The Wolf Without a Name
1302 Words
The Wolf Without a Name
---
The Scentless One
She was found wandering the edge of the Whispering Peaks — a child, barely old enough to shift, eyes like mirrorglass and skin pale as moonbone.
But there was nothing around her.
No family.
No memory.
No scent.
Not voided… not masked… simply never born with one.
When Averie approached, wandering how the girl got there. The girl stared into her.
“You are the fire, but I am the silence.
And we are both the end.”
Then she blinked and began to hum — the same haunting tune the Voidbearer had whispered through broken wolves.
The girl touched Averie’s hand.
And for a second — just a second — Averie couldn’t remember her own name.
But fire fought back.
And flame won.
Still, the girl smiled.
“One day,” she said softly, “you will wish to forget, too.”
---
Deep in the shattered ruins of the Icebinder Library, Kaelen and Myrra unearthed the oldest scent-scroll ever recorded — sealed in bone and blood, hidden behind fire-warded walls.
Written in ancient Luna script, it read:
“When scent and memory unravel, when fire cannot hold, two shall rise.
The Remembrance Queen, who burns to bind what was broken.
And the Shadow Alpha, who walks without light… to restore what was never known.”
Myrra stared. “This… this is you. Both of you.”
Kaelen stepped closer to Averie.
“Do you think we were always meant to fight this together?”
Averie looked down at her flame-marked hands.
“I think… we were born to become the choice fate forgot to make.”
---
They came at dawn.
The ground trembled before the first howl rose — void-scented wolves pouring from the treeline like shadows with no soul. At their lead: Mikael, face covered, wielding a chain of scentless fire.
He threw it at the Flameborn gates, and they cracked.
“Averie Flameborn!” he roared.
“Come see what scent is worth when memory dies!”
The Lunal Conclave held fast — but they were outnumbered, overwhelmed. Voidfire exploded through the air, ripping through the sky like anti-light.
Averie stood at the altar, her flame staff raised.
“This land remembers,” she whispered.
And she ignited the Heartfire — the soul of the Flameborn mountains.
The sky turned white.
Wolves on both sides froze.
Because in that moment, everyone remembered everything — all pain, all love, all choices.
Even Mikael hesitated.
And the little scentless girl, watching from afar, blinked.
“She chose memory,” she whispered. “Even when it hurt.”
----
She vanished in the night.
No one saw her leave. No one heard a sound. But in the morning, the scentless girl’s cot was empty — and her lullaby hummed through the ashes of the council hall.
They found her again near the Mirrorfall cliffs, standing on the edge of the world.
Averie approached slowly.
“You don’t have to run.”
The girl didn’t look back.
“I’m not running. I’m becoming.”
Her voice warped — deeper now, older. Both child and shadow. A thousand echoes through one throat.
“You gave them memory.
I offer them peace.
Why remember pain when they could simply… forget?”
The Voidbearer was speaking through her now — not just voice, but will.
The girl’s eyes glowed black, then cleared.
Tears ran down her cheeks.
“He’s inside. I can’t stop him.”
Averie reached for her — but she stepped backward and vanished in a shimmer of voidlight.
Gone.
And now he had a vessel.
---
Kaelen stood in front of the ancient granite gates, wind howling through the cliffs.
The Well of Names was buried beneath the oldest mountain — a place where every wolf's name was once etched in stone, protected by ancestral magic.
Now, those stones were cracking.
Averie knelt before the first broken slab and whispered her own name.
The rock shimmered — showing the names of all her ancestors.
But then… it began to erase itself.
Letter by letter.
Fire flared from her hands.
“No,” she hissed. “You do not take this from me.”
Kaelen pressed his palm to the stone.
“We name ourselves.
We choose to remember.
And no void will take that from us.”
The Well pulsed.
And the names began to rewrite themselves — not from fate.
From will.
From choice.
From love.
---
Back at Moonrise Keep, the Lunal Conclave met in secret — the victory against the Void-collars giving them hope… but also fear.
One Luna stood apart. Seralyn of the Duskwatch.
A former ally.
Now… shaking.
“They will take our children,” she whispered. “Our bonds. What if forgetting is… safer?”
She had a vial in her palm — filled with void essence.
Averie stepped forward. “Seralyn. Don’t.”
But Seralyn drank.
The howl that ripped from her throat shattered glass.
Her scent — gone.
Her eyes — voidlit.
She attacked the High Luna in a flash, tearing through sacred oathfire.
Myrra screamed.
Kaelen shifted mid-stride.
But it was Averie who brought Seralyn down — not with flame, but with a single word:
“Remember.”
Seralyn stilled… and wept.
And Averie realized:
Even the strongest wolves could break.
But the brave ones?
Chose to remember anyway.
---
Myrra returned from the southern sanctum holding a forbidden scroll — one sealed for centuries by Averie’s own house.
Averie unrolled it, hands trembling.
And there it was.
A name buried beneath ink and ash: Veyra Flameborn, Luna of the Ember Veil… and Consort of the First Voidbearer.
Her ancestor.
A union of fire and forgetting.
Averie stumbled back.
Kaelen caught her. “That’s why the void seeks you. You carry both.”
Myrra’s voice was soft. “You were never just a guardian. You’re the key. The bridge.”
Averie’s chest heaved.
“They didn’t just steal my scent. They knew what I was. They feared it.”
Kaelen stepped closer. “What if they should?”
Her eyes flared gold and black — the first time both flames burned in her.
---
Far across the frostlands, the girl stood at the obsidian altar, arms raised.
One by one, wolves stepped forward — once rogue, now empty.
She pressed her hands to their necks.
And took their scents.
“You will not need names where we are going,” she whispered.
They became shadows in flesh, scentless, bondless, eyes dim and voices silent.
When they marched, the land cried out. And at the center of their ranks was Mikael — no longer masked.
He had become The Nameless General.
The girl — no longer just a vessel — wore robes woven of void and memory.
A new Luna of forgetting.
And they marched… toward Flameborn Crest.
---
That night, Averie walked the Spirit Path alone.
To wield both fire and void… she had to face the cost.
The air shifted.
And from the mist, came the dead.
Her mother. Her first Alpha. Wolves she’d failed. Lovers she'd outlived. Friends consumed by the void.
They stared at her.
“You think memory is enough?” her mother whispered. “Then why did you let us die?”
Averie dropped to her knees.
“I didn't forget you. I just… couldn't save you all.”
Kaelen’s ghost appeared last.
But this time — it wasn’t a memory.
He stepped out from the shadows, blood dripping from a wound across his chest.
Alive.
Wounded.
“Then fight,” he said. “Fight like you’re the fire and the storm.”
---
Averie rose.
Scentless wolves were coming.
She had no army left but fire, faith… and ghosts.
And she would fight with all three.
---
- Writer
