned in silver, jaws open mid-howl—curl and blacken. The smell is the worst, worse even than the screaming: burning fur, flesh, wood soaked in oil. Smoke clogs his nose, clings to his child-body even in memory.
And then the screaming sharpens into voices he knows.
"Kael!" That's his own voice, a boy's broken shout. He sees his brother—taller, broader, sixteen summers old, already with the alpha's shoulders. Kael has blood on his arms, a sword in one hand, claws sprouting from the other. His eyes are lit with fury, silver bright, as he cuts down two armored men who should have been their own guard.
Traitors. All of them. The ones who once bowed their heads to his father, swore their loyalty to the bloodline of Selara and Alden. Wolves in man's armor. Wolves who tore their oaths apart.
Rowan's breath shakes even in the dream. He knows what comes next but he can't stop it.
The hall splits with a roar. The guard captain strides through flames, blade wet, armor shining red not silver. Aldric. That name still tastes of iron and bile. Aldric who smiled at Rowan's father every morning at council. Aldric who trained Kael in combat, who once carried Rowan on his shoulders. Aldric, the betrayer.
"Protect the Stone!" Selara's voice—his mother—rises above the inferno. He sees her, dark hair undone, crown fallen, gown ripped at the sleeve. She cradles something in her hands—it glows. Not just light but alive, pulsing in rhythm with the earth itself. The Leova Stone. Sacred, eternal, carried by generations of his bloodline. It hums, a song in his bones. Even child-Rowan feels it, like the moon itself has taken shape in a crystal.
And then blood arcs across the stone. His mother's throat—no, no—Rowan flinches, tries not to see, but he always does. Aldric's blade slices her open like she is nothing. Her eyes, pale and kind, meet Rowan's as she falls, lips moving soundless in the firestorm.
Kael roars, an animal sound, fury breaking his voice. He lunges, body half-shifted, claws and steel striking together. He drives Aldric back, but Aldric is bigger, armored, prepared. They clash—clang, tear, scream—until Kael takes the sword through his ribs.
Rowan remembers the sound. Not the clash, not the steel. The sound his brother makes when the blade goes in. A gasp that breaks into silence. Kael turns his head, just once, to look at Rowan across the flames. His mouth shapes a word. Run.
And then he crumples.
Rowan's body shakes in the bed. In the present, in the now, his fists clench tight enough that his nails dig half-moon crescents into his palms. His breath grows rough, ragged, wolf crawling under his skin. But the dream won't stop.
He sees Aldric seize the Stone. The glow dims in his hand, like even the Stone mourns the betrayal. He raises it high, and all the wolves who were once guards kneel. The new king crowned not by right, but by massacre. By ash.
The boy Rowan—memory Rowan—runs because an elder drags him, claws hooked into his arm. "Never forget," the old wolf snarls as they vanish into the smoke. "Never forget the blood, the stone, the name."
And Rowan doesn't. Even now. Even here.
His body jerks awake. His eyes snap open in the dark of his room, sheets damp, breath loud. For a moment he doesn't know if he's awake. His tongue tastes copper. He checks his lips—he's bitten through them. His hands ache—he's half-shifted, claws etched lines into the mattress.
"Not here," he growls to himself, pressing palms to eyes. His chest still heaves like it's on fire. The wolf wants out. Wants to tear Aldric's face from his skull, though Aldric is miles and decades away. He forces himself still. One breath. Two. The taste of ash lingers.
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Classroom light is cruel. It never hides anything—it sharpens it. Rowan looks like hell. He walks in late, drops into his chair like gravity hates him more than the rest of them. His hair is damp, not like shower damp but sweat. His eyes—God, his eyes—they're too sharp and too far away at the same time.
She shouldn't notice. She shouldn't care. But she does. Because he doesn't look like the untouchable shadow boy today. He looks haunted. Like he saw something that followed him into daylight. She catches herself staring and jerks her gaze to the front where Mr. Daven drones about equations nobody will remember.
But her pen doesn't move. Her ears keep trying to catch his breathing.
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He knows she's looking. He always knows. The wolf in him doesn't miss much. But he can't bring himself to play the mask today. His hands still shake under the desk. He sketches lines across his notebook—circles, crescents, flames—and realizes they're the crest. The royal crest he watched burn. He slams the book shut before anyone sees.
The teacher calls his name once, twice. He doesn't answer until the third time. "Yeah." His voice comes rough, like it still has smoke in it.
Snickers rise around the room. Humans. Kids. They think he's hungover or high. Let them. Better that than the truth.
He glances once, accidentally, at Elara. Her eyes cut away fast but not before he sees the question in them. She knows something's off. Not what. Never what. But she feels it.
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She hates herself for it but she wonders. What does someone dream to wake up looking like that? His knuckles white, shoulders stiff, like he's been carrying war all night. She wants to ask. She doesn't. People like her don't ask people like him questions. And if they did, people like him wouldn't answer.
Still, it lingers, like smoke in her own lungs.
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Lunch bell. Chaos in the cafeteria. Rowan doesn't eat. He sits alone, back to the wall, eyes always scanning. Elara notices. Her friends chatter nonsense about TV dramas and snacks, but her gaze keeps flicking. To him. Always to him.
And Rowan? Rowan stares past the walls. Past the chatter. Back into the fire he never left.
In his head he hears Kael's voice again. Run. But Rowan doesn't run anymore.
He whispers it under his breath, so low no one hears: "Never forget the blood. Never forgive the betrayal."
And the Stone pulses in memory, waiting.
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