Wildborn

Daughter of Remus

For the first time since they had entered the chamber, Alpha Marcos looked genuinely taken aback. Not fear. Not hostility. But surprise, sharp and unguarded.

“Your line?” he asked, his voice lower now.

“All of it,” Riona replied. “My daughter. My granddaughters.”

Marcos exhaled slowly, the weight of that revelation settling over him. He moved a step closer, not in challenge, but in consideration.

He studied her for a long moment, then gave a quiet, almost incredulous shake of his head.

“And yet you came here. To the Alpha or Alphas, to Romulus' line.”

Marcos was silent again, but when he spoke, his voice had shifted, less guarded, more deliberate.

“You should know,” he said, “that my line, Romulus’ line, may have built the foundation of the Moonbound… but we have never hunted the Wildborn.”

Riona said nothing.

“We do not consider you enemies,” he continued. “You are of Remus. That makes you blood.”

The words hung there, simple and undeniable.

"Not all who followed Romulus believed as he did.”

He turned slightly, his gaze drifting to the ancient sigils carved into the walls.

“In the early days, after Remus was branded a traitor for stepping beyond the Moon’s dominion, there were… factions. Wolves who believed order must be absolute. That anything outside the Moon’s authority was a threat to it.”

His jaw tightened faintly.

“They were not the majority. But they were loud. And they were ruthless.”

Riona’s gaze did not waver.

“They called it betrayal,” Marcos went on. “But it wasn’t.”

His voice lowered.

“Remus did not betray his brother. He discovered something. Something the Moonbound did not understand. Something they could not control.”

“And that frightened them,” she said.

“Yes.”

Marcos looked back at her fully now, whatever hesitation he once had gone.

“Your kind doesn’t answer to the Moon the way we do… not entirely. It’s the Earth too. Always has been. To root and stone. To the deeper currents beneath the world itself.”

Riona inclined her head slightly.

“And beneath that,” Marcos added, more quietly, “there is something else.”

He hesitated only briefly before continuing.

“Fae-touched blood. The remnants of the Folk.”

The words were not spoken lightly.

“Diluted now, perhaps,” Riona said, “but still there. Still potent.”

Marcos exhaled slowly. “That alone would have been enough to unsettle them. But it wasn’t just the magic. It was where it manifested.”

Riona’s eyes sharpened as she spoke, glinting with unshed tears that lingered but did not fall, held in place by a will that had outlived grief itself. “Do you know where it manifested?"

“The women,” Marcos said.

The word fell between them like a stone.

“Remus' mate was one of the Folk. The women, they were, we are, stronger,” Riona continued. “Not in brute force. But in resonance. In connection. In power that could not be easily measured or contained.”

Riona did not look away.

“The men protected them,” Marcos said. “That much is clear in every account that wasn’t destroyed. But the women…”

His voice grew quieter.

“They were the source.”

The silence that followed was heavy.

“And so,” Riona said softly, “Wildborn men have been hunted. And we, the women, have been taken.”

Marcos closed his eyes briefly, bracing beneath a shame that wasn’t entirely his to carry. “Yes.”

“Stolen,” he said. “Forced into bonds to strengthen bloodlines. Used in ways that should never have been allowed. There are records… fragmented, buried… of experimentation. Of attempts to replicate what your kind carries naturally.”

Riona’s hand curled slightly at her side, the only outward sign of the storm beneath her composure.

“That,” she said, her voice quiet but unyielding, “is why we learned to disappear.”

Marcos nodded once. “I understand.”

A long silence stretched between them, filled with the weight of things neither of them needed to say aloud.

Finally, Marcos spoke again.

“And this is why you’ve come here? Safety? Protection?”

Riona met his gaze evenly.

“That is part of it.”

He waited.

Her voice lowered, just slightly.

“And the rest?”

For the first time, something shifted in her expression, not uncertainty, but something older. Something that carried the weight of time itself.

“The rest,” she said, “is because of what’s coming.”

“I never believed Lunaris Dualborn was still alive.”

Marcos studied her with renewed curiosity.

“And yet,” he said, almost to himself, “here you stand.”

Riona met his gaze evenly.

“Life has a way of stretching when one refuses to die.”

He chuckled softly.

“And you arrive with a daughter. Two granddaughters.”

Marcos raised a brow.

“And Wildborn.”

Riona’s expression softened almost imperceptibly.

“Yes.”

Marcos folded his hands thoughtfully.

“I will admit,” he said, “I am very surprised.”

He paused.

“But perhaps I shouldn't be.”

Riona’s brow lifted.

“Oh?”

Marcos walked slowly to the edge of the chamber where one of the carved lunar glyphs shimmered faintly beneath the light. “How old is your oldest granddaughter?”

Riona didn’t hesitate. “Seventeen.”

Marcos went very still.

The faint glow of the sigils traced the edges of his expression as the realization settled over him piece by piece.

“Seventeen,” he repeated quietly.

“And why,” she asked calmly, “does my granddaughter’s age matter?"

“For the last seventeen years,” he said, “something has been happening within the Veil.”

Riona remained still.

“Instability,” Marcos continued. “Not a rupture. More like…” He searched for the right word. “…a flicker.”

“Power rising and fading?”

