The forest had grown quieter since the clash, but Raine's mind was anything but still. Every heartbeat echoed like a war drum in her ears, calling her deeper into the truth she was only beginning to grasp.
They made camp in the ruins of an abandoned shrine—stone pillars overgrown with moss, moonlight filtering through the leaves like whispers of forgotten magic.
Xavier sat watchfully by the edge of the clearing, while Ezekiel nursed his wounds near the fire. Raine, though, stood apart, drawn to the circular stone where vines had peeled back after the battle… revealing the same crest from the chamber.
The Sovereign Wolf's mark.
She placed her hand on the symbol.
And the world shifted.
The air shimmered. The trees fell away. And Raine was standing in a place that felt… sacred.
A memory, suspended in time.
A woman with silver hair stood over a cradle, her eyes glowing with the same strange light Raine now carried in her soul.
"You'll be hunted, my daughter," the woman said softly. "Because they fear what you carry—what I passed down. But if you find this place, then it means you're ready. Ready to reclaim it."
The woman placed a scroll into the cradle, beside a small vial of moonstone dust and a pendant shaped like a crescent fang.
Raine reached forward.
The image shattered—and she fell back, gasping.
The stone beneath her hand cracked open.
Inside it lay the three items she'd seen: the scroll, the vial, and the fang pendant
Ezekiel appeared behind her, eyes narrowed. "What did you see?"
"My mother," Raine whispered, clutching the scroll. "She knew I'd come here."
The scroll's ink shimmered in the firelight. It wasn't written in any tongue Raine recognized—until the Trial Mark on her skin glowed, and the symbols shifted before her eyes.
It told of the Moonblood Line—a lineage not just of werewolves, but of gifted ones. Wolves born during rare lunar alignments, carrying power meant to balance both darkness and light.
But the Council had declared them cursed. Dangerous.
Hunted them into extinction.
Except for one.
"Your mother was the last true Sovereign Wolf," Ezekiel said slowly, reading over her shoulder. "And now you are."
Raine held up the fang pendant. It pulsed faintly in her hand.
"She said it's a key," Raine whispered. "To what?"
She placed it around her neck—and the mark on her collarbone flared to life. Not in pain. In recognition.
Suddenly, she knew things.
Where to find the lost sanctuaries. What the Council had buried. Who the hidden allies were.
"She sealed her memories into the pendant," Xavier said, eyes wide. "That's ancient magic—moon-memory binding. Illegal under Council law."
"She didn't care about their laws," Raine said. "She wanted me to rise when the time came."
Ezekiel grinned. "And guess what? That time is now."
Later that night, Raine sat alone with the vial of moonstone dust. Her mother's final gift.
She opened it and let the dust scatter over her hands.
It shimmered… and flowed into her skin like smoke. The power thrummed through her blood.
She saw flickers—her mother in battle, sealing a dark wolf in ice… a Council leader with black eyes betraying a vow… a hidden sanctuary in the Northern Peaks, sealed by moonfire.
And she heard one sentence, over and over, burned into her soul:
"When the wolves forget their Queen, remind them with fire."