ChainsOfTheMoon
2102 Words
The chains bite into my wrists before I even move. They’re slick with something colder than silver—something older. The scent hits me like a blade to the throat: ash, wolfsbane, and blood. My pulse stutters.
General Kael Magnus smiles without warmth. It’s a scarred smile, carved by years of cruelty. His eyes gleam like frozen oil under the faint green glow leaking from the ceiling runes.
“Hello, little Moondust,” he says. His voice hasn’t changed since I last heard it as a child. Smooth and venomous, like silk drawn over a knife. “I wondered how long you’d hide.”
I force my back straight against the pillar, even though my knees shake. “My name is Ari.”
His grin deepens. “Lies. Even your scent betrays you.” He steps closer. “Ariel Duskborn. Surrogate of Alpha Magnus. Betrothed to our blood…Our property.”
The old word lands like a whip crack. Property. Surrogate. My lungs seize, but this time I don’t drop my gaze.
“I’m not yours,” I whisper. “Not his. Not anyone’s.”
Kael’s laugh is a quiet, choking thing. “Not yet.”
He gestures lazily. The chains tighten, glowing faintly as if in answer to his will. Pain shoots up my arms, a burning itch under my skin where the wolffire wants to erupt.
“Do you know where you are?” Kael asks.
I glance around the chamber. It isn’t just a cell; it’s a vault. Old glyphs carved into the walls, a cracked altar at the far end. The air hums with ancient power—pack magic gone stale, heavy with dust and blood-memory.
“No,” I say.
“You’re beneath the Labyrinth, in the Moon’s Root,” Kael murmurs. “Built before the Academy. A place of binding. Only one of Moondust blood can open it.”
A sick understanding crawls over me. He didn’t just stumble into me down here. He lured me. The collapse. The chains. The relic at the altar above—bait.
My father warned me about Kael once, when I was barely old enough to shift. He’s worse than Magnus. Magnus wants control. Kael wants to break things so no one else can hold them.
“What do you want?” My voice cracks despite my effort to keep it steady.
Kael tilts his head. “Magnus’s plan is… delicate. You were supposed to return willingly to the fold. Instead, you ran to this Academy, hid in boys’ clothing like some gutter pup.” He steps closer, his breath cold. “He would have been patient but I’m not.”
He reaches out, thumb grazing my jaw. I flinch back, teeth bared despite the chains. My wolf snarls low in my chest.
Kael’s smile grows sharp. “Good. I like fire. Let’s see how long it lasts.”
---
Above, faintly, I hear shouting. Distant echoes, like wolves on the hunt. My heart lurches. Xander. Cassian. Maybe even Riven. They’re looking for me.
I close my eyes, breathing slow, trying to push the wolffire back down. I can’t shift fully, not here. The chains aren’t just metal—they’re spelled to siphon power. But there’s still a flicker inside me. A spark.
“You won’t get away with this,” I say softly.
Kael chuckles. “I already have.”
He moves toward the altar at the far end of the chamber. With a flick of his wrist, a hidden compartment slides open. He draws out a dagger unlike any I’ve seen before: curved, black as starless midnight, veined with silver lines.
“This is the Moonspine Blade,” Kael says almost lovingly. “Forged from your ancestor’s bones. It can carve out the wolf from a body like a surgeon removing rot. When we’re done, you won’t be Moondust anymore. You’ll be empty enough to bear Magnus’s heirs without complication.”
My stomach lurches. “You’re insane.”
“I’m thorough,” he says.
---
Chains rattle overhead. A new sound cuts through the damp air—stone splitting.
Then a roar. Deep, violent, echoing off the walls.
Xander.
Kael’s head snaps toward the ceiling. “Persistent,” he mutters. “He always was.”
Another crash. This one closer. Dust rains down.
Kael’s eyes darken. “No matter. We’ll do this quickly.”
He strides toward me, blade in hand. My pulse spikes, but I force myself to go still. If I panic, I lose. If I wait—
The chains hum against my skin. They’re drinking my wolffire, but not perfectly. I feel it, a faint shimmer of heat like embers in ash.
I whisper the old words my brother Lucan once taught me—an emergency sigil meant to burn through restraints. My breath fogs the air with each syllable. The chains hiss faintly.
Kael is almost on me. “This won’t hurt—”
The chains burst in silver sparks.
I throw myself sideways just as he lunges. The blade misses my throat by an inch, slicing a lock of my short hair. I hit the floor hard, roll, and come up crouched. My wrists are bleeding where the chains burned me, but my hands are free.
My wolf surges. Not a full shift, but claws bloom from my fingers, silver-tipped. My eyes burn white.
Kael laughs. “Ah, there’s the wolf. Good.”
---
He moves fast—faster than a man his size should. The blade arcs toward my ribs. I duck, slashing at his arm. My claws rake his sleeve but barely scratch him; some kind of armor under the fabric turns the blow.
We circle each other in the dim light, our shadows warping on the glyph-carved walls. My heart pounds. He’s stronger. Older. But he underestimates me.
“Your father begged for mercy,” Kael sneers. “You’re just like him.”
I bare my teeth. “My father taught me never to bow to monsters.”
I feint left, then lunge right, raking my claws across his face. Blood blossoms—a thin line from jaw to temple. He snarls, stepping back.
The ceiling cracks again. A chunk of stone falls, smashing into the floor between us.
Cassian’s voice booms from above: “Ari! Move!”
I don’t think. I dive toward the altar.