“Like a lantern being shielded and revealed again.”

Riona said nothing.

Marcos turned back toward her.

“The guardians within the school who watch the Veil have begun to notice something unusual,” he said slowly. “They believe the fluctuations are originating somewhere beyond the Veil. Yet beyond the ravine there’s nothing there but the mountain itself; solid rock and nothing that should answer back."

He paused, lowering his voice as if the stone chamber might be listening, letting the words settle between them.

For the briefest moment, something shifted in Riona’s expression, a tightening in her gaze so subtle most would have missed it entirely.

Marcos did not.

His brow furrowed.

“You know something about it,” he said quietly.

It wasn’t phrased as a question.

Riona held his gaze for a long moment before answering.

“The Veil,” she said calmly, “has endured far longer than most people understand.”

Her fingers brushed lightly across the carved edge of the ancient table, as if tracing a memory hidden in the grain of the wood.

“It isn't simply geography leveraged by wolves guarding their borders,” she continued. “Some things in this world were shaped by powers that walked it long before our kind learned to claim territory.”

Marcos leaned forward slightly, interest sharpening.

“So you believe the Veil was… created?”

Riona allowed herself a small, enigmatic smile.

“I believe,” she said carefully, “that some doors were built by hands no longer here to explain them.”

Marcos glanced toward the chamber walls, where the oldest sigils shimmered faintly in the lantern light.

“But the timing…”

He gestured lightly.

“Seventeen years.”

Riona did not miss the connection to Bri's age, and she cut him off gently.

“The Veil has its own rhythms. And its own reasons.”

Marcos studied her.

Then, slowly, he nodded.

“Very well.”

He let the subject rest.

“For now.”

Riona inclined her head in quiet acknowledgment.

Then she spoke again.

“We didn’t come here for history.”

Marcos waited.

Riona’s voice grew more deliberate.

“We came because of my granddaughter.”

Marcos’s attention sharpened immediately.

“The older one,” he said.

“Bri.”

“Yes.”

Riona walked slowly around the table.

“You’ve heard the old prophecy.”

Marcos frowned.

“Which one? You’ll have to be more specific,” he said. “Wolves are very fond of prophecies. Give us a mystery and we’ll turn it into destiny by morning.”

Riona’s mouth curved faintly and then she recited softly, the words carrying the cadence of something far older than either of them.

When moonlight kisses root and stone,

And silent soil stirs breath and bone,

The Wild shall rise through ash and flame,

To heal the earth and end the shame.

The howl once lost shall sound anew,

And silver shall bend to morning dew.

Marcos’s expression shifted.

He knew the words.

But Riona continued.

When thinning Veil and hidden blood awake,

The Daughter born of Remus’ line shall take.

The chamber fell silent.

“That prophecy has circulated among Wildborn lore for centuries,” Marcos said.

“Yes,” Riona replied. “But it has always been incomplete.”

She rested her hands lightly against the table.

“When I was at Lunebrook, and for many years after, the elders believed I was the one the prophecy described.”

Marcos nodded. “The chronicles suggest as much.”

Riona smiled faintly. “They were wrong.”

“You carry Remus’ blood?”

“Yes” Her voice softened. “and I held the Wildborn Pendant once, but it was never truly mine.”

Marcos’s eyes sharpened with understanding. “You were a guardian.”

“Something like that.” Riona paused. “My chosen mate was the Third Bearer.”

Marcos absorbed the implication in silence. “So the prophecy did not fail,” he said slowly. “It waited.”

Riona nodded.

“And now you believe it points to Bri.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because she carries Remus’ blood through both bloodlines.” Riona lifted her gaze. “And through her mother’s side, my bloodline, the line is pure.”

Marcos was silent for a long moment.

“I also believe the pendant has chosen her,” Riona continued quietly. “And the old signs are beginning to stir.”

Marcos glanced toward the walls. “Which brings us back to the Veil.”

“Perhaps.”

“And Lunebrook?” he asked. “She needs knowledge,” Riona said. “History. Control.”

Marcos nodded slowly. “That we can give her.”

“And time.”

Marcos tilted his head.

“To discover whether the old blood in her carries more than memory.”

He understood.

Even if she never said the word.

“And perhaps,” Riona added lightly, “to discover whether fate has tied her to someone.”

Marcos smiled faintly. “A soul-bound mate.”

“Possibly.”

He leaned back. “Well.”

“You’ve certainly made our quiet academy more interesting.”

Riona chuckled softly.

“You might enjoy interesting.”

“That was my great-great-grandfather,” Marcos said. “But I suspect I inherited the trait.”

His gaze settled on her once more. “Whatever Bri becomes,” he said quietly, “she will be safe here.”

Riona moved toward the door. “I know.” she nodded.

“But I must ask you one final question.”

Riona raised a brow. “Yes?”

“If the prophecy is real,” he said quietly, “what happens next?”

Riona’s eyes reflected centuries of quiet knowledge.

“That,” she said softly, “depends on whether the rest of the prophecy still survives… and whether we can find it.”

Yellow light spilled back into the chamber as the door opened.

Riona stepped into the library and disappeared among the shelves, leaving Alpha Marcos alone with the uneasy sense that the future had just shifted beneath his feet.