The Queen's Bond
378 Words
The days that followed were filled with whispers.
The pendant Asha now wore around her neck pulsed with heat whenever the moon rose—like it was alive. Like it remembered things she didn’t.
She began to dream.
Not of her own past—but her mother’s.
Each night, pieces of memory slipped into her mind: a silver throne, a forest court glowing with lanterns shaped like wolves, a woman with dark braids and golden eyes who stood before a circle of elders and howled like thunder.
> “I see her,” Asha whispered to Fen one morning. “My mother. She was a queen.”
Fen nodded, his tone quiet but firm. “Veyna was more than that. She was the last Moonbound. The wolves answered her call. She was betrayed by one of her own.”
> “Who?”
He didn’t answer.
Instead, he led her to a cliff above the valley. Below, shadows moved—dozens of them. Wolves. Shifters. Wildbloods. All waiting.
> “They’ve heard,” Fen said. “The forest speaks your name now.”
> “I’m not ready.”
> “That’s the curse of your blood. It doesn’t wait for you to be.”
---
That night, the wolves gathered around a great stone fire. Fen brought her forward to speak. Asha’s hands trembled, but her voice did not.
> “The Silver King killed my family,” she said. “He wants me to kneel. He thinks I will break.”
> “Will you?” asked an elder, half-wolf, half-shadow.
Asha stepped into the firelight, her pendant glowing red at her chest.
> “No,” she said. “I will rise.”
A howl echoed in the trees. Then another. And another.
Dozens of wolves raised their voices in unison, their sound shaking the stars.
Asha closed her eyes. For the first time, she howled with them—and the sound cracked the sky.
---
Far away…
In Caer Thorne, the Silver King stood before a frozen mirror. Cracks had formed across its surface.
The seer bled from her eyes.
> “She remembers,” she whispered. “And she will come.”
Malric’s jaw clenched.
> “Then let the war begin.”
- Writer