Kael lunges after me.
---
A burst of blue-white energy crashes through the ceiling like lightning. Stone explodes. Dust blinds me.
When it clears, Xander is there—half-shifted, his wolf huge and bristling, eyes like stormclouds. Cassian drops down beside him, blades drawn, his smile gone.
“Ari,” Cassian breathes, seeing the chains at my feet. “Gods—”
Xander doesn’t speak. He charges Kael with a roar that shakes the chamber.
Kael meets him head-on. The two collide, claws and steel flashing.
Cassian grabs my arm, pulling me back. “Are you—”
“I’m fine,” I snap, though my wrists burn and my knees tremble. “We have to stop him.”
Cassian’s eyes flick to the black dagger on the ground. He swears softly. “Moonspine.”
“What?”
“Don’t let him touch you with it,” Cassian says. “It’ll rip out your wolf.”
I swallow hard. “Noted.”
---
The fight is a blur—Xander’s wolf strength hammering at Kael’s blade, Kael’s counters precise and brutal. Sparks of old magic flare with each strike.
Cassian darts in and out, trying to flank Kael, but the general fights like a man who’s spent his whole life training for this one moment. Even outnumbered, he drives Xander back.
My wolffire pulses inside me. I can’t stand by.
I press a hand to the glyphs on the wall. Old words rise to my lips—fragments from the Moondust rites my brothers taught me in secret. My blood drips from my burned wrists, seeping into the carvings.
The glyphs flare. Silver light races along the walls, pooling at the altar. The chamber hums.
Kael freezes, eyes snapping toward me. “What are you—”
I slam my palm against the altar.
Light erupts.
It isn’t fire exactly. It’s colder, sharper—a silver nova that bursts from my chest, washing over the room. The chains, the glyphs, even the ceiling pulse with it.
Kael staggers, shielding his face. The Moonspine Blade flickers in his hand.
Xander seizes the moment, slamming into him and knocking the dagger away. It skitters across the floor to my feet.
Cassian shouts, “Ari!”
I stare at the blade. My hands shake. Every instinct says to destroy it. But something deeper—older—whispers to pick it up.
I do.
It’s cold as ice and hot as blood all at once. Power surges up my arm. My vision flashes silver. For an instant, I see everything—the Academy above, Riven standing at the gate, my brothers pacing the forests beyond. The Moondust line, burning like stars.
Kael snarls, lunging for me.
I turn, blade raised. The moment stretches like the breath before a howl.
“This is for my father,” I whisper.
I s***h downward.
---
The blade doesn’t cut Kael’s flesh. It cuts his magic. The silver veins on the weapon flare bright, ripping the shadow from his body like smoke from fire.
Kael screams—a sound like tearing metal—as the wolfsbane scent dies from the air. He collapses to his knees, gasping, his aura flickering like a dying flame.
Xander stands over him, chest heaving. “Stay down.”
Cassian grips my shoulder. “Ari. Drop the blade.”
I realize my hands are shaking violently. The weapon hums, eager for more. It wants to feed. It wants to take Kael’s wolf entirely.
I force my fingers to open. The blade clatters to the floor.
The chamber falls silent except for Kael’s ragged breathing.
“I should kill you,” Xander growls.
“No,” I rasp, my voice hoarse. “Not here. Not like this.”
Kael laughs weakly. “Mercy… from a Moondust… how quaint…”
He slumps forward, unconscious.
---
Headmaster Riven’s voice echoes from above, calm but resonant: “Bring her up.”
Cassian and Xander exchange a look. Without a word, Xander bends, scoops me up as if I weigh nothing. I don’t protest. My limbs feel like water, my head also light.
As they carry me toward the tunnel, I glance back once at Kael. For the first time in my life, he doesn’t look like a monster. He looks small and broken.
But his words still echo in my head.
Surrogate. Property.
Not anymore.
Never again.
---
We emerge from the Labyrinth into blinding moonlight. Snow swirls around us. The entire Academy is gathered on the rise—students, instructors, onlookers. Murmurs ripple through them as they see me in Xander’s arms, wrists bloody, eyes glowing faint silver.
Riven steps forward, his expression unreadable. “General Kael Magnus has violated Academy grounds.” His gaze cuts to the instructors behind him. “He will be taken to the council for judgment.”
Cassian sets the Moonspine Blade on the snow at Riven’s feet. “You’ll want to keep that locked.”
Riven’s eyes flick to me, then the blade, then back. “I suspected as much,” he murmurs. “The old order moves sooner than expected.”
I swallow hard. My voice barely rises above a whisper. “They’ll keep coming, won’t they?”
“Yes,” Headmaster Riven says softly. “But so will you.”
Something in his gaze—something ancient, almost sorrowful—makes me shiver.
---
Later, in the infirmary, Cassian cleans the burns on my wrists while Xander sits silently at the window, his hands still trembling.
“You scared me,” Cassian says quietly.
I manage a weak smile. “Join the club.”
Xander turns, his storm-gray eyes meeting mine. “You fought him even while chained. You fought him.”
I shrug. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“No,” Xander says. “You did and you chose to fight.”
The words hit deeper than I expect. My throat tightens. For a moment, the walls of my disguise feel thinner, my real self pressing against the surface.
Cassian notices but says nothing.
Outside, the moon rises full and cold over the Ghostfang Mountains.
Inside, for the first time since I fled my father’s house, I feel not just fear—but power.
A dangerous, fragile power.
Mine…
---
- Writer
