The Luna's Dark Protector

The Ambush

Three days. Three days of brittle silence in Silvermane Keep. The story, a masterwork of lies woven by the surviving Council elders, was that a cave-in during the attack had collapsed the dungeon and part of the undercroft, tragically killing Elder Cameron and grievously wounding the Alpha. The Shadow-Stalker was not mentioned. Prince Kaelen, ‘recovering from his ordeal,’ was kept in his chambers.

The truth was sealed in the mountain’s belly with the unconscious Oracle, a healing Theron, and the two people who had broken the world.

Elara moved through her days like a ghost. The absence of the bond was a phantom ache, a hollow space in her chest where a resonant hum had been. She would catch herself listening for his silent footsteps, feeling for his gaze, only to remember it was gone. He was gone, not from the keep, but from her.

Kael was sequestered in a remote tower room, not a cell, but not a cell either. Guards delivered food but did not enter. Theron, weak but clear-eyed as the Oracle’s Tears purged the poison’s last dregs, had given the order. “He is not a prisoner. He is a powder keg. We do not know what he is now. Until we do, he stays contained.”

The part of Elara that Luna understood. The part that remembered his scream as the mark shattered, that had seen the lunar fire in his new eyes, agreed. The part of her that was just a woman ached.

On the fourth day, restlessness and duty compelled her. The pack was tense, grieving, and confused. The Alpha was bedridden. Luna needed to be seen. She announced a short, symbolic ride to the Sunfall Ridge, the site of the vacant wolves, to perform a rite of cleansing and reclamation. It was politics and theater, a show of strength.

Her party was small: two senior guards she trusted, and at Theron’s quiet, firm insistence, four of his most loyal warriors. They rode out at dawn under a bruised, grey sky that promised snow.

Kael was not with them. His containment was absolute. As her horse passed beneath the gatehouse, Elara felt the absence like a missing limb.

The forest was too quiet. The usual chatter of birds and the scurry of small creatures, were absent. The air was still and heavy. The guards were tense, hands never far from their weapons. They reached the clearing at Sunfall Ridge. The ancient stone circle stood, empty now, but the ground where the vacant wolves had stood was blackened and dead.

Elara dismounted, her boots crunching on frost-rimed grass. She began the simple ritual, scattering purified salt and speaking words of renewal. Her voice sounded small in the vast, waiting silence.

It was then the wind shifted, carrying a new scent from the tree line: rot, and something metallic. Like old blood and ozone.

The senior guard, Gorven, stiffened. “Luna. To your horse. Now.”

From the shadows of the pines, they emerged. Not corrupted wolves with green fire. These were different.

Rogues. A dozen of them. Mangy, scarred, starved-looking beasts. But they moved with a chilling, military precision, fanning out to encircle the clearing. And their eyes… they glowed with a cold, steady blue light. Not the hungry green of the tomb-dweller’s magic. This was a colder, more intelligent light. A calculating light.

“Blue eyes,” Gorven breathed, drawing his sword. “Moon’s mercy… I’ve only heard tales…”

“What tales?” Elara whispered, backing toward her skittish horse.

“The Frostfang Pack. Their Alphas are said to have eyes of winter blue when they call on the deep cold. But these are rogues… they can’t be…”

The rogues didn’t attack. They held the circle, their blue gazes fixed on Elara with an unnerving, unified focus.

Then, a man stepped from the trees.

He was tall, wrapped in grey and white furs, his hair the color of pale ash. His face was sharp, handsome, and utterly devoid of warmth. And his eyes were the same brilliant, glacial blue as the rogues. He carried no obvious weapon.

“Luna Elara,” he said, his voice smooth as ice over a river. “I am Brynnan, of the true Frostfang line. We apologize for the dramatic introduction, but your keep is currently… occupied by unreliable elements.”

Elara’s mind raced. Frostfang. The rival pack from the northern mountains is the source of the border tensions in the Council. But this was no border raid.

“What do you want?” she demanded, forcing Luna’s authority into her voice.

