The Luna's Dark Protector

The First Lesson

Dawn broke over Silvermane Keep, pale and tentative. Elara had not slept. Every creak of the castle settling, every sigh of the wind, had been a potential poisoned whisper, a clawed footstep. The memory of the emptied teacup sat like a shard of ice in her gut. She dressed herself, forgoing her usual maid’s help, choosing a simple gown of dove grey wool. Armor against a day she already dreaded.

The Council of Elders awaited.

The Council Chamber was a stark contrast to the Grand Hall’s celebratory opulence. It was a room of hard edges and cold calculation. A massive, scarred oak table dominated the space, its surface etched with the territorial maps of generations. The air smelled of old parchment, ink, and the faint, sharp scent of a wolf of power held tightly in human form.

Six elders sat in high-backed chairs, their faces a gallery of stern tradition. At the head, Theron, his expression still stormy from the night’s events. To his right sat the two Silvermane elders, Cameron and Linnea. To his left, three visitors: Kaelen, her betrothed, his golden beauty looking oddly brittle in the grey morning light; and two Stonefang elders, a man and a woman with faces like granite.

Elara took her designated seat beside Theron. Kael took up his position against the wall behind her chair. She felt his presence like a cold spot in the room, a focus of silent tension.

“We address the incident,” Theron began without preamble, his voice echoing in the hushed room. He placed the Stonefang totem on the table with a definitive click. “A creature bearing your mark attacked my sister last night.”

The elder Stonefang male, Goran, leaned forward. His voice was a gravelly rumble. “A mark any rogue could carve from a dead pup, Alpha Theron. Our borders have been restless. Wolves go missing. To imply Stonefang sanction”

“We imply nothing,” Theron cut in, though his tone implied everything. “We seek an explanation. The creature was… corrupted. Unnatural.”

Kaelen finally spoke, his voice smooth, practiced. “My father, the Alpha, sends his deepest concern. We have heard whispers, too. Of a blight in the deep woods. A sickness that twists the mind. We believed them to be rumors.” His pale eyes found Elara’s, projecting a warmth that didn’t reach their depths. “To think it came so close to you… It chills my blood. Our alliance is meant to be a shield, not a vector for danger.”

It was a masterful deflection. Concern, shared mystery, unity. Elara watched him, the political lesson unfolding before her. This was the dance. Truth was secondary to positioning.

Elder Linnea, a hawk-faced woman with silver hair coiled like a crown, spoke next. “The nature of the creature is secondary to the nature of the response.” Her sharp eyes flicked to Kael, standing motionless. “A Shadow-Stalker’s intervention is… extreme. Their methods are not of our world. They bring with them the very shadows they claim to fight.”

Cameron, thin and sour, nodded. “The treaties are ancient. The world has changed. We must ask: Does this ancient protection invite the modern threat? The creature did not appear until he arrived.”

The blame was being laid, not at Stonefang’s door, but at Kael’s feet. Elara felt a spark of anger. They were using the attack to isolate her protector, to reassert their own control. Her first lesson: In politics, the real enemy is often the inconvenient ally.

“The Shadow-Stalker acted under my authority,” Theron said, but his voice lacked its usual conviction. The elders’ doubt was a seed, and it had found fertile ground.

“Be that as it may,” Goran from Stonefang interjected, his tone becoming conciliatory, a wolf baring its throat to avoid a fight. “This… instability… underscores the need for our union to be solidified swiftly. A public bonding ceremony at the next full moon. Strength in unity. A combined front against this unknown blight.”

Kaelen’s smile was a blade. “Nothing would bring me greater peace, Elder Goran. To know my beloved is truly safe, bound to the strength of two packs.”

They were leveraging the fear, the chaos, to fast-track the one thing that trapped her most completely. Elara’s hands clenched in her lap. She was the central figure in the room, and she was being discussed as an asset, a token, a problem to be solved.

She took a breath. Luna did not just sit and be decided upon. “With respect,” she said, her voice clear and cool, cutting through the murmurs. All eyes turned to her, some surprised, others wary. “A bonding under threat feels less like unity and more like a hurried barricade. Should we not first understand what we are barricading against? If Stonefang knows this ‘blight,’ let us share resources, hunters, healers. Let us investigate together. A union built on shared purpose is stronger than one built on shared fear.”

Silence. She had broken protocol. Luna's role in these meetings was traditionally to listen, to bless, not to strategize.

Kaelen’s smile tightened. “Your passion does you credit, Elara. But the purpose is our people’s future. Sometimes leaders must make decisions for the greater good, even amidst uncertainty.”

The greater good. Her cage, given a noble name.

It was then that Kael, who had been a silent statue, spoke. His voice was quiet, yet it carried to every corner of the still room.

“The blight has a source. It leaves a trace. A coldness in the air where life should be. A silence in the earth.”

Every elder stared at him, unnerved by his sudden participation.

“What are you saying, Stalker?” Theron asked, his brow furrowed.

Kael’s stormy gaze was fixed not on the Alpha, nor on the Stonefang delegates, but on the intricate, woven rug that covered the center of the stone floor a beautiful piece depicting the moon goddess blessing the first Silvermane Alpha.

“I am saying,” Kael murmured, “that it is closer than you think.”

He took a single step forward, away from the wall. Then he knelt, placing his palm flat on the rug, directly over the woven moon.

For a second, nothing happened. Then, a ripple went through the rug. Not a physical ripple, but a wave of color drain. Starting from under his hand, the vibrant blues and silvers leached away into ashen grey, spreading outwards like a stain of decay. The threads didn’t just fade; they seemed to wither, to age centuries in a heartbeat.

Beneath the disintegrating tapestry, the stone floor was revealed. And carved into that floor, glowing with a faint, malevolent green phosphorescence, was a symbol. A complex, spiraling rune that pulsed once, sickly, before fading to inert stone.

The chamber erupted.

Elders shot to their feet. Theron’s chair screeched back. Kaelen’s face went from polished marble to stark white.

“What dark magic is this?” Linnea shrieked.

But Kael was already rising, his eyes like chips of flint. “No magic of mine. This is a marker. A beacon. Carved not days ago, but years. Perhaps decades.” He turned his head, his gaze sweeping the stunned faces around the table, finally landing on the Stonefang elders. “It is a ward of attraction. It is called the hungry thing. It has been woven into the very heart of your power chamber, singing a silent song only they can hear.”

The implication was catastrophic. The corruption wasn’t an outside invasion. It had been invited. Cultivated. Someone in a position of deep, lasting trust within Silvermane had carved a welcome sign into their foundations.

The political landscape was shattered. All suspicion of Stonefang as external aggressors was swallowed by a far more intimate, terrifying truth: The enemy was within Silvermane itself. Possibly had been for a generation.

Chaos dissolved into a racket of accusations and denials. Theron was barking orders to secure the room. The Stonefang elders were demanding to be cleared of this insidious implication.

Amidst the uproar, Elara sat frozen, staring at the blackened, ruined rug and the now-dull rune beneath. Her first lesson had just ended. The syllabus was treason and ancient evil.

Her eyes sought Kael. He was watching the room, a predator assessing a panicked herd. But then his gaze slid to hers.

And he gave a faint, almost imperceptible nod toward the Stonefang delegation.

Not toward the elders.

Toward Kaelen.

Her golden-haired, politically perfect betrothed was standing utterly still amidst the chaos. His face was a mask of appropriate shock and outrage. But his hands, clasped behind his back, were clenched so tightly his knuckles were bone-white. And his eyes, as they darted from the rune to Kael’s face, held not confusion, but a flash of something else.

Not fear of the unknown.

Fear of being found out.