Mag-log inMarek stopped walking the moment Mira read the silver letters beneath the crescent.First witness.The color drained from his face, leaving him looking older than his years. He stared at Mira’s wrist as if it were a wound that had suddenly begun to bleed.“That was what Maera called Liora,” he whispered, his voice rough with old terror. “Never in public. Never in council.”Mira went still, the forest air suddenly too thin in her lungs.“In the hidden rite chamber,” Marek continued, “Liora was the first witness because she could sense when a wolf had been bound to the wrong human. She wasn’t Alpha. She wasn’t priestess. But when she entered a rite room, false bonds screamed.”Darius stepped closer, his presence a solid wall against the darkening trees. “Did Liora have a Moon-Witness wolf too?”“I don’t know the full truth,” Marek admitted, his gaze fixed on Mira. “But I remember Maera saying, ‘The witness line breeds eyes the moon cannot blind.’”Sickness coiled in Mira’s stomach. Her
Mira asked what happened to Liora Vale, but Marek did not answer quickly.The ravine was silent except for the distant crunch of boots as Tovan’s warriors held the perimeter. Darius stood close enough to shield her, yet far enough to let the rogue speak without Alpha pressure.Marek’s gaze drifted to the dark tree line before settling back on Mira. He explained that the council never used the word stolen. They preferred cleaner terms like correction, stabilization, or ritual adjustment.But he had seen what remained after those clean words were spoken.Victims didn’t just lose strength. They lost their scent, their pack-link response, and the instinct to shift. They lost wolf memory and rank recognition.Marek looked at her with haunted certainty.“You were not born wolfless, Mira. You were emptied before your first shift.”The word landed heavier than any insult she had ever endured. She had known Sera was taken, but emptied gave the crime a shape. Someone hadn’t just stolen her wolf
Marek’s gaze drifted past them, fixed on a memory only he could see.He had been young then, a border scout assigned to guard the perimeter during what they called a restricted ritual cleanup. He was never allowed inside the main chamber, but stone walls did little to muffle the sounds of forbidden magic.He described a child crying, cut short by a priestess’s chanting. Then came a howl, far too clear and resonant for a child that young, followed by a silence so heavy it felt like suffocation.Marek’s hands trembled as he recalled Maera emerging from the chamber. She carried a moon-glass vessel containing a silver wolf-shadow. It was not a body or a normal spirit, but a soul-wolf forced halfway out of its human host.“It looked back,” Marek whispered, his voice thick with old sickness. “Not at Maera. Not at the vessel. Toward the nursery wing.”Mira stopped breathing. Even in the agony of separation, Sera had known where her true heart remained.Galen did not accept the story on emoti
The voice came from the shadows behind the trees, rough and far too close.Tovan spun first, his blade rising in a lethal arc. Darius moved in front of Mira before conscious thought could catch up, his body a shield of pure instinct. Galen’s hand went to the copied record hidden beneath his coat, knuckles white.A man stepped into the pale moonlight.Marek was lean and scarred, carrying the hollowed-out look of a rogue who had survived too many winters without pack shelter. His scent was wild and feral, but beneath the dirt and desperation lay something unmistakable.Pack blood. Old Moon Rite ash. And deep, settled pain.Tovan recognized him instantly. “Marek.”Marek smiled, but there was no warmth in it. “Gamma now? They reward obedience well.”Before Tovan could respond, branches snapped in the distant darkness. They were not alone.“If you want to live,” Marek said, his gaze locked on the tree line, “stop pointing steel at me and start listening.”Darius scented the air, and his ja
Tovan did not answer immediately when Galen whispered that the name had been erased.His silence hung heavier than the damp forest air, telling Mira everything she needed to know before he spoke. This was not a random rogue’s scrawl. This was a ghost.Darius stepped closer, his voice low and commanding.“What do you know?”Tovan kept his eyes on the blood-smeared stone. He explained that Marek had once been a border scout. Not high-rank or council blood, but sharp, loyal, and trusted near restricted territory.Years ago, Marek was accused of attacking a ritual attendant during a Moon Rite inspection. He fled before judgment, officially branded a rogue.But Tovan remembered the detail everyone else had dismissed as madness. As warriors dragged him away, Marek had screamed the same phrase over and over.“They are keeping wolves under the house.”No one spoke. The wind through the pines sounded like a held breath.Galen pulled the patrol archive copy from his pack, his fingers trembling
Tovan moved before Maera could command silence.He positioned himself between Cassia’s collapsed form and the doorway, his posture blocking any attempt to usher witnesses away.His voice was flat, carrying the weight of pack law rather than emotion.“What did you hear?”The healing wing trembled with hesitation. A servant stared at the floor. An elderly healer made the moon-sign again, lips pressed thin against fear.But three voices broke through the silence.A junior guard. A visiting omega. One of the wounded child’s attendants.Each spoke the same two words.“Not hers.”Galen recorded every statement with meticulous precision, his pen scratching loudly in the quiet room.Maera stepped forward, her tone sharp with ritual authority.“She was under spiritual distress. The wolf speaks in riddles when unanchored.”Tovan did not blink.“Then we will record the distress accurately.”The truth had been spoken, and now it was ink on paper.Elder Corvin arrived moments later, his gaze sweep







