Chapter 3 - Chains of Moonlight
1255 Words
The wolves dragged me through the forest like a carcass. My boots tore furrows in the earth, roots clawing at my feet as if the land itself tried to keep me from crossing. I could hear them breathing—low, guttural, animal sounds—so close they vibrated in my bones. Every time I stumbled, they yanked me upright by the ropes binding my wrists, and fire lanced through my arms.
I didn’t cry out. I wouldn’t give them that.
But inside, grief gnawed, sharp as glass. My brother’s face lingered behind my eyelids, that last moment in my arms when his body was already cooling. I had sworn I would find who had sent the Nightborne and make them bleed. Instead, I was the one dragged like prey, caught in the jaws of those who had already taken everything.
The trees thinned. The air shifted—heavier, thicker, as though I had stepped into another world. Ahead loomed a fortress carved into the mountain itself, black stone drinking the moonlight. Torches lined the walls, but their fire burned wrong—greenish, hissing like it was alive.
I had crossed into the Shadow Realm.
My captors said nothing. They didn’t need to. The silence was worse than taunts. It was the silence of creatures who already knew how the story would end.
The gates groaned open, and the wolves shoved me inside. The ground was slick, and when I glanced down, my stomach turned. The stains weren’t mud. The courtyard stones were spattered with old blood, washed pale by rain but never gone.
They dragged me through corridors lined with furs and bones. The walls seemed to hum faintly, as if the mountain itself held memory. The air reeked of smoke, sweat, and something sharper—iron.
And then, suddenly, space.
A hall vast enough to swallow me whole opened before us, lit by guttering torches that left more shadow than light. Pillars carved with snarling beasts rose on either side, their silver-inlaid eyes gleaming as though alive. Wolf pelts stretched across the floor, their teeth bared even in death.
And at the far end of the hall, seated on a throne of jagged stone, was the Alpha King.
Darius Veyric.
I had heard his name whispered with fear: butcher, tyrant, the cursed one. Children were warned that if they strayed too far into the woods, Darius’s wolves would scent their fear and drag them screaming into the dark. Looking at him now, I understood why even whispers of his presence made men bolt their doors.
He didn’t move at first. Just sat there, leaning forward slightly, one hand curled on the arm of his throne. His hair was black as pitch, falling over sharp cheekbones. But it was not his face that made the wolves bow instantly around me. It was his presence. The air itself seemed to warp around him, thickening, crushing.
Their foreheads pressed to the stone. Throats bared. Not one dared to breathe too loud.
I should have bowed too. Instead, I forced my spine straight. My wrists ached, rope biting skin raw, but I lifted my chin and looked at him. If I was going to die, I’d die staring into the eyes of the monster.
His gaze found mine, and my chest seized. His eyes were silver—not dull like coin, but alive, molten, shifting like quicksilver under flame.
Something snapped.
Not in the air. Inside me. A soundless break, like a bowstring pulled too tight at last giving way. The scar on my wrist flared, hot enough to sear flesh. I bit back a cry, tasting blood as I bit my tongue. The mark pulsed with the same rhythm as my heart, with the same rhythm as his stare.
Darius inhaled sharply. For the barest moment, his mask slipped. Shock, maybe pain, crossed his features. His nostrils flared like he scented something that shouldn’t exist.
Then the mask snapped back into place.
He rose.
The throne seemed small when he left it. He was taller than I expected, shoulders broad, body coiled with power. Each step was measured, echoing through the hall like the toll of a bell. My captors shifted uneasily but didn’t move.
Darius stopped before me. Too close. His shadow engulfed me, his scent hitting me—iron, smoke, the wild edge of wolf. I forced myself not to flinch.
“Who,” he said, voice low but carrying like thunder, “dares bring a human into my hall during Bloodmoon?”
The wolves shoved me forward. My knees hit fur, but I pushed myself upright. My voice was raw, ragged from smoke and grief, but it carried.
“Evangeline Veyra. Of Redmarsh. Or what’s left of it.”
The name of my home cracked in my throat, but I made myself speak it. Let them all hear what had been stolen.
A murmur rippled through the wolves. Some sneered. Others sniffed the air like they could taste my fear. Darius tilted his head, studying me the way one might study a corpse that shouldn’t still breathe.
“You crossed willingly?”
“Yes.” I clenched my fists against the rope. “I came for answers. The Nightborne raided my village. They killed everyone. My brother. Don’t tell me they’re extinct—I saw them.”
The murmur grew sharper, mocking. One wolf laughed. Another growled low.
“Nightborne,” Darius said, as though savoring the word. “Fairy tales for frightened children. Convenient lies.”
My rage broke loose. “I buried my family. I carried my brother’s body to the temple. Don’t you dare call me a liar.”
Silence dropped like a blade.
And then, without warning, he moved.
In less than a breath, his hand clamped around my wrist. I gasped, sleeve tearing as he yanked my arm up. The scar blazed against the torchlight, spiraling silver and ash, alive as flame.
The hall froze. Every wolf stared.
His grip tightened, heat searing into the mark, and his eyes—those molten eyes—widened. Not anger this time. Recognition. As if he had found something he had lost and wished never to see again.
“You,” he said.
Just one word, but it sank into me like a curse.
He dropped my wrist abruptly, as though the touch had burned him instead. My knees buckled, rope cutting deeper as I tried to steady myself. The mark pulsed like a second heart.
Darius turned sharply, cloak snapping. His shoulders were rigid, his voice thunderous.
“Chain her.”
The wolves hesitated. One dared, voice low, “My king… if she bears the mark—”
“Chain her!” His snarl cracked the hall in half.
Silver shackles clamped around my wrists. I screamed before I could stop myself, pain white-hot as the metal bit into the scar, dragging fire through my veins. My body hit the stone, breath torn from me.
Darius didn’t look back. He stood on the dais steps, jaw clenched, gaze fixed anywhere but me. His final words echoed across the hall, soft but sharp enough to cut.
“You don’t belong here, human. But you will tell me why your blood calls to me.”
The wolves hauled me away, deeper into the fortress. The scar burned, the chains cut, my brother’s face blurred by tears I refused to shed.
And beneath it all, a whisper I could not silence:
Something had awakened between us. And it would not let me go.
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- Writer
