Chapter 238
The banner was gone, but the chill it left behind lingered.
Even hours later, the packhouse hadn’t settled. Warriors double-checked perimeter posts. Mothers clutched their pups a little tighter. Apprentices whispered too loudly in corners.
We’d been breached without a single sword drawn. That was the real weapon they’d used—fear.
Roman, Wyatt, and Nessa stood at the war table again, charts unrolled, new guard rotations being assigned. Ella was overseeing shadow patrols near the northern cliffs. No one had slept.
Except me.
Roman had ordered it. “You’re no use to anyone if you collapse,” he’d said. “Even the Luna needs sleep.”
So now, I sat alone in my quarters, pretending I hadn’t just woken from another dream where the banner bled through my bedroom ceiling.
My reflection in the mirror was tired. Older than I remembered. I rubbed my hands together to chase away the chill, when I felt it—a pulse in the air.
Not danger.
Message.
A folded parchment lay on the windowsill.
I froze. I hadn’t heard anyone enter. The guards hadn’t seen anything. There were no footprints on the balcony.
I unfolded the note.
Midnight. One moon’s walk past the south fork, beyond the stone arch. Come alone.
This isn’t war.
Yet.
There was no signature. But at the bottom, that same cursed sigil: the crescent and fang.
I didn’t tell Roman.
I told myself I’d explain it after. If it turned out to be a trap, I’d deal with it. If it was real—if someone on the inside of the faction wanted to talk—I couldn’t risk spooking them.
So I left just before midnight.
No armor. No fanfare.
Only a blade strapped to my thigh and a single whisper to the wind: If I don’t come back, burn the forest to the roots.
The moonlight made everything seem sharper. Colder. Every crunch beneath my boots sounded like a signal. My breath misted in the air as I passed the south fork and reached the stone arch—a curved formation made of jagged rock and moss, known for nothing more than collapsed legends and crumbling prayers.
Someone stood beneath it.
Hooded. Tall. Alone.
“I came,” I said, my voice steady.
The figure didn’t move. “You shouldn’t have.”
“Then why send the note?”
“To see if you'd listen. And you did.”
They stepped forward slowly.
Not a man. A woman.
Barely older than me, with eyes like frost and coal. Hair cropped short. Face smudged with soot, as if she lived in the ashes of something long dead.
“I’m not here to threaten you,” she said.
“That’s a bold opening for someone who helped hang bones from my ceiling.”
“I didn’t string the bones,” she replied. “But I know who did.”
I took a cautious step closer. “Then start talking.”
She glanced around. “The ones you’re chasing, the ones using the crescent and fang—they call themselves the Ashborn now. They were born from the ruins the Council never told you about.”
I frowned. “Ruins?”
“Before the Council unified the territories, packs slaughtered each other. My people—my bloodline—were one of the first to surrender. Not because we lost, but because we saw what was coming.”
“And they killed you for it?”
She nodded. “The Council erased anyone who didn’t bend fast enough. Not just the traitors. The scholars. The visionaries. The peace-talkers. They buried us in ash and then rewrote the story.”
“So now you’re rewriting it back?”
Her eyes met mine, fierce and cold. “We’re unburying it.”
I took a breath. “So why meet with me?”
“Because I watched you take down Halrick. I watched you refuse to become what they were. And for a moment, I thought… maybe you’re different.”
“I am,” I said.
“Then why are you still trying to lead like they did?”
That hit like a slap.
“I’m trying to keep my people alive.”
“So are we.”
We stood in silence for a moment.
Then she reached into her cloak and handed me a scrap of fabric. A torn piece of a map. Hand-drawn.
“Wyrmhold was one piece,” she said. “There’s another ruin, deeper, hidden. The Ashborn are planning something there. Bigger. You won’t find it on your own.”
“Why are you giving me this?”
She looked up at the stars.
“Because I don’t want a war.”
“And if I do nothing?”
“Then you’ll be chasing ghosts while your pack is swallowed.”
I pocketed the map.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
She hesitated.
Then: “Maeven.”
Before I could say anything more, she stepped back into the shadows and vanished. One blink, and she was gone.
Not a rustle. Not a sound.
Ashborn indeed.
I returned to the packhouse just before dawn.
Roman was waiting at the door.
Of course he was.
He didn’t speak as I approached, but I could feel the storm rolling off him.
“You left without telling me,” he said. Calm. Too calm.
“I had to.”
“You didn’t.”
I held up the torn map. “This changes everything.”
Roman’s jaw clenched. “You risked your life on a maybe.”
“I risked it for a conversation—one we’d never get through blades and fire.”
He ran a hand through his hair, then turned away.
I stepped in front of him.
“Roman. We’re losing if we only know one side of the story.”
He looked at me then. Really looked. Eyes dark, unreadable.
“You’re right,” he said finally. “But don’t make a habit of walking into darkness without me.”
“I won’t,” I promised. “Next time, I bring you.”
He exhaled slowly. “So. We plan.”
By midday, the war table was crowded again.
I laid out the torn map Maeven had given me. The location was marked by a symbol I didn’t recognize—spiraled roots encased in a broken ring. Nessa traced her finger along the jagged lines.
“This ruin sits beneath the Serpent’s Hollow,” she said. “We’ve never gone that deep. Not since the fog collapse two years ago.”
“Because it’s unstable,” Wyatt added. “A maze of tunnels, prone to collapse. Even the bravest scouts won’t risk it.”
“They will now,” Roman said.
Ella crossed her arms. “And you trust this… Maeven?”
“No,” I said honestly. “But I trust what I saw in her eyes. She doesn’t want the kind of war the Ashborn are building.”
Wyatt narrowed his eyes. “So we beat them to their own plan?”
I nodded. “We go first. We infiltrate the Serpent’s Hollow and destroy whatever they’re building before it’s ready.”
Roman met my gaze. “And what if Maeven’s warning was a trap?”
I looked around the table. At these people who had followed me through fire, through betrayal, through rebuilding.
“Then we meet the enemy where they think we’ll break,” I said. “And we show them we don’t bend.”
That night, I stood in my room again, looking out the window.
A storm brewed far to the east, thunder rolling low over the trees.
But I didn’t fear it.
For the first time, I felt like I knew where the lightning would strike—and I was ready to stand in its path.
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