The night lay still as a held breath. Mist wrapped the cabin like a pale cocoon, but above it the sky was clear enough for the Moon to burn silver. Selene stood in the glade barefoot, toes sinking into damp moss. Sweat cooled on her temples. She had been moving for hours, practicing the flows Eira had taught — call the wolf, let it fade, draw in power, release. Her muscles ached, but the ache was clean, a sign of control.

Eira sat a little way off on a fallen log, grinding herbs with a stone pestle. The scent of crushed moonwort and bloodfern drifted between them. Her movements were quiet, deliberate, as if she were afraid to disturb something larger than the night.

Selene’s wolf prowled under her skin, alert but calmer than weeks ago. She had begun to feel the edges of her own strength, like fingers brushing the rim of a hidden pool. Even the life inside her , the pulsing warmth she still hardly dared to name , seemed to hum in time with the forest now.

“Again,” Eira said softly.

Selene inhaled through her nose, eyes closing. Her claws slid out a fraction, breath steady. She felt the slow heartbeat of the earth under her palms, the faint shimmer of sap rising in roots. She held it a moment, then exhaled and let the claws retreat.

“Better,” Eira murmured. “Your control grows. But you must learn to stop when it isn’t you calling.”

Selene’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

Eira didn’t answer immediately. Her hands kept working the herbs until the paste darkened. “The Moon is not always your friend,” she said at last. “Some nights it will try to call you whether you’re ready or not. Some nights it will call… others.”

Selene glanced up at the sky. The Moon glowed steady and full, but the light seemed too bright, almost metallic. “Is that why you taught me the wards?”

“That’s part of it.” Eira’s eyes flicked to her belly, quick but not unkind. “You’re not the only one it watches.”

Before Selene could reply, a tremor passed through the clearing , a shiver in the air, like the forest exhaling. The Moon dimmed as if a veil slid across it. For a heartbeat the glade plunged into shadow, then the silver light flared back, brighter than before.

Selene gasped. “Did you see that?”

Eira’s jaw tightened. “Yes.”

Another flicker , shorter this time, a stutter of darkness across the Moon’s face. The mist glowed faintly silver as if lit from within. The warmth in Selene’s belly pulsed hard enough to make her double over. She pressed a hand there, stunned.

“It’s her,” Eira whispered. “Even unborn, she’s stirring.”

Selene’s head snapped up. “What are you talking about?”

“The prophecy.” Eira set the pestle down and rose, eyes on the sky. “The First Howl. You remember what I told you about young Alphas and the danger of shifting too soon? That was only the warning, Selene. No one ever tells the second half — the prophecy behind it.” But the first child who survives that shift will break the Goddess’s chains. No more forced bonds. No more decrees from the sky. A new path for all wolves.” She looked at Selene then, face pale in the silver light. “That child isn’t legend anymore. She’s inside you.”

Selene staggered back a step. “No. She’s just—”

“Not just anything,” Eira cut in. “You carry a key. A last lineage. A storm the Moon fears.”

Selene’s wolf whined low, a sound of warning or maybe awe. She wrapped both arms around her middle. “If the shift can kill her…”

“It can,” Eira said. “Or it can free us all. But only if you’re ready.”

Silence pressed between them. The Moon flickered again , longer this time. Selene closed her eyes and, for a heartbeat, she wasn’t in the glade anymore.

She stood in another place, cold and damp, the smell of iron heavy in the air. Torches guttered on stone walls. Figures moved , hooded, chanting. And in the centre of the circle a man knelt, runes crawling over his arms. Kael. His head jerked up, and she saw his eyes ,the same amber that had haunted her.

He was speaking to someone she couldn’t see. “When the child is born,” his voice echoed, “the bond will be mine. The Moon will kneel or burn.”

Selene’s heart slammed against her ribs. She tried to move but her body wouldn’t obey. The vision shifted again — a flash of Silverfen under grey skies, wolves coughing, falling, the smell of sickness rising like smoke. Children with silver eyes crying at doorways.

Then Kael again, closer now, whispering against her ear though he wasn’t there: “Soon.”

Selene jolted back into her own body, stumbling. Eira caught her arm. “What did you see?”

She shook her head, breath ragged. “Kael. The pack. Sick. He’s coming for her. For us.”

Eira’s grip tightened. “Then the plague has begun.”

Selene stared at the Moon, which now glowed steady again, as if nothing had happened. But the warmth inside her didn’t fade. It pulsed with a rhythm she couldn’t ignore a heartbeat answering some distant call.

She drew in a long breath. “If he comes…”

“You must be ready,” Eira said. “More ready than you are now.”

Selene nodded slowly, eyes still on the sky. The silver light caught in her hair, in her claws, in the damp moss at her feet. For the first time she felt the full weight of what she carried — not just a child, but a prophecy, a path, a weapon the Moon itself feared.

Somewhere in the mist beyond the glade, a wolf howled — low and mournful, not quite animal, not quite human. The sound rolled over her skin like a shiver. She didn’t know if it came from Kael’s faction or from something older still.

Eira released her arm. “Tomorrow we begin a new lesson,” she said. “Control of power under an eclipse.”

Selene swallowed hard. “And if we’re too late?”

Eira looked away. “Then Silverfen falls.”

The mist shifted at the treeline. For a split second, amber eyes gleamed, then were gone. Selene’s claws slid out a fraction, but she didn’t move.

“Soon,” the echo of Kael’s voice whispered in her mind again.

She pressed a hand to her belly and whispered back, “We’ll be ready.”

Above them the Moon flickered once more a tiny, trembling eclipse and the glade went dark.