Chapter twenty one
879 Words
The moon was full.
Not silver, not gold—crimson.
A blood moon.
A warning.
I stood on the high cliff overlooking the valley. Below, shadows crept like a slow tide, stretching toward the fortress. Ivy’s funeral pyre had burned down to embers. The scent of smoke still lingered in my hair. In my soul.
Kael stood behind me, silent.
Neither of us had slept.
“You okay?” he asked quietly.
“No,” I said. “But I’m still breathing.”
That was enough—for now.
The fortress was on high alert. Warriors from three packs had arrived overnight, answering Kael’s call. Reinforcements lined the battlements, scouts roamed the border. But even they couldn’t stop what came next.
A raven flew in at dawn.
Its eyes were white.
Its feathers—blackened by fire.
It landed on the war table and dropped a scroll, sealed in blood.
Dorian snatched it and read aloud:
“Return the Moonstone to the ruins of Eldros by the third moonrise…
Or the Alpha dies.”
I froze.
“Who—”
Kael’s name was branded across the parchment in ash.
He took the scroll from Dorian and studied it. His voice was eerily calm. “Lucian has made his move.”
“He wants you to come alone,” I whispered.
Kael nodded. “He wants me afraid. Wants me desperate.”
I grabbed his arm. “Don’t go. It’s a trap.”
“I know,” he said softly.
But he was going anyway.
Because that’s who he was.
Hours later, I watched him ride out through the gates with only his wolf, Noctis, beside him. The Moonstone pulsed beneath my ribs, echoing his heartbeat even as he vanished into the mist.
I should’ve followed.
I should’ve begged him to wait.
But I didn’t.
Because the Moonstone was burning now.
Trial Three had begun.
And this time, I wouldn’t walk into a cave.
It was coming to me.
It started in my dreams.
Whispers—ancient, wrong.
I saw flames licking the walls of the orphanage.
I heard Ivy screaming again.
And in the fire’s heart, I saw her.
The Shadow Queen.
Not a monster. Not a goddess.
A woman.
A mother.
She stood in the smoke, her face half-burned, her crown forged from twisted roots. Her voice was soft, almost kind.
“You carry the Moonstone, child. But you know nothing of what it cost me to create it.”
I stepped forward in the dream. “What do you want?”
Her smile was heartbreaking. “What every mother wants. Justice.”
She reached for me.
“You don’t have to fight. Give me the stone… and I’ll show you your bloodline. I’ll give you back Ivy. Back your mother. Back your past.”
“I don’t want the past,” I hissed. “I want the truth.”
The dream broke.
I woke up screaming.
And the castle walls were shaking.
The third trial wasn’t a physical battle.
It was a revelation.
One I wasn’t ready for.
The Moonstone dragged me to the old sanctuary hidden beneath the fortress. A place only the ruling Alpha bloodline knew about.
Stone doors opened before I even touched them.
And inside… there were mirrors.
Hundreds.
Each one reflected a different version of me.
The orphan.
The mate.
The killer.
The Queen.
And one mirror in the center… didn’t reflect anything at all.
Instead, it showed a memory.
A woman in chains. Her hair dark as midnight. Her belly swollen with child.
She was giving birth.
To me.
“No,” I breathed.
The Moonstone pulsed harder.
The woman screamed—and the Shadow Queen stepped from the shadows, placing her hand on the infant’s head.
“Mark her,” the Queen whispered.
And a symbol burned into my newborn skin—the same symbol on the Moonstone.
I wasn’t chosen.
I was made.
I stumbled back, eyes wide. My voice cracked. “What am I?”
And the answer came—not from the mirror—but from her.
The Shadow Queen.
She appeared behind me in the sanctuary, a specter of smoke and sorrow.
“You are the final weapon,” she said. “Born of betrayal. Forged in loss. You are mine.”
I turned to face her.
“I am not yours. I am not anyone’s.”
“You wear my mark,” she said. “You carry my magic. And now, with the Alpha in my hands, you will come to me, or I will carve him apart.”
She vanished, leaving only blood on the floor—and a single black feather.
I ran.
Through the hallways, through the gate.
Dorian stopped me.
“Where are you going?”
“To Eldros,” I said.
“Kael said to stay—”
“I’m not staying,” I snapped. “I’m ending this.”
“But you haven’t completed the third trial—”
“Yes,” I said. “I have.”
I looked up at the sky.
The blood moon was nearly full.
And I finally understood.
The third trial wasn’t about power.
It wasn’t about choice.
It was about truth.
And I had survived it.
Now, I was ready for war.
- Writer
