Chapter 10 The moon beneath the Earth

Chapter Ten: The Moon Beneath the Earth

The dreams began that night.

Mara stood in a forest that pulsed like a heartbeat. The trees wept blood. The stars were gone, and above her, the moon hung black and cracked. At its center burned a red eye. It blinked-and the forest screamed.

She woke with a gasp, her skin slick with sweat, the Bone Sigil fragment glowing faintly on the table beside her.

Kaelen stirred beside her, instantly alert. "The dreams again?"

Mara nodded. "Worse this time. I saw... it watching me."

"It?"

"The First Howl. Or whatever speaks through it. It doesn't want me to forget."

Kaelen sat up. "We should call the council."

But Mara shook her head. "Not yet. I need answers. Real ones. Not stories passed down or warnings scribbled in the corners of old tomes."

Kaelen studied her. "Where will you find those?"

"In the only place we haven't looked," Mara said. "The Cradle."

Kaelen flinched. "That place is forbidden."

"I'm not sure anything should be forbidden anymore," Mara muttered.

The Cradle lay far to the east, deep within the oldest stretch of the forest. It was said to be the place where the first Bound were created-or cursed-depending on who told the story. The Ash Circle had sealed it generations ago, fearful of the power it held.

Riven was the only one who knew how to find the entrance.

"You'll be walking into a tomb filled with ghosts," she warned. "And not all of them are dead."

"I'm not asking anyone to come," Mara replied.

Kaelen, behind her, crossed her arms. "Then you clearly don't know me."

Three days later, Mara and Kaelen reached the Cradle.

It was hidden beneath a cliff face swallowed by ivy and age. With Riven's map in hand, they found the runes-faded but intact. Mara pressed the fragment of the Bone Sigil into the hollow between two stones, and the earth shifted.

A crack opened in the cliff, releasing a breath of air that smelled of damp fur and old blood.

Inside was darkness. Cold and ancient.

They descended in silence, the air thick with dust and the faint smell of ash. The tunnel widened into a chamber lined with statues-massive wolves carved from obsidian, some half-shifted, some monstrous. Their eyes had been gouged out.

At the center stood an altar.

Not of stone, but of bone.

Mara approached it, the Sigil fragment vibrating in her pouch. She reached out-and a pulse of magic rippled through the chamber.

A voice echoed-not from the walls, but from within her.

"You have come to the place of the beginning. Do you seek truth, child of two worlds?"

"Yes," Mara said aloud. "I want to know what we are. Where we come from. Why we were cursed."

The bones shuddered. Light flickered. Then a figure stepped from the shadows-tall, robed, her eyes luminous and feral.

It was not Seraphine.

This woman wore no crown. Her face was etched with grief, and her claws were stained with old blood.

"I am Morwenna," she said. "Last Matriarch of the First Pack."

Kaelen moved protectively beside Mara. "You're alive?"

Morwenna smiled sadly. "A part of me endures. Bound in this place, where we were made and unmade."

Mara stepped forward. "Tell me the truth."

Morwenna's gaze burned. "You were not cursed. You were created-as guardians. The First Bound were shaped by the forest, blessed by the Old Moon to stand between nature and man. But when men feared what they could not control, they called us monsters. They hunted us. And so the Sigils were born-not to curse us-but to bind us to balance."

"Seraphine twisted that," Mara said.

"She feared the wild," Morwenna replied. "And in that fear, she fed the fire that nearly destroyed us all."

"But the First Howl... it's waking."

Morwenna's expression darkened. "Not all of us accepted balance. Some wanted dominion. They broke from the Pact, embraced rage. They became the Hollowed. And yes... they stir now."

"Why now?"

"Because you carry both sides within you," Morwenna said. "The Sigil has awakened. The forest lives again. And with life comes memory."

Mara's breath caught. "Can I stop them?"

"No," Morwenna said softly. "But you can lead us through what comes next."

Kaelen stepped forward. "What does that mean?"

"It means a choice must be made," Morwenna said. "When the Hollowed rise, the world will demand blood. The humans will fear again. Some of the Bound will follow the Hollowed-drawn to power."

Mara's voice was quiet. "And if I stand between them?"

"Then you must be more than Bound. More than wolf. You must be bridge."

The chamber trembled.

Morwenna reached out. "Take the last shard. Complete the Sigil. But know this-when it is whole again, your path will split. And you will not return from it unchanged."

Mara reached out, fingers brushing the altar.

Pain lanced through her, a searing light that burned through bone and soul. Visions surged-wolves running across the sky, men kneeling before flames, a newborn child with violet eyes howling under an eclipse.

And then it was done.

The Sigil was whole again.

And Mara was different.

Her veins pulsed silver. Her heartbeat echoed in the walls. Her teeth ached-not with hunger, but with purpose.

Kaelen caught her as she staggered.

"Mara?"

"I'm here," she gasped. "I'm... still me."

But Morwenna shook her head. "You are more now."

The chamber dimmed. Morwenna faded, her voice the last thing they heard:

"Prepare them. The Hollowed rise. And the moon will judge us all."

Outside, the forest had changed.

The wind was sharper. The trees darker. The boundary between this world and what lay beneath it was thinner now.

As Mara and Kaelen emerged into the light, they both turned to look west-toward Hollowroot.

Smoke curled into the sky.

Kaelen cursed. "They're under attack."

"No," Mara said quietly, her eyes narrowing. "They're testing us."

She touched the Sigil at her chest.

And the forest answered.

Not with whispers.

But with a howl.