Chapter 3 Echoes of the Past

I didn't sleep that night.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw teeth.

Not bared in warning-ripping.

Claws dragging crimson across stone. Wolves, not men. Blood-slicked fur and yellow eyes that glowed like coals. And a scream- always the same one-ripping through the dark. Mine.

The dreams were never memories. They were worse.

They felt like prophecy.

By dawn, I was already moving. I needed out of Rhendon before I started recognizing faces. People I might never see again. The guild didn't take kindly to unfinished contracts-and the longer I stayed, the more likely they'd start whispering about hesitation.

I didn't hesitate. I planned.

There's a difference.

I checked my weapons first. Both blades were sharp, curved and silver-lined-light enough for speed, strong enough to pierce bone. I slid them into their sheathes across my back, then went over my pack again. Dry food. Water flasks. Maps. Coin. Vials of powdered wolfsbane and sleeping tincture. I even tucked in my mother's old journal, though I wasn't sure why.

It had been months since I read it. Maybe longer.

Her handwriting was wild and slanted, but elegant in its own way. Half the pages were rants-about the Moonbloods, about the man who abandoned her, about the curse she claimed had marked her line long before I was born. I'd always thought she was mad.

Until the curse hit me.

I found the leather-bound book beneath my spare shirt and ran a hand over the cracked cover.

"North," I muttered.

That was where the scroll said Rael was headed. North to Thalor Ridge, hidden in the spine of the Winterfang mountains. Snow wolf territory. Old country. The kind of place where blood oaths still meant something and a name like Valen could get you killed- or crowned.

I strapped the pack tight and pulled on my cloak.

The pendant around my neck shifted again, just slightly. It had done that three times since yesterday. Not hot this time. Just... aware. As if it had started listening.

The guild had no idea what it really was.

Neither did I.

Only that my mother swore it had belonged to him. My father.

A Moonblood.

And now his son was my mark.

It felt like a cruel joke, if the gods had a sense of humor.

I left just after sunbreak. Slipped through the city gates before the guard rotations changed. No papers, no delay. Just one of many cloaked travelers braving the frost road.

The cold bit hard past midday. Even under fur-lined leather, my fingers went numb. I welcomed it. Pain made me sharp. It reminded me I was still in control.

But then the scent hit me-unexpected, wild.

Smoke and pine. Wet fur. Blood.

It wasn't fresh. Days old, maybe. But strong enough to make me stop dead on the trail. I crouched low near a drift and pressed two fingers to the frozen dirt.

Prints. Big ones. Not human.

I followed the trail for maybe thirty paces before I found the kill.

A stag, half-eaten and frozen solid. Ripped open from the flank. The wound was messy. Not a clean kill.

Which meant desperation.

Or worse-turning.

Shifters sometimes lost their minds when the wolf overtook them. Feral state. Not quite man, not quite beast. Dangerous enough that even other packs avoided them.

This one hadn't been alone. Too many tracks. Maybe three, maybe more. I couldn't tell if they were hunting or fleeing. And that meant I couldn't afford to linger.

I doubled my pace.

By sundown, the wind howled across the trees and the path narrowed. I found an outcropping near a frozen stream and set camp. Just long enough to eat something dry and warm my hands by a twig fire.

I didn't sleep.

The dreams would come if I did, and I wasn't ready to see her again.

Instead, I read.

I pulled out my mother's journal and flipped past the pages about herbs and curses until I found the one she always skipped reading to me aloud.

He came with the red moon. Taller than the others. Eyes like silver blades. Said nothing when I bled on the stone. Just watched. Like he knew I'd survive the pain. Like he wanted me to.

I should've hated him. I tried. But he gave me you.

And that cursed me all the same.

The ink was smeared on that last line. As if she'd been crying when she wrote it.

I closed the book.

I didn't need her guilt. I had my own.

I stared at the pendant again. It hadn't moved in hours, but it still felt... alive. Like it was waiting. For what, I didn't know.

The fire sputtered, and I banked the coals.

Sleep still refused to come, but my body stopped listening. My eyes drooped. My thoughts blurred. And then-

The forest howled.

I jerked upright.

Not wolves.

Something bigger.

Movement-just outside the firelight. A flicker of eyes. Low growling.

I rose slowly, hand already at my blades.

Then it went silent.

Nothing.

Even the wind held its breath.

I backed toward the edge of the ridge, steps light, senses high.

Then-

Pulse.

Not from the woods.

From my chest.

The pendant.

It throbbed once against my collarbone-sharp, hot. Then again. Faster.

I ripped it out from under my tunic.

The silver glowed faint blue now, like frostfire.

And the heat-it wasn't pain this time. It was calling.

North.

My heart pounded in rhythm with the pulse.

This had never happened before.

I didn't breathe.

I just stared at it, the way you stare at a blade that shouldn't be bleeding.

The glow faded after a minute, leaving it dull and cold again.

But it had changed something.

I knew it.

This wasn't just a keepsake anymore.

This was a key.

To what- I didn't know.

But Rael Valen had the answer.

And if I didn't find him before the next moon...

My curse wouldn't need Aric's blades to finish the job.

It would kill me from the inside out.

And the worst part?

Some small, fractured part of me didn't want to run anymore.

It wanted to know.

What was waiting at the end of this road.