The wind was sharp with the scent of burning.
Ashwood was under siege.
Lyra and her battered company stumbled from the forests three nights after the Wellspring's fall.
Exhausted.
Broken.
But not defeated.
The gates of Ashwood stood tall against the twilight, rimmed with ironwood and carved with ancient sigils of protection.
War banners whipped in the cold breeze — dark blue, silver-threaded, bearing the symbol of the Savage Moon.
A crimson eye.
Watching.
Judging.
Kaelen rode beside her, silent and grim.
Varra limped behind, one arm bound in bloody bandages.
The others — barely more than shadows — clutched what little hope they had left.
As they approached, the sentries atop the wall cried out.
"Alpha Lyra returns!"
A horn sounded — low and mournful — and the gates yawned open.
Inside, the heart of Ashwood beat with frantic energy.
Wolves armed for war.
Smithies burning night and day.
Children herded into the stone keeps beneath the mountain.
There was no more time for peace.
Talia, Lyra's second-in-command, met her at the threshold.
Her face was tight, her braids slicked back with sweat and soot.
"My Alpha," she said, bowing low. "The Court moves. They march under the new moon."
Lyra dismounted stiffly.
Her body ached.
Her soul felt worse.
Still, she forced her voice steady.
"How many?"
Talia swallowed.
"Thousands. Maybe more. They bring beasts. Warlocks. The Black Claws."
The Black Claws.
The Court's elite.
"They will strike Ashwood before the sun next rises," Talia finished, her voice hollow.
Lyra nodded once.
Then turned to the broken few behind her.
"Rest. Eat. Mend what can be mended."
She faced Talia again.
"Summon the council. Tonight, we prepare for hell."
The Council of Ashwood
The great hall burned with torchlight.
The long table was crowded — warriors, elders, mages, all gathered beneath the wolf banners.
The air smelled of blood and fear.
Kaelen sat to her right.
Talia to her left.
Varra stood behind, a grim sentinel.
"We cannot withstand them," one elder said, his voice trembling. "The Court brings forces unseen since the Mourning King's fall. We must flee!"
"And go where?" Kaelen growled. "The Court devours all it touches."
Another councilor slammed his fist on the table.
"We have women and pups to protect! Ashwood cannot fall while we still breathe!"
Lyra raised a hand.
Silence fell.
She rose slowly.
Her presence filled the hall — not with brute strength, but with unyielding fire.
"We do not run," she said.
"We do not beg."
Ashwood had stood for centuries.
It would not fall because fear gnawed their bones.
"But we cannot meet them in open war," Lyra continued.
"We must fight as wolves do."
Silent.
Relentless.
Cunning.
She unfurled the map of Ashwood's borders.
Outlined traps.
Ambush points.
Escape tunnels.
"If they think they have cornered us," she said, voice like iron,
"they will find themselves bleeding in the dark."
Murmurs of grim approval rippled through the council.
Some still doubted.
But most… most saw the fire rekindling.
Lyra ended the meeting with a single promise:
"Under the Savage Moon, we will not kneel."
The New Enemy
As the council dispersed, a runner came — panting, bloodied.
"Message from the western watch!" he gasped. "The Court's vanguard has reached Black Hollow Pass!"
Lyra stiffened.
The western watch was the last real barrier.
"What news?" she demanded.
The runner hesitated — then dropped to his knees.
"They are led… by the Wolfshade."
The hall fell into shocked silence.
The Wolfshade.
A name pulled from the old nightmares.
The Mourning King's left hand.
The butcher of Red Hollow.
"I thought he was slain," Kaelen said, voice low.
Lyra's stomach twisted.
She had thought the same.
No one spoke of the Wolfshade lightly.
He was more than warrior.
More than beast.
He was death in wolfskin.
And once… once, long ago…
He had been Lyra's brother.
Flashback: Bloodlines Broken
Lyra saw him now in memory — a boy with hair like winter fire, a laugh like ringing bells.
Her twin.
Her shadow.
Together they had played under the silver moons.
Together they had sworn to protect Ashwood.
But when the Mourning King rose, he had chosen the Court.
Chosen power over kin.
And Lyra had watched him fall into darkness.
She had never forgiven him.
She never would.
And now… he led the army meant to destroy her home.
The Eve of Blood
Night fell like a shroud.
Ashwood's wolves gathered in the stone courtyards, sharpening blades, stringing bows, daubing their skin with the old war paint.
Lyra walked among them — not as a queen above her people, but as a sister among warriors.
Children whispered her name.
Mothers blessed her passing.
The old sang songs of the Savage Moon.
She could feel it.
The end rushing toward them like a tidal wave.
But she would not bend.
Talia approached as the moons rose.
"The Black Claws will strike the south wall," she said.
"We can funnel them into the killing grounds."
Kaelen added, "The Wolfshade will likely lead the vanguard."
Lyra nodded.
"I will meet him."
Talia and Kaelen exchanged grim looks.
But neither argued.
It was her right.
Her burden.
Her fate.
Lyra's Vow
At the highest tower of Ashwood, beneath the savage moons, Lyra knelt.
