The girl in the glass coffin didn't blink. Didn't move. But Eden could feel her.
Like pressure in the back of her skull. Like a memory she hadn't made but couldn't forget.
Kade stood guard beside her, tense, one hand resting on the hilt of a knife she hadn't seen him carry before. It looked ancient. Its blade shimmered with runes that burned blue when pointed toward the coffin.
"I don't understand," Eden whispered.
"She's me?"
"She's what you were meant to be." Before the humans carved away the part of you that was wolf.
"You make it sound like I was built."
"You were. Not by machines, but by bloodlines, spells and deals made under moons that never set."
Eden stepped closer to the glass. The girl's lips were slightly parted, like she was caught mid-breath. Her skin shimmered