A New Moon Rising
1425 Words
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Even with Selene dethroned and scent suppression outlawed, peace did not come easily.
The western packs—especially the Ironfangs and the Obsidian Circle—rejected Averie’s reforms. To them, scent was control, and control kept wolves in line.
One Alpha stood in open defiance during the southern summit.
“If fate is free,” he snarled, “then chaos is king.”
Averie stood on the steps of the old tribunal, flame glinting behind her eyes.
“No,” she said calmly. “Fate is choice. That’s what makes it powerful.”
But that night, the Obsidian Circle’s seal was shattered — their archive of bond records burned to the ground.
On the walls, scrawled in blood:
"What cannot be remembered… cannot be bound."
A sigil was left behind.
Not of fire.
But of void.
-----
Myrra brought the girl in just before dawn. Her scent was completely… absent. Not suppressed. Not masked. Just gone.
Averie tried flame magic — it danced harmlessly over her skin.
“She doesn’t remember her name,” Myrra whispered. “Or her pack. Or what was done to her.”
Kaelen knelt beside the girl. “What do you remember?”
The girl blinked slowly. Then whispered:
“The man in the smoke. He said… scent is the prison. If we lose it… we’re finally free.”
Averie froze.
Because she had heard that voice before.
Not in the world of wolves…
But in a vision beneath the Moon Cavern.
The Voidbearer.
A legend. A curse.
The only wolf to reject fate completely.
If he was real — and he was moving — this wasn’t over.
This was just beginning.
---
But even in the storm, there was still space for softness.
Averie and Kaelen stood in the clearing beneath the twin moons — the sacred place where Lunas once chose their mates without scent, without prophecy. Just truth.
Kaelen offered no vow.
Only his hand.
“Not because fate says we’re tied.
Not because scent tells me so.
But because every time I look at you —
I choose to stay.”
Averie laced her fingers with his.
“Then stay. And if the world burns again, we burn it together.”
The fire circle flared around them — not forced, not branded.
Invited.
And when they kissed, the sky broke open in silver light.
A second bond bloomed.
One made not of instinct, but remembrance.
Hunting the Origin
The Eastern Wastes were known only in whispers — lands where the sun barely touched the snow and time moved like smoke.
Averie, Kaelen, and Myrra traveled light, guided only by fragments of moonlore and the words carved into the Void-scent girl’s collar:
“Beyond scent. Beneath memory. Beside the silent flame.”
The deeper they went, the less Averie’s fire responded to her. Magic warped here. The air felt… hollow.
Then, deep beneath the ruins of an old Moon Shrine, they found it.
A frozen mural, chiseled into black stone — depicting a wolf without scent glands, without soul marks, without tether.
The First Voidbearer.
A wolf who tore his bond out to escape fate — and became a god of forgetting.
"He did not want freedom," Myrra whispered. "He wanted to never belong again."
But before they could flee the ruins, a sigil on the floor pulsed with dark light.
“You came searching for truth,” a voice echoed.
“But truth forgets you now.”
Averie screamed — not from pain, but emptiness.
She forgot her mother’s voice.
She forgot the first time she shifted.
Kaelen held her face, eyes panicked. “Stay with me. Say my name!”
Averie blinked.
“…Kaelen.”
The fire flickered back on.
But it took effort.
And something — some part of her — had stayed behind.
---
Back at Moonrise Keep, chaos reigned.
Bonded mates began waking in panic — not recognizing each other. Howls echoed from the infirmary wing as one pair after another forgot the very wolves they were tied to.
The void was spreading.
Myrra clenched her jaw. “It’s not just stealing scent now. It’s unmaking memory bonds.”
And worse — the suppression technology Selene once used?
It had evolved.
Someone was building void-collars — devices that didn’t suppress scent, but wiped it completely, leaving wolves adrift.
Averie stared at the map. Each voided incident traced a spiral.
And at the center?
Her home territory.
The Flameborn Crest.
“Whoever’s doing this,” she whispered, “is coming for where I began.”
---
That night, Averie summoned her council — desperate to regroup, to rally, to find a strategy.
But the moment she lit the fire at the council hearth, the flames went black.
And a voice she trusted most stepped forward.
Mikael — her father’s old ally. Her own war advisor.
“I didn’t want to betray you,” he said softly. “But this world you’re building? Wolves aren’t ready for it.”
He dropped something into the flame — and vanished in a burst of smoke.
Kaelen grabbed the object he left behind.
A scent crystal. Averie’s own.
Fractured.
Tampered.
Tainted.
She collapsed to her knees.
“Even the memory of me… isn’t safe anymore.”
---
Averie lay still in the Moonwater chamber — her eyes closed, body submerged in the glowing pool used only for rites of soul memory.
Three flames flickered above her.
One for her past.
One for her bond.
One for her truth.
If they dimmed — she would be lost.
Kaelen sat at her side, hands clenched.
Myrra stood guard.
The Lunal Healer whispered: “If she can’t find the thread back… she’ll forget everything.”
Inside the ritual, Averie found herself barefoot in a memory-warped version of her childhood forest — trees made of glass, wolves with no faces.
Every time she tried to speak her name… it vanished from her tongue.
But then — she heard a hum.
A song.
Her mother’s lullaby.
Following it, she reached a tree with bark shaped like fire. Etched in the roots: Averie of the Flameborn. Daughter. Chosen. Remembered.
She placed her hand to the trunk.
The void screamed.
But fire remembered.
She woke gasping, the flames above her pulsing gold.
Kaelen caught her in his arms, breath breaking.
“You came back.”
She looked at him, tears slipping down her cheeks.
“And I remembered you.”
---
That same moon-cycle, a rare conclave was called — the Circle of Lunas, once broken, now reforged.
Twenty-seven women stood in the silver grove, each carrying scent-scrolls from their ancestors. None bowed. All burned.
The High Luna stepped forward, her voice clear:
“The Void rises. The world forgets. But we, who give memory to fate, must not.”
She turned to Averie, who stood cloaked in red and silver.
“We name you Guardian of the Flame.
The Keeper of Scent.
The Remembrance.”
Averie took the oath — not just with her lips, but with a drop of her blood pressed into the ancestral fire.
From that fire, a new mark was born on her collarbone — glowing like a branded sun.
And when the Lunas howled that night, they howled not in mourning.
But in defiance.
---
The intel was clear: the main void-collar production facility was deep within the Black Hollow Mines — rigged with tech and guarded by wolves who no longer remembered loyalty.
Averie wanted to go.
Kaelen stopped her.
“I’ll lead this one,” he said, eyes fierce. “You guard what matters. If I fall… I want you to remember me fully.”
She kissed him like fire kisses air — desperately, deeply.
“I’ll remember you into the next life.”
Then he was gone.
The raid went fast — and bloody.
Kaelen reached the central forge, shattered the blue-glowing core. But as the mines began to collapse, he saw the final collar batch — laced with her scent.
Rigged with a spell.
He grabbed the crate, shoved it toward Myrra.
“Get it out.”
She screamed as the rocks came down.
---
Hours later, Averie stood at the edge of the rubble.
They had the collars.
The world might still burn.
But Kaelen…
Gone.
Or was he?
From the smoke, bloodied but breathing, he limped forward — scent faint but present.
She ran to him, tears and flame both falling.
“I thought—”
He stopped her with a kiss. “You’d never forget me.”
And she hadn’t.
- Writer
