The moon was quiet.
For the first time in seasons, its light felt like a balm instead of a blade—cool, silver, and soft on Kael Varos's scarred shoulders as he stood atop the Watchtower of Varok's Rise.
Below him, the new Moonborn city breathed—alive.
Rebuilt on the ashes of Shadowhold, the stronghold now shimmered with runeforged walls, watchfires fueled by moon-oil, and a united pack of over a thousand survivors.
The war was over.
The Eclipse Queen was dead.
And Kael, now called the Flameborn King, had done the impossible.
But peace, Kael learned, was heavier than war.
---
A Broken Alpha
Kael's gaze drifted to his right arm—the silver burn scars crawled up to his shoulder where the Ascendant Flame now pulsed quietly beneath his flesh. The power was still there… but it felt distant. Dimmer. Slower to answer.
He hadn't shifted in weeks.
Not since he buried his sister's body in the Cradle Forest and scattered her ashes into the flame that birthed them both.
"She called me her twin once," he murmured to the night. "But we were always half of a broken mirror."
A soft crunch behind him.
"Talking to ghosts again?" came Sylah's voice—rough, tired, but familiar.
Kael didn't turn. "Aren't they the only ones who still listen?"
She stepped beside him, hands behind her back, the black eyepatch across her right eye looking more like a crown than a wound.
"They're not the only ones," she said. "Lina's waiting in the council hall. The other Alphas have arrived."
Kael grunted.
"They came," he said, surprised.
"They came," Sylah confirmed. "But not to kneel."
---
The Summit of Alphas
The Moonborn council chamber had once been a war room. Now, banners from twelve different packs draped the walls, each bearing old bloodlines and new wounds.
At the center of the table stood Kael—taller, broader, cloaked in fur lined with runesteel.
To his left stood Lina, her presence commanding, her hair braided with wolfbone charms.
To his right—Sylah, quiet and coiled like a blade.
The twelve alphas glared at Kael with equal parts reverence and resentment.
> "You claim peace," said Alpha Orun of the Ironfang. "But where's the flame now, Kael? You haven't shifted in moons."
> "Some whisper it's gone. Or worse… you sealed it with your sister's soul."
Kael's gaze sharpened. "Would you like to test that theory?"
The room tensed.
Alpha Drayk of the Hollow Snow raised a hand. "Enough. We didn't come to fight. We came to know what comes next. The Crimson Council is dead. The Eclipse Queen is ash. So why summon us now?"
Kael nodded. He turned to the table and placed a blackened relic before them.
> A fang.
As long as a man's arm.
Cracked. Cold. But humming with dark power.
Gasps filled the room.
"What is that?" whispered Lina.
Kael's voice was steel. "This was found buried in a Crimson ruin outside Volkrath—two days ago. Fresh blood. Torn bodies. Moonborn markings."
Drayk paled. "No… that's not possible."
Kael spoke the words none dared utter.
> "The Revenants are returning."
---
Blood-Stirring
That night, Kael stood at the fire pit behind the citadel, watching the flames twist. His mark pulsed faintly beneath his skin.
Lina approached him, arms crossed, face unreadable.
"You should've told me."
"I only just confirmed it," Kael said. "But the moment I saw the fang, I knew. The wound it caused… it never clotted."
"Like the stories," she whispered. "Immortal Alphas. Moonborn kings who made pacts with death itself."
Kael nodded.
"They're not just coming," he said. "They've already begun."
Lina stepped close. "Then we fight again."
Kael looked into her eyes.
"No," he said softly. "Not yet. This time, we find them first."
---
In the Frozen East…
Far beyond the Moonborn lands, a citadel of frost and rot stood half-buried beneath eternal snow.
Inside, a great wolf sat upon a throne of bones.
Eyes hollow. Fangs broken.
A Revenant.
He opened his jaws and spoke a name, his voice like dust scraped from tombstone:
> "Kael… Varos…"
And behind him, thousands of eyes opened in the dark.