The dawn broke cold and silent over the Wild Fortress.
The wind carried no birdsong only the faint hum of runes carved into the battlements, glowing weakly after the night's assault.
Arka stood on the northern wall, cloak fluttering like dark wings behind him.
The sky was tinted violet, the color of bruised twilight an omen of corruption still festering somewhere unseen.
"She's close," Liora said softly beside him.
"The air is thick with illusion magic. Every breath feels… wrong."
The Star Wolf's reflection shimmered faintly behind Arka, its fur like liquid starlight.
"Mirel hides where doubt festers," it growled. "If we chase blindly, she will turn our minds against us."
Arka nodded.
"Then we don't hunt with eyes. We hunt with will."
✦ Into the Shadow Forest
By midday, Arka and his small strike team entered the Shadow Forest a vast expanse of trees wrapped in spectral mist.
Every branch whispered.
Every shadow moved slightly wrong, like something alive was watching.
The team consisted of four:
Arka, the Star Wolf Sovereign.
Liora, the mage of moonlight.
Garran, the obsidian-scaled beast general.
Helar, the human captain with unmatched instinct in combat.
But even as they walked together, an unseen hand began tugging at their senses.
"Did you hear that?" Helar murmured.
"Voices… calling my name."
"Ignore them," Arka ordered.
"If you listen, you feed her spell."
Yet despite his warning, the forest seemed to bend roots shifting, mist thickening until the group found themselves walking in different directions.
✦ The Labyrinth of Lies
Suddenly, Arka was alone.
The forest around him pulsed with silver and red light.
Figures emerged phantoms from memory: his mother, his fallen comrades, the beasts he had once slain.
"You call yourself a savior," one of them hissed.
"But you are the cause of their deaths."
"You bring beasts into the realm of men how long before they devour your kin?"
Arka's fists clenched. He could feel his fury rising her magic feeding off it like a leech.
He drew a deep breath, and the rune on his hand ignited in pale silver.
"Mirel," he said coldly, "show yourself."
The illusions rippled. Laughter filled the air soft, haunting, and utterly feminine.
"You can't command shadows, Star Wolf," she whispered.
"You were born of contradiction beast and man, light and dark. You don't unite worlds… you divide them."
✦ Duel of Minds
Mirel stepped from the mist tall, graceful, eyes like fractured glass. Her robe shimmered with countless shifting runes, each holding stolen memories of others.
The air warped around her as though reality itself feared her presence.
"Why destroy what we built?" Arka demanded.
"The beasts and humans finally fight together. You'd tear that apart for power?"
Mirel smiled faintly.
"Power? No, Arka. Truth."
"Your so-called unity is a dream stitched together by fear and desperation. They don't follow you they fear you. I simply… remind them of what they already know."
She lifted her hand. The ground beneath them shifted into a shimmering mirror reflecting not their bodies, but their souls.
Arka saw two versions of himself:
One, a radiant wolf of light.
The other, a beast of silver flame, eyes empty, hunger endless.
Mirel's voice echoed from every direction.
"Which are you, Arka? Savior, or destroyer?"
The mirror cracked and with it, Arka's heartbeat echoed in the silence.
He felt the chaos within him surge the fusion of human empathy and beast instinct.
✦ The Star Within
As Mirel's illusions closed around him, Arka knelt and touched the broken mirror.
"I'm neither," he whispered.
"I'm what the world made me."
The fragments shimmered. Each piece reflected not his doubt, but his resolve.
The wolf spirit appeared behind him, its voice thunderous:
"Then let us remind her what a Sovereign truly is."
Arka's aura erupted a storm of radiant silver energy that tore through Mirel's illusions.
The forest trembled; the mist burned away, revealing thousands of spirit runes hanging midair.
Mirel shielded her face, eyes wide.
"Impossible… your soul shouldn't be stable!"
"It's not stability," Arka roared, stepping forward as his form merged with the astral wolf.
"It's balance."
He struck.
The impact shattered every mirror, every illusion, every whispering voice until only silence remained.
✦ The Memory of a Witch
Mirel fell to her knees, breath ragged.
Her body flickered between solid and ethereal the mark of a mage too long bound to illusion.
"You think you've won," she said weakly.
"But I am not your true enemy."
Arka's voice was calm.
"Then tell me who is."
Her lips curved into a knowing smile.
"The first beast. The origin of your power. The one who branded you as Sovereign."
Her body dissolved into mist, leaving behind a single whisper a curse that echoed through the forest:
"When stars fall, wolves shall devour their own light…"
✦ Aftermath
The others found Arka hours later, standing at the heart of the now-silent forest.
Liora reached him first.
"You found her?"
Arka nodded slowly.
"And I found something worse the truth she wanted hidden."
He looked up. Above the fading dawn, one star flickered and died as if the heavens themselves had taken warning.
"The origin is awakening," Arka murmured.
"The true hunt begins."