The moon did not wait.
The crack widened the next night.
Not dramatically.
Not catastrophically.
But enough that every wolf in the valley saw it clearly—
a thin black vein splitting the red surface like ink bleeding through glass.
Panic spread faster than fire.
And across the eastern ridges, the chanting of the Crimson Howl grew louder.
They believed the fracture was victory.
Selene knew it was pressure.
Too much red.
Too much fear.
Too much hunger.
Origin was pushing upward.
“We can’t let them keep chanting,” one of the elders insisted. “They’re feeding it.”
“They’re not feeding it,” Selene corrected. “They’re aligning with it.”
Kael stood beside her in the courtyard, where wolves gathered under the cracked moon.
“Then we realign it,” he said.
Selene nodded slowly.
“We