“To deliver a warning your own people are too blind or too compromised to give you,” Brynnan said, his blue eyes sweeping her guards with disdain. “The sickness you face is the green death is not the only ancient thing stirring. You have awakened a sleeper, yes. But in doing so, you have cracked the oldest pact. The Pact of the Three Sisters.”

He took a step forward. The blue-eyed rogues growled in unison, a sound like grinding ice. “The First Luna, Selene, was not the only one of her kind. There were three. Sisters. Selene of the Silvermane, the Heart. Lyra of the Frostfang, the Mind. And the lost one, whose name is Ash, the Shadow.” His gaze intensified. “You imprisoned Selene. We imprisoned Lyra, deep in the ice, when the hunger took her too. A different hunger. A cold, logical hunger. Your recent… metaphysical disturbance… has echoed in the ice. My ancestor is waking.”

The ground fell away beneath Elara. Another one. There was another.

“The green sickness seeks to consume, to feel, to burn,” Brynnan continued. “The blue chill seeks to analyze, to control, to preserve… in perfect, eternal ice. They are enemies. And you, little Luna, are the prize they both need. Selene needs your bond’s key. Lyra needs your living warmth to thaw her prison and make her whole.” He smiled, a thin, cold curve of his lips. “We of the true Frostfang have guarded the ice tomb for generations. We have no desire to see our dread ancestors walk again. So. We offer an alliance. Not packs. Of necessity.”

It was a staggering proposition. An enemy offering aid to prevent a worse enemy.

“What alliance?” Gorven snarled, not lowering his sword.

“You have something we need,” Brynnan said, his eyes locking on Elara. “The weapon you created. The shattered Stalker. His new power… the void-light. It is anathema to both ancient hungers. It is the only thing that can permanently silence them. We help you secure him, control him, and direct him. You let us use him to scour the ice clean before Lyra fully wakes.”

He wanted Kael. Not to kill him. To use him as a scalpel. To turn his torment into their tool.

Before Elara could process the horrific offer, a new sound cut through the air a sound that made the blue-eyed rogues flinch and snarl.

A howl. But not from the forest.

From the keep. Miles away, but carrying on in the still air with unnatural clarity.

It was a howl of pure, undiluted rage and pain. A sound that scraped against the soul. It was Kael.

He had felt it. The blue chill. The new threat. Or he had felt her fear. And his new, unstable power had reacted.

As the echo of the howl died, Brynnan’s icy composure cracked for the first time. A flicker of fear, then fierce satisfaction, crossed his face. “He feels it. Good. The weapon recognizes the threat. The alliance is even more urgent now.”

He raised a hand. The blue-eyed rogues tensed to attack. Not to kill, Elara realized. To capture. To take her as leverage for the “alliance.”

“Fight!” Gorven yelled, and the Silvermane guards closed ranks around her.

But at that moment, the world went… quiet. Not silent. The wind still blew. But a layer of sound was stripped away, leaving everything feeling distant, muted.

Shadows at the edge of the clearing deepened, not with green mist or blue light, but with a profound, swallowing darkness.

And from those shadows, he came.

Not running. Walking. Slowly, deliberately.

Kael.

He wore no cloak. His clothes were the simple ones from his tower. His feet were bare on the frozen ground. And his eyes… they were that solid, glowing silver, casting their own moon-pale light. The air around him warped, a heat-haze of cold power.

He had not escaped. He had simply… left. The guards, the locks, the stone none of it had been a barrier to what he had become.

He walked into the clearing, ignoring the Frostfang rogues, his silver gaze fixed on Brynnan.

“You,” Kael said, his voice not a roar, but a low vibration that thrummed in the bones. “You speak of cages. Of using tools.” He tilted his head, a predator considering prey. “I am done being a tool.”

Brynnan took a step back, his blue eyes wide. “You are unstable! You need guidance! Control!”

“No,” Kael said, raising a hand. Not in a fist. His fingers were splayed. “I need a message.”

From his outstretched hand, a beam of that silent, white void-light lanced out. Not at Brynnan. At the largest blue-eyed rogue beside him.

Where it struck, the rogue didn't burn, didn't freeze. It… unmade. It dissolved from existence in a cascade of shimmering, silent particles, leaving behind not even ash. Just space and a fading, crystalline chime.