Prologue
18 Years Before the Academy
Unknown
The wards did not shatter with a sound. We were deaf; silence had always been our first language. The warning came instead as a vibration underfoot. A sudden rippling, like glass cracking beneath the earth. I felt it first in my staff, the runes burning, humming as if the bones of the world itself screamed. Since the first bond was woven, blood and oath kept the sacred valley hidden from eyes not of our clan. But blood had undone it. I knew it before I saw his face. Only one of our own could have unstitched the Goddess’s veil.
The sky tore open in black veins of light. Shadows poured through like liquid night. They crawled down the mountainside, smoke made flesh, limbs too many, faces unfinished. Behind them came demons, their bodies gaunt and towering, jaws split to the ears, claws clattering sparks against stone. Their stench hit like rot and iron. Our people didn’t scream. They signed. Hands flashed in the firelight, sharp and desperate: shadows breaching. Defend the temple. Protect Maelin. Warriors lifted children to safety and formed ranks in perfect silence. Our red wolves shifted, bones cracking, pelts bursting from skin. The courtyard filled with their auras, blazing shields of gold, rust, and amber. And then he stepped forward.
Once, his hair had been copper-bright, his eyes green like the forest in spring. Now they were pits of black flame, veins writhing darkly across his skin like snakes. His aura reeked of corruption, tendrils of shadow wrapping him like armor. He walked with the certainty of a wolf who had slit his own soul in two. Hands moved among the warriors: Brother, traitor. Why? I, Elder of all Elders, planted my staff before him. My wolf growled inside my chest, fur rising, teeth bared. My hands signed with steadiness I did not feel: “You opened the wards. You sold us to the nightmare realm.”
His smile was not a smile at all. Lips were broken and coated with ash, teeth were too sharp, he lifted his hand; shadows rippled at his command like a pack waiting for blood. He signed, slow and deliberately, mockery twisting his movements: “You all took what was mine. That child…His hand slashed toward Maelin, who stood behind us, heavy with life, her aura glowing fierce red around the pup she carried… that pup in her womb was mine!”
Our wolves bristled. The courtyard trembled with fury. Maelin’s mate pulled her close, shielding her body as warriors signed rapid orders: Protect the unborn pup from the traitor. Get Maelin to safety. Do not let shadows touch her. I raised my staff high, runes searing white. The traitor sneered. He moved too quickly to stop. His hand plunged into my chest, fingers splitting ribs as if they were reeds. Pain lit a fire through me. My wolf roared but could not break free. I felt his claws wrap around my beating heart. He leaned close, his breath foul, shadows writhing with his rage. His voice cracked across my skull, dark magic forced sound into me where there should be none: “She will be mine when she reaches the Academy walls. Shadows will bring her to me. Her veins carry Helios’ sight, oaths, and light. With it, I will tear down this realm. There will be no more bonds, no more mates, and no more false threads of love. There will only be ruin.”
Blood bubbled in my throat. My hands still moved, even as life poured out of me: “You are too late. The King and Queen shelter her parents. She will grow beyond your reach. Fate is not yours. The Moon Goddess weaves what you cannot sever.” His fingers clenched. Agony burst white as my heart split between his hands. He pulled back as my blood sprayed across the temple stones, painting the sacred runes. I fell. My wolf howled once inside me, then dimmed. Around me, warriors fought in silence. Claws ripped shadows into smoke, jaws shattered demon bones. Maelin’s aura blazed brighter than the moon; her unborn pup pulsed with gold light and black fire. She fled with her mate, guarded by those still standing. My last sight was a vision of her vanishing through the broken wards, running toward sanctuary, toward the King and Queen who would shelter her.
The traitor’s scream followed, shadows rose high: “She will be mine! Even the Goddess cannot keep her from me!”
And then darkness swallowed me whole
10 Years Before the Academy
Aelric
Moonlight spilled across the East Tower floor, turning the polished stone silver, sharpening every edge of carved molding, every ripple in the tapestries. The air smelled faintly of lavender from my mother the Queen’s gardens below, smoke from the great hall’s hearths, and moss carried by wind off the river cliffs. Morrigan slept between us. She was always between us.
Her copper curls spilled across my pillow, wild as flame, catching the light like molten metal. One of her small caramel hands rested on my chest, fingers curled as though she had claimed me in her sleep. Her presence was a constant hum, an anchor I didn’t realize I needed until it was gone. But tonight was different.
My wolf stirred inside me. Not the restless push I’d grown used to, but something heavier, deeper. The vibration shook through my ribs, my marrow, until my entire body was alive with it. And then the whisper came.
Mate.
The word cracked through me like lightning, staggering, unstoppable. My breath caught.
Across Morrigan, Alaric’s ocean blue eyes snapped open, already wide. He had felt it too. I could see it in the way his chest rose too sharply, the way his hand gripped the blanket as though to tether himself. “You felt it,” he whispered. His voice was low, reverent, breaking. I swallowed hard, my palm smoothing over Morrigan’s tangled curls. She stirred in her sleep, muttering against the blanket. Her fingers twitched into the faintest sign: stay. Do not go. “I felt it,” I said. The words tasted like iron and fire. “Mine is ours.”
We had called her that since before we could form full sentences. Tonight, the words felt like law. Our wolves rumbled inside us, harmonizing. Not separate creatures but identical twin echoes of the same vow: Protect. Guard. Keep.
The vibration made the bed hum faintly, like the entire castle could hear what had just snapped into place. Alaric’s hand reached across Morrigan to grip my wrist. The bond pulsed between us: twin to twin, wolf to wolf, both of us bound to the same center. “Mine is ours,” he echoed, firmer as if he was saying a vow.
Earlier that night, she had dragged us into her usual mischief. She’d signed sugarberries with a grin so mischievous we had known instantly we’d already lost. She darted into the kitchen, her little hands seizing fistfuls of berries while we hissed warnings and chased after her. We ended up running barefoot through corridors, laughter spilling in signs as she darted too fast to catch.
That laughter clung to her still, sweet as her scent. Berries, mischief, wolf pup energy. It wrapped around the electric hum now threaded through my bones, a reminder that she was still a child, that we were still children, and yet destiny had already laid its hand on us.
Alaric pressed a kiss on the back of her tiny hand. His wolf rumbled. “She is ours,” he whispered, voice fierce. “Always.” Her breath evened out, small chest rising and falling, red curls haloing her face. She looked impossibly fragile and impossibly eternal at once. We lay there awake long after. The weight of the bond thrummed in our veins, too vast for children to understand, too undeniable to ignore.
The next night, the sickness began almost immediately. Our parents had tried to separate us, to teach us to sleep alone. Morrigan had thrashed until she vomited; Alaric and I both woke with fevers that burned our skin. Healers came in a panic on the third attempt. They pressed their hands to our chests, their brows furrowing. They passed signs between themselves and our parents: "This isn’t illness nor a curse. This is broken-heart sickness. Their wolves cannot bear distance. The bond has snapped too soon."
Our Father, the King and Morrigan Father, jaws tightened. Our Mother, the Queen and Morrigan Mother, eyes narrowed with calculation and worry. “They are only eight,” Mother signed sharply, her voice clipped aloud for the healers. “The Moon Goddess would not..” But the healers shook their heads. “The Moon Goddess has already written it. You cannot rewrite fate.”
That night, when we returned to the same bed, Morrigan instantly curled against us, her little wolf sighed in her sleep. The fever broke at once. Our wolves purred, deep and satisfied, harmonizing with each other as if they had always been waiting for this.
At the doorway, our parents stood in silence, watching three children tangled together, realizing that destiny had claimed us far sooner than anyone had expected. Just before sleep pulled me under, my father’s voice brushed the edges of my mind-link, low and steady, carrying the weight of law:
“Sons, you cannot tell Morrigan. Her wolf must feel the pull first. Her wolf must come forward and scream the word mate before you claim her. Remember the laws. Remember the cost of breaking them. To claim is sacred and bound by the Moon Goddess herself.”
His words lingered like a stone crushing my chest. Even as I drifted into dreams, I knew the bond had changed us forever.
