Chapter 3- The Teeth of the Bond
1353 Words
Rowan
The wind had teeth again.
Rowan felt it first—gnawing at the edges of his senses, tugging at the rootwork he’d buried beneath the Thornclaw camp. Magic didn’t usually bite unless it was hungry. And this bond was ravenous.
Juniper hadn’t spoken since returning from the spirit pond. Her silence wasn’t avoidance—it was containment. Whatever she’d seen, it hadn’t let go.
Rowan approached her tent with caution. “The elders are restless.”
“They should be,” Juniper said, voice low. “The land is shifting.”
Rowan hesitated. “Toward what?”
Juniper looked up, and for a moment, her eyes weren’t hers. They were storm-dark, rimmed with gold. “Toward reckoning.”
---
Elias stood at the edge of the Silverfang perimeter, watching the trees sway like they knew something he didn’t. Jasper had grown quieter since the binding—not withdrawn, but inward. Like he was listening to something only he could hear.
Elias didn’t trust prophecy. It had too many loopholes. Too many bodies buried beneath its promises.
He found Jasper in the old stone circle, where the first Silverfang oath had been carved into granite. Jasper’s hand rested on the central stone, his breath shallow.
“She’s changing,” Jasper said.
Elias nodded. “So are you.”
Jasper turned. “The bond isn’t just between us. It’s in the land. In the wolves. In the air.”
Elias stepped closer. “Then we need to decide what we’re becoming.”
---
That night, the packs met again.
Not for ceremony.
For truth.
Juniper arrived first, Rowan at her side, her cloak heavy with forest scent. Jasper followed, flanked by Elias, his coat dusted with ash from the stone circle.
They stood beneath the binding moon, which had dulled to a copper hue—less omen, more warning.
Juniper spoke first. “The bond is awakening something old.”
Jasper nodded. “And it’s watching us.”
Rowan stepped forward. “Then we speak plainly. What does it want?”
Elias answered. “Not obedience. Not unity. Something deeper.”
Juniper’s voice dropped. “Sacrifice.”
A hush fell.
Then, from the treeline, a howl split the night.
Not Silverfang. Not Thornclaw.
Something else.
The wolves bristled. The alphas turned.
And from the shadows, a figure stepped forward—cloaked in bone-white fur, eyes gleaming with ancestral fire.
“I am the Echo,” she said. “And the land has chosen to speak.”
The Echo stood beneath the binding moon, her cloak stitched from bone-thread and shadow. She was neither young nor old—her presence felt like memory made flesh. The wolves on both sides lowered their heads, not in submission, but in recognition.
Juniper’s breath caught. She knew this figure. Not from history. From dream.
Jasper stepped forward, his voice steady. “You speak for the land?”
The Echo tilted her head. “I speak for what the land remembers. And what it refuses to forget.”
Rowan’s hand drifted toward his blade. Elias mirrored the motion. Neither drew.
Juniper’s voice was quiet. “Why now?”
“Because the bond has teeth,” the Echo said. “And it has bitten deep.”
She turned, and the ground beneath her feet cracked—just slightly. Enough to bleed light.
“The decree was not the beginning,” she continued. “It was the echo of a promise made long ago. One that was broken.”
Jasper’s jaw tightened. “What promise?”
The Echo’s eyes gleamed. “That no alpha would bind without cost. That no union would be forged without blood.”
Juniper stepped closer. “Then what is the cost?”
The Echo looked at her, and for a moment, Juniper saw herself reflected in those eyes—older, wearier, crowned in ash.
“One of you will be unmade,” the Echo said. “Or the land will be.”
---
The packs did not sleep that night.
Silverfangs kept watch with torches lit and blades unsheathed. Thornclaws whispered to the trees, asking for signs. But the forest had grown quiet. Listening.
Rowan found Juniper at the edge of the spirit pond, her cloak damp with mist.
“She’s not mortal,” he said.
“No,” Juniper replied. “She’s what happens when memory refuses to die.”
Rowan crouched beside her. “Do you believe her?”
Juniper didn’t answer. Instead, she cast another leaf into the water.
It didn’t sink.
It hovered.
Then split in two.
---
Elias stood beside Jasper in the stone circle, watching the sigils pulse faintly beneath their feet.
“She said one of you will be unmade.”
Jasper nodded. “I’ve felt it. In my bones. In the way the land pulls at me.”
Elias hesitated. “Do you think it’ll be you?”
Jasper looked toward the valley. “I think it’ll be whichever of us tries to fight the bond.”
Elias’s voice dropped. “Then you need to stop resisting.”
Jasper turned. “Or she does.”
---
Far beneath the valley, the ancient sigil flared again.
This time, it split.
Two halves.
Two paths.
And in the dark, the Echo whispered:
*The land remembers.
The land chooses.
The land does not forgive.*
The Echo did not stay.
She vanished as she arrived—folding into mist, leaving behind only the scent of bone ash and the echo of her warning.
One must break. Or both must bleed.
Juniper didn’t sleep. She sat in her tent with the decree spread before her, the parchment pulsing faintly beneath her fingertips. It had begun to hum—not with magic, but with memory. The ink shimmered. The crest of the Ancients bled gold.
Rowan entered without speaking. He carried a bundle of rootwork and a blade dulled by ritual.
“She’s not gone,” he said.
Juniper nodded. “She’s waiting.”
Rowan crouched beside her. “You’re changing.”
Juniper looked at him, and for a moment, her eyes flickered—not gold, not storm-gray, but something older. “So is the land.”
Rowan hesitated. “And if it chooses you?”
Juniper’s voice was quiet. “Then I have to choose back.”
---
Elias found Jasper in the archives beneath the Silverfang estate, where the walls were carved with oaths and the air smelled of dust and forgotten promises.
Jasper was reading the original binding records—scraps of vellum, fragments of bone-script. None of it made sense. All of it felt familiar.
“She’s in your blood now,” Elias said.
Jasper didn’t look up. “She’s in the land.”
Elias stepped closer. “And if the land chooses her?”
Jasper’s jaw tightened. “Then I become the cost.”
Elias crouched beside him. “You think you’re the one who’ll break?”
Jasper’s voice dropped. “I think I already have.”
---
At dawn, the wolves began to stir.
Not just Silverfangs. Not just Thornclaws.
Others.
Loners. Forgotten bloodlines. Packs that hadn’t answered a summons in generations. They came through the mist, drawn by something older than politics. Older than decree.
Juniper stood at the edge of the valley, watching them arrive. Rowan beside her. Jasper across the field, Elias at his flank.
The wolves did not speak.
They waited.
The Echo returned at twilight.
This time, she carried a blade.
Not for war.
For choice.
She placed it between the alphas, the hilt carved with runes that shimmered in moonlight.
“One of you must bleed,” she said. “Not for death. For memory.”
Juniper stepped forward. “And if we both do?”
The Echo’s eyes gleamed. “Then the land will decide which wound to keep.”
Jasper met Juniper’s gaze.
No strategy. No restraint.
Just truth.
“I’ll bleed,” he said.
Juniper’s voice was steady. “We bleed together.”
---
The blade sang as it touched skin.
Not loud.
But the land heard.
And beneath the valley, the sigil pulsed once more.
Not split.
Braided.
- Writer
