The howl echoed like it had teeth.

I didn’t move for a long time. Just stood in front of the mirror, spine locked, the third mark still half-formed on my skin. The Moonbound symbol burned faintly, but beneath it, that shadow mark—the one made not by fate or contract but by something older—had started to pulse.

Cian’s howl didn’t belong here.

It should’ve died at the border, buried beneath the wards Kael had sworn would hold.

But it reached me anyway.

Low. Demanding. Possessive in a way that made my skin crawl—and ache.

It shouldn’t have affected me.

He rejected me.

He unmade the bond, spat on the moon’s choosing, and turned me into nothing.

But my body still remembered.

And worse, so did something deeper. Something I couldn’t name.

The mirror fogged at the edges, even though the room was cold. I blinked once, then again, as the reflection shimmered. Not distorted. Shifted.

I saw myself.

But not as I was now.

Younger. Blood on my hands. A cloth in my lap. The pendant around my throat was missing.

And behind me…

Cian.

His hands rested on my shoulders, not cruel, not gentle—like he already owned the shape of my fear.

I blinked again, and it was gone.

The glass stilled. My face returned.

But I was breathing like I’d run miles, and the hum beneath my skin hadn’t stopped since the howl.

I backed away from the mirror slowly, heart thudding, then moved to the window and pulled the curtains aside.

Stormveil slept.

Or pretended to.

But far beyond the cliffs, in the sliver of land that touched the borderlands of Ashfall, a red light flared once—then vanished.

A signal.

A threat.

Or both.

⸻

I didn’t sleep. Again.

By dawn, I was in the war room.

Not summoned. Not invited. But I didn’t wait for permission anymore.

Kael was already there.

He didn’t flinch when I walked in. Didn’t even glance my way.

“Cian’s voice crossed the wards,” I said flatly.

“I know.”

“Then why didn’t you stop him?”

Kael turned slowly. His jaw was tighter than I’d ever seen it. His eyes darker, storm-stirred. “Because it’s not him doing the calling.”

I froze. “What?”

“It’s the bond trying to reforge itself.”

“That’s not possible.”

“It is,” he said, voice low. “When the bond was severed, it didn’t break cleanly. Not with what’s in your blood.”

“My blood?”

“Moonbound blood doesn’t accept rejection,” he said. “It buries it. And sometimes, when it’s disturbed—”

“It reaches back,” I finished, realization dawning like ice down my spine.

Kael nodded.

I sat, carefully. “So what does this mean?”

“It means Cian is dreaming of you. Or something that wears your face.”

“And the wards?”

“Are holding—for now.”

I looked at him. Really looked. There were shadows beneath his eyes, and the edges of his hands were scraped raw. Like he’d clawed at something with bare fingers.

“You tried to stop it physically,” I said quietly.

He didn’t answer.

Which was enough.

I leaned forward. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Kael exhaled. “He sent a scout last night. Through the old tunnels beneath the mountain line.”

My mouth dried. “That’s impossible. The tunnels were collapsed after the last war.”

“They were supposed to be.”

“What happened to the scout?”

Kael met my gaze. “We didn’t find him. We found his scent. And… his blood.”

I sat back hard. “So Cian’s not just calling. He’s breaching.”

Kael nodded once.

And then, quietly, added, “Because he thinks you’re his again.”

I stood. The pendant burned against my chest like it wanted to answer—but I wouldn’t let it.

“I’m not his.”

“You were,” Kael said.

“I was chosen,” I snapped. “Not claimed.”

The words hung between us like smoke.

He stepped closer. “And now?”

I didn’t answer.

Because I didn’t know.

⸻

By midday, word spread.

A breach on the eastern ridge. A patrol missing near the river. And three crows—always three—circling the shrine at the edge of the woods.

Omens.

Warnings.

Stormveil didn’t run on tradition the way Ashfall did, but even here, crows meant something.

Death.

Or return.

I found Rowen in the chapel ruins—alone, staring at the old altar where moonstones once lined the walls.

“They’re watching,” he said without looking at me.

“The crows?”

He shook his head. “The bondlines.”

I didn’t understand.

Until he turned and said, “You’re not just Moonbound, Lyra. You’re tethered.”

“To what?”

“To every wolf that ever touched the mark.”

I went still. “You mean—?”

“Kael,” he said. “Cian. Even me, though I never took a vow.”

“That’s not possible.”

“It is,” he said. “When a Luna is born under a red moon, the marks don’t form on skin.”

He reached forward, pressing his palm to my collarbone.

“They form here. In bone. In breath.”

I stepped back. “So what—this is some kind of mating sickness?”

“No,” he said. “It’s a calling.”

I stared at him, heart thudding. “A calling for what?”

“For the one who remembers.”

I didn’t ask what that meant.

Because I knew.

The wolves in my dreams. The voices in the walls. The frost on the mirror. The howl that shouldn’t have crossed territory.

They weren’t warnings.

They were invitations.

And I was the one expected to answer.

⸻

That night, I returned to the cradle room.

Kael met me there without being called.

“I thought you might come back,” he said quietly.

“The cloth,” I whispered. “It had my name. The original one. Before…”

He nodded once. “Before the council changed it. Before they buried the truth.”

“Why?”

“Because a Luna born unbonded under a red moon brings chaos to the lines.”

“And you let them bring me here.”

“No,” he said. “I recognized you.”

“And Cian?”

Kael’s jaw flexed. “He never knew what you were. He thought the mark was a mistake.”

I touched my throat.

“The bond never took,” I said softly.

“No. It buried itself.”

“And now it’s awake.”

He didn’t speak.

Didn’t need to.

The walls of the room whispered again. This time, I heard names. Old ones. Ones I didn’t know belonged to me.

And the mark at my back seared.

Kael reached for me then—slow, deliberate—and traced the line of the third mark with a single fingertip.

His voice was barely audible.

“Do you feel it?”

I nodded.

“Then you know what’s coming.”

I did.

Not war.

Not just.

A claiming.

But not by Cian.

Not by Kael.

By the storm itself.

The thing buried beneath Stormveil. The thing my blood had kept asleep for twenty-one years.

And it was no longer dreaming.

It was waking.

With my name on its tongue.

The mirror stayed cloudy. I wiped at it once, but the mist didn’t come from outside. It felt like the mirror was breathing when I did—or maybe instead of me.

I dragged my fingers over it, left these shaky little smears, but the shine stayed. Like it didn’t care I was there.

I stepped closer. Too close.

It wasn’t just the blood on my hands in that vision. It was mine. I could feel it, warm and fresh, not imagined. My palms actually tingled like I’d only just dropped the cloth.

And that missing pendant—I hadn’t even noticed it was gone until I saw that version of me without it. That version looked younger, but harder. Tired in a way I didn’t remember being.

The room hadn’t changed. But I had.

Even when the image vanished, the air still felt too tight. Like it hadn’t let go of me yet. My chest rose and fell too fast, my hands slightly shaking.

I backed up, but it didn’t help.

That howl had done something. Not just to the bond.

To me.