"The moon remembers all who have tasted its gift,
and every drop of blood remembers the first howl."
⸻
Mist rolled thick across the valley, curling between the trees like smoke from a buried fire. The air was heavy, listening. Not even the insects dared to move.
Lin Wuji followed Fangxin down the slope toward a hollow that glowed faintly beneath the moon. The pack trailed behind, silent as windless shadows. Tonight was no hunt. It was something older.
The hollow opened like an altar to the sky—a bowl of stone where moonlight pooled into silver stillness. At its center stood an obsidian basin carved from black rock, runes spiraling around its rim like the marks of ancient claws.
Fangxin stopped before it, his voice resonant and low. "The time has come for you to drink."
The pack lowered their heads. The air thrummed with expectation.
Wuji stepped closer, drawn by the scent rising from the basin—iron, rain, and something alive. Inside shimmered a dark, pulsing liquid that reflected no light. It was not water. It was blood.
"The Language of Blood," Fangxin said. "It speaks to all who bear the moon's mark. Drink, and you will remember what your kind forgot."
Wuji hesitated. "And if I'm not ready?"
Fangxin's eyes glinted like stormlight. "The blood will decide."
⸻
He knelt before the basin. The moon painted his skin with silver veins. His hands trembled as he dipped them into the thick, warm fluid and lifted it to his lips.
It tasted like lightning.
He gasped—and the forest vanished.
⸻
The First Memory
He stood beneath a fractured moon, a pale crescent bleeding light into a frozen plain. Around him gathered men armored in bone and silver, their faces painted with red sigils. At their feet crouched wolves, vast and proud, their eyes bright with knowing.
A voice rose among the men: "We bind ourselves to the night. To its strength, its silence, its eternal watch."
They cut their palms, and their blood fell into a shared chalice. The wolves followed, tearing open their paws. Blood met blood, red and silver swirling into unity.
The man drank first. Then the wolves.
A sound followed—not a howl, not a scream, but a song. It filled the air until the stars themselves trembled. The men and wolves changed together, shadows merging, bones reshaping. The first bond was born.
We are one, the moon whispered. And one shall guard the other.
Then came the fire.
Wuji saw villages burning, silver blades cutting fur and flesh alike. Men, once brothers to wolves, now hunted them for power. The bond was broken, twisted into curse. Blood spilled until the moon itself dimmed.
Chains. Experiments. Wolves torn apart for their strength. From that agony rose the first transformation—the fusion of man and beast, bound forever by betrayal.
When the light dimmed, one wolf stood among the bodies—black-furred, scarred by fire, its eyes molten gold.
The ancestor of Fangxin.
Man betrayed the oath, the vision whispered. And the blood remembered.
⸻
Wuji fell back into himself with a cry. The forest returned, the moon blazing cold above. His hands shook. The taste of iron burned his tongue.
The pack waited, silent. Fangxin stood motionless, his gaze ancient and unreadable.
"You saw it," he rumbled.
Wuji nodded weakly. "The pact. You were one. Then they broke it."
Fangxin's voice deepened, vibrating through the stones. "They caged the gift they begged for. The moon cursed both. The wolves learned. The men forgot."
"It wasn't all of them," Wuji said. "Some tried to stop it."
"Memory does not forgive," Fangxin replied. "It remembers what bleeds."
He circled slowly around Wuji, each step heavy with meaning. "You carry both hungers. The hunter and the hunted. The question is—whose memory will you serve?"
"I don't want vengeance."
"Then you will die confused."
⸻
Far from the hollow, Captain Elira stood before the same forest. Her soldiers moved cautiously behind her, blades drawn.
The scholar beside her brushed a carving on the stone: a spiral surrounded by crescent moons. "Captain, these marks repeat near every den we've found. They're not warnings. They're stories."
Elira frowned. "Stories?"
"Rituals," the scholar corrected. "They chronicle an oath—man and wolf sharing one moon. The blood between them was sacred."
"Until it wasn't," Elira muttered.
The scholar hesitated. "Perhaps they're not monsters at all. Perhaps they're the memory of something we destroyed."
The captain turned away. "And memory kills as surely as hunger. Ready the traps. The blood moon rises soon."
Thunder rolled across the peaks, echoing like a heartbeat.
⸻
Back in the hollow, Fangxin stood beside the basin, eyes reflecting the storm.
"You have seen the truth," he said. "Now you must speak its language."
Wuji looked at his reflection in the dark pool. The face staring back was not wholly human. His pupils were gold, his skin traced with faint silver veins. "I don't know how."
"Blood remembers for you." Fangxin stepped closer. "It will whisper when you stop resisting."
"What if it lies?"
The Alpha's lips curled faintly. "Blood cannot lie. It only reminds."
Scar-Left approached, dropping a hare at Wuji's feet. Eat. You'll need strength.
"I'm not hungry," Wuji said.
Then the blood will eat you instead.
He stared into the basin again, the dark liquid rippling though no wind stirred it. Beneath its surface, faint shapes swam—faces, wolves, stars. When he blinked, they vanished.
"Why show me this?" he asked quietly. "Why me?"
Fangxin's voice was softer now. "Because the blood chose you. You are the bridge between what was broken. The moon marked you to finish what it began."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then both worlds will burn again."
⸻
The forest rumbled with approaching thunder. Somewhere far away, the Silver Order's horns cried out—a long, low note that trembled through the trees.
Fangxin raised his muzzle. "The hunters come."
The pack stirred, ready.
He turned to Wuji. "You carry two voices now—one of man, one of wolf. When the moon calls again, choose which answers."
Wuji stood, heart thundering. "And if I choose wrong?"
The Alpha's grin was all fang. "Then you'll learn the oldest language of all."
"What language is that?"
"Survival."
Fangxin leapt into the dark, his pack following like living smoke.
Wuji lingered, staring into the pool where his reflection had split in two—one human, one beast.
He whispered to it, "Maybe the moon remembers too."
The forest did not answer. Only the blood stirred, whispering its endless memory through the stones.
And as the thunder grew closer, Wuji realized that memory had already chosen for him.