She spoke no prayers.
The gods had abandoned them long ago.
Instead, she whispered to the blood in her veins.
To the wolves who came before.
To the unborn songs of those yet to come.
"I will not yield," she vowed.
"I will not break."
"For Ashwood."
"For the Pack."
"For the Savage Moon."
The final hours before dawn were thick with dread.
Ashwood became a hive of activity — every soul, young or old, moved with grim purpose.
The smiths worked until their hands bled, forging arrowheads, reinforcing the battered armor salvaged from the Wellspring.
The mages, few though they were, drew wards of protection across the walls, weaving the last threads of old magic into stone and iron.
Lyra watched it all from the battlements.
The stars above were cold and sharp, like broken glass scattered across the endless black.
The moons hung low, swollen with crimson light — an omen none could ignore.
Kaelen approached, his armor polished to a mirror shine.
He carried two blades: his own, and a second — sleek, curved, humming with barely contained power.
He offered the second to Lyra without a word.
She recognized it immediately.
"Shadowfang," she whispered.
The ancestral blade of Ashwood's Alphas.
Forged in the time when wolves still spoke the old tongue.
"I reforged it," Kaelen said. "It belongs to you."
Lyra accepted the blade with reverence.
The leather of the hilt was worn, but the metal sang as she drew it free.
It felt right in her hands — as if it had been waiting for her all this time.
"I will not let Ashwood fall," she vowed again.
Kaelen nodded, his gaze fierce.
"Neither will I."
Visions in the Dark
That night, Lyra slept little.
When she finally closed her eyes, sleep came violently — dragging her into visions darker than the void.
She saw Ashwood in flames.
The dead piled high beneath the walls.
The Wolfshade standing atop the ruins, his mouth twisted in a mockery of a smile.
She saw herself — broken, chained, howling at a blackened sky.
And somewhere, deeper still, she saw a silver wolf.
Massive.
Ancient.
Its eyes were her own.
"Blood calls to blood," it whispered.
"But blood does not command fate."
Lyra awoke with a gasp, heart hammering against her ribs.
Sweat drenched her.
The cold wind of dawn licked at her skin through the open window.
It was time.
The Sound Before the Storm
As the first rays of light brushed the mountains, a horn sounded in the distance.
Low.
Bone-deep.
The sentries cried out from the walls:
"They come!"
Lyra donned her armor — blackened steel, leather hardened by fire.
Shadowfang was strapped to her back, a reminder of every Alpha who had fought before her.
In the courtyard, the warriors of Ashwood formed ranks.
Their breath plumed in the chill morning air.
Their eyes shone with fury, with fear, with unbreakable determination.
Kaelen rode out at the head of the vanguard.
Talia barked orders, her voice cutting through the chaos.
Varra rallied the archers along the southern wall.
And Lyra…
Lyra stood at the heart of it all, calm as a mountain before the storm.
She could feel him.
Beyond the trees.
Beyond the mist.
The Wolfshade.
Waiting.
A drumbeat began — slow, deliberate — from the Court's army.
War drums.
Pounding like a second heartbeat in the earth.
Lyra raised her sword high.
The wolves of Ashwood howled as one.
A sound to shake the heavens.
A promise to the Savage Moon.
The War Begins
The enemy poured from the trees like a flood.
Thousands.
Black-armored figures wielding twisted weapons.
Beasts twice the size of men, frothing and snarling.
Mages cloaked in smoke and shadows.
At their head, the Wolfshade rode a nightmare beast — black fur, red eyes, tusks like spears.
He wore no helmet, letting Lyra see his face.
It was both familiar and monstrous.
Her brother.
And something else entirely.
Their eyes met across the battlefield.
Neither spoke.
Words were useless now.
Only blood would speak.
Lyra thrust Shadowfang skyward.
"FOR ASHWOOD!" she roared.
The wolves answered her call, a tidal wave of fury and steel.
And the two armies collided beneath the dying moons.
Steel screamed against steel.
Magic split the skies.
Blood painted the earth black.
First Clash: Sister and Brother
Lyra tore through the frontlines, Shadowfang carving arcs of death.
She moved like a storm given flesh — graceful, brutal, unstoppable.
She was searching for him.
For the Wolfshade.
For the ending they both knew must come.
She caught glimpses of him — a flash of crimson, the howl of his monstrous mount — but always he slipped away, leading her deeper into the heart of chaos.
Around her, Ashwood's warriors fought with desperate valor.
Kaelen cut down two Black Claws with a single sweep of his blade.
Talia unleashed a barrage of arrows that blackened the sky.
But still the Court pressed forward, inexorable as the tide.
Lyra knew: this battle was only the beginning.
Ashwood's survival would not be won by strength alone.
It would be won — or lost — by the choices she made next.
And somewhere in the carnage, the Wolfshade waited for his sister to find him.
To finish what had been broken long ago.
And far below, in the dark woods where the Court's armies gathered like stormclouds, a figure cloaked in shadows smiled.
The Wolfshade had come for his sister.
And he would drag her into the abyss… or die trying.