Chapter 2 Whispers Beneath the Moon

The trees knew her name.

They didn't speak it - not like the villagers whispered it behind closed doors - but Auren Vale could feel it in the way the branches shifted when she passed, the way the roots curled slightly from the earth, like stretching fingers aching to touch. It had been eight years since she last walked these woods, but the land hadn't forgotten her. That was the trouble with blood magic. It never truly let go.

The air in the Vale was colder than she remembered - not just cold in temperature, but cold in memory, cold in silence. The kind of cold that held things in its breath: old secrets, unfinished rituals, and bones buried under moss. Auren pulled her hood tighter, brushing away a wayward strand of chestnut hair as she stepped over the twisted roots of an ancient sycamore. Her boots left soft impressions in the damp soil. She didn't look back. Not once.

She'd come to bury the past, but the past was already stirring. Watching. Waiting.

The old village loomed ahead - no more than a ring of scattered cottages with moss-eaten roofs, their chimneys coughing thin tendrils of smoke into the gray sky. Auren kept to the edge of the clearing, her heart drumming as she approached the house that still carried her family name. A crooked sign dangled above the porch: VALE. Faded letters, cracked wood. A memory that refused to rot.

She had not been expected.

The door creaked open with a long groan, and the scent hit her immediately - sage, ash, and time. Dust danced in sunbeams, swirling like spirits. The cottage had been locked, but never abandoned. Someone had been keeping it. Someone had been waiting.

Auren stepped inside.

Everything was where it had been the day she left - the old stone hearth, the iron kettle, the worn leather chair with claw marks on the armrest. Her mother's spellbooks still lined the far shelf, spines cracked and pages softened from use. She reached for one, fingers trembling, and pulled it free. A slip of paper fluttered out - a pressed violet, brittle with age. Her mother had always pressed flowers between pages, claiming they carried whispers from the gods.

She hadn't believed it back then. She wasn't sure if she did now.

The floor creaked behind her.

She spun, heart in her throat.

Nothing. Just the quiet. Just the house remembering how to breathe.

Outside, a wolf howled - long, low, and near. Too near.

She stiffened.

It was said the wolves of the Blackpine Vale were no ordinary creatures. Their howls could curse crops, summon storms, or lure a child from its bed. It was said they were bloodbound to the first moon witches, cursed to carry their sins across generations. It was said many things.

Auren knew which ones were true.

She stepped onto the back porch, eyes scanning the treeline. Evening light spilled through the fog, fractured by twisted branches. The air hummed, low and alive. Then she saw it.

A shape - just beyond the edge of the trees.

Tall. Broad-shouldered. Watching.

Not a wolf. A man.

Or something close.

Her heart faltered.

He didn't move, but the air around him did - thick with presence, with weight. Even from here, she could feel the heat of his gaze. A flicker of memory surged: the boy with dark hair and burning eyes, the one who had stood beside her the day her mother's pyre burned. She hadn't seen him since.

Kael Ravaryn.

Auren stepped down from the porch. "You shouldn't be here."

"I could say the same," Kael replied, his voice deeper than she remembered - rough, quiet, like thunder that hadn't made up its mind. He took a step forward, and the mist seemed to part for him. "The Circle doesn't know you're back."

"That's the idea."

He studied her, expression unreadable. His clothes were simple - black tunic, worn boots - but there was nothing simple about him. Not the way he stood, like he was part of the forest. Not the way the wind didn't touch him.

"Is it true?" he asked after a beat.

Auren frowned. "What?"

"That you still carry it."

She froze. "I don't know what you mean."

Kael tilted his head, eyes sharp. "You do."

Auren exhaled slowly. "It's dormant."

"For now."

They stood in silence, the wind rustling leaves around them like whispers eavesdropping on forbidden things. Auren's pulse pounded in her ears. She hadn't come here for Kael. She hadn't come for anyone.

But Kael had always been different.

Even as a boy, he had been quiet where the others were cruel, steady where they were chaotic. She had seen something in him once - not safety, not exactly. But understanding. A mirror to the parts of herself she didn't dare speak aloud.

He moved closer, gaze softening. "It's not safe for you here."

"I'm not looking for safe," she replied. "I'm looking for answers."

His jaw tightened. "The Circle won't welcome you."

"They never did."

"That was before your blood called fire."

She flinched.

Kael took another step. Now he stood just a breath away, the air between them taut. Auren could see the faint scar that crossed his collarbone, the pale glint of something old and cruel. She didn't ask how he got it. She already knew. They had all paid a price the night her mother died.

"You're stirring things by coming back," he murmured. "The land feels it. The pack feels it."

"So do I."

Kael looked at her then, really looked - not like someone seeing a ghost, but someone who had never stopped believing it would return. "You shouldn't have come alone."

"I wasn't alone," she said, voice like ash. "I had ghosts."

He didn't smile, but something flickered in his eyes. He reached out, almost without thinking, and for a moment, she thought he might touch her face. Instead, he let his hand fall.

"If you need help-"

"I don't."

"I'll give it anyway."

Auren didn't know what to say to that. The forest didn't wait for her to answer.

Another howl split the air - sharper this time, closer. Not one wolf. Two. Maybe more.

Kael tensed. "They've caught your scent."

"I didn't think they'd dare come this close."

"They wouldn't. Not unless someone let them."

Auren narrowed her eyes. "You think I was followed?"

"I think," Kael said, gaze narrowing, "you've walked back into something much deeper than you remember. And not all wolves forget."

She stared past him, into the trees that had once held her cradle and now held her warning. The woods knew her blood. And they weren't the only ones.

Kael moved to stand beside her. "There's a place - a hollow past the ravine. Still warded. No one goes there."

"You think I should hide?"

"I think you should live."

Auren hesitated. She hadn't come to run. She'd come to reclaim. But Kael wasn't offering safety. He was offering a choice.

And choices had teeth here.

She looked at him, this boy-now-man with wild eyes and a voice like the storm. "You'll take me?"

He nodded once. "Tonight."

Auren turned, walking toward the trees. "Then lead the way, Ravaryn."

Behind them, the Vale watched - silent, waiting.

And the woods whispered a name they hadn't spoken in years.

Witch.