Chapter 4 A fire within

The mirror shattered at my feet.

I stared at the jagged pieces, heart pounding as golden light flickered in my irises-unfamiliar, frightening. My chest heaved. My skin burned. Something inside me was shifting, not just physically, but deeper-down to the soul I thought had already been broken once.

Another knock. Louder this time.

"Aria!" Ronan's voice was sharp, urgent. "Open the door."

I tried to speak, to tell him I couldn't, but my throat closed up. My wolf was clawing beneath my skin, not in pain-but in hunger. In awakening.

The door swung open, banging against the stone wall.

Ronan strode in, eyes scanning the room until they landed on me. "What the hell-"

He froze when he saw my eyes. Then his gaze dropped to the shards of glass on the floor, glowing faintly with residual energy. His expression shifted from concern to something else. Wariness.

"What did you do?" he asked, voice low.

"I... I don't know," I rasped. "I felt something. Burning. It-it's still inside me."

He stepped closer, cautiously, like approaching a cornered animal.

"Your aura," he muttered. "It's wrong. You're glowing, Aria."

I shook my head. "I don't know what's happening to me."

Ronan knelt in front of me, his tone softer now. "Tell me everything. Start from the moment you woke up."

So I did.

I told him about the cloaked figure. The pendant. The visions. The voice in my head that wasn't quite my wolf but felt like it was older than time. The warmth that bloomed in my chest and the feeling that something ancient had taken root in me.

He listened without interrupting, his jaw tight.

When I finished, he stood. "I've heard of this before. Barely whispers. A bloodline... cursed or blessed, depending on who tells the story. Wolves who die, but don't stay dead. Ones touched by the Moon Goddess's shadow."

"Shadow?" I echoed.

"Something darker than her light. Forbidden. Banished." He glanced at my pendant. "That charm-it's not of this world."

I clutched it protectively. "Then what am I?"

He didn't answer.

Before he could, Caius burst through the doorway, panting. "Alpha! Rogues at the south ridge. We need you now."

Ronan cursed under his breath. "We'll finish this later. Stay here, Aria. Don't open this door for anyone."

I nodded.

As he turned to leave, he hesitated in the doorway. "And if the burning comes again... don't fight it. It may be the only thing that keeps you alive."

Then he was gone.

I paced the stone room, mind spinning. Rogues. Energy. The strange gold glow in my veins. I wanted answers, but they only seemed to lead to more questions.

I couldn't sit still.

Minutes passed. Maybe hours.

Then I heard it.

A scratch.

At the wall.

I froze.

It came again-slow, deliberate.

Not at the door. Behind it.

Behind the stone wall.

I crept forward, pressing my ear against the cold rock.

A whisper.

Faint, echoing.

"She is rising..."

I jumped back, heart hammering. "Who's there?"

The stone beneath my feet trembled.

The pendant around my neck flared with heat.

Then-crack. A fissure split across the wall. Another voice came through it, deep and laced with something venomous:

"You were never meant to survive."

The ground shook harder now.

I stumbled back as the stone wall cracked apart-revealing a tunnel I hadn't known was there. Cold air rushed out. I should have run.

But something pulled me forward.

Down the steps. Into the dark.

The tunnel led to a cavern beneath the fortress. The air smelled like earth and old blood. My wolf whimpered, but curiosity drove me forward.

Glowing symbols shimmered on the walls-ancient runes that pulsed with the same light that now lived in my skin.

I wasn't supposed to be here.

And yet... I belonged here.

In the center of the cavern stood a stone altar. Chains hung from it. Burn marks scorched the rock. Something had been bound here. Tortured here.

As I stepped closer, a shadow moved.

And then... he appeared.

A man stepped from the darkness-tall, pale, with silver eyes that burned into mine.

He was beautiful and terrifying all at once.

Not a rogue. Not a pack wolf.

Something else.

"You've awakened," he said, voice like silk over steel.

"Who are you?" I demanded.

He smiled faintly. "Someone who knew you before you were reborn. Someone who remembers the last time you died."

My blood ran cold. "What do you want?"

"You."

I took a step back, but he didn't follow. "You were touched by the forbidden flame. Marked. Your death broke the barrier. Now the old magic stirs again."

"I don't know what you're talking about-"

"You will."

He lifted his hand. A pulse of darkness shot out. My wolf screamed.

I fell to my knees.

Pain. So much pain.

"You need to remember," he said. "Before Kael. Before the pack. Before you were Aria."

Flashes erupted in my mind-burning forests, a throne of bones, a girl with my face but not my soul, laughing as worlds burned.

"No!" I screamed, clutching my head.

"You are not weak," he whispered. "You are a weapon. And you're finally waking up."

Then he vanished.

I crawled back up the tunnel, barely able to breathe. The cavern had vanished behind me-as if it was never there.

I burst into my room and slammed the door shut behind me, sliding to the floor, shaking. My pendant pulsed against my chest. My skin still glowed faintly. My wolf was silent.

No. Not silent.

Listening.

I didn't know who the man was. Or what he meant by me being a weapon. But I couldn't deny what I'd seen. What I'd felt.

Something ancient stirred inside me.

And it was hungry.

Later that night, there was another knock.

Not Ronan's.

Not Caius's.

This one was soft. Hesitant.

"Aria?"

I blinked.

That voice.

I knew that voice.

I opened the door slowly.

And there he stood.

Kael.

Alive. Here.

And looking at me with wide, shocked eyes.

"I thought you were dead," he whispered.

I couldn't breathe. Rage and heartbreak flooded me all at once.

"You rejected me," I spat.

"I know. And I made a mistake."

He stepped forward.

I stepped back.

He reached out. "Aria, please. I've been seeing things-dreams. You... you were screaming. Then fire. Darkness. I think we're connected, even now."

"No," I said, shaking my head. "You broke the bond."

"I tried," he said, voice low. "But something stronger held on. Something older than fate."

I stared at him.

Then he whispered the words that shattered everything:

"The Moon Goddess didn't make a mistake. She made a weapon."