The Soul Stone

Chapter 4 The Unseen Vow

The Soul Stone's cry ran through my skull. Callan's power crushed the walls around a memory I had kept sealed for a decade.

“Alpha, stop!” The head elder backed away from the spreading cracks. “Her life force is tied to that memory. Break it and you break her soul.”

Callan kept both hands on the stone.

The screen buckled. A forest replaced the plague tent.

Eight years ago, I stood at the edge of Silver Moon territory with broken chains hanging from my wrists. One more step would have taken me beyond the pack's reach.

The skin beneath the iron was raw, and the wind beyond the border carried no pack scent. I had already crossed every patrol path. Freedom was one stride away.

A sharp c***k sounded behind me. Pups screamed.

Part of the golden barrier had split near their clearing. Purple Shadowlands poison leaked through and crawled low over the grass while the youngest children kept playing.

They were too far from the patrol to hear the alarm. By the time the oldest pup saw the mist, it had already reached the edge of the clearing.

I ran back. My body sealed the breach before the poison reached them. Blood and energy fed the damaged runes, and the poison burned across my arms and throat until the barrier closed.

The pups escaped without touching the mist. I stayed against the runes until the last c***k sealed, then collapsed where the High Elder's guards found me.

The screen darkened, then opened inside the High Elder's chamber.

Shadow magic held me upright by the throat. The High Elder raised a scorched piece of a rogue's cloak to my face. Iris's f*******n magic clung to the cloth.

I had smelled the same magic at the damaged barrier. The cloth could have exposed her, which was why the High Elder kept it in his own hand.

“She is reckless,” he said into my mind. “The pack still needs a saint, and Callan needs a pure Luna. A tainted orphan with questionable blood will never do. They need one simple story.”

The shadow tightened. My feet left the floor.

“You will carry the blame for her mistakes. Speak once, and I will hunt down every orphan pup you saved today. I will let you watch the poison take them.”

I nodded.

Darkness burned across my tongue and sank deeper. The vow sealed itself into my soul, leaving me unable to expose Iris or the High Elder.

In the square, the mother of one rescued pup covered her mouth. Another mother began to cry beside her.

Callan removed his hands from the Soul Stone. The blood had drained from his face.

“Stop.”

The stone did not stop.

Iris's right hand was hidden in her sleeve. The memory showed the same fold of cloth in the High Elder's chamber, half concealed behind a pillar. She had watched him bind the vow.

In the present, her fingers closed around a black magic talisman.

She crushed it.

Black energy struck the cracked Soul Stone. The vow inside me split, and the night I had protected for ten years forced its way onto the screen.

The old threat vanished with it. For the first time since that chamber, Iris and the High Elder's names were mine to speak, but the magic had taken my voice with the vow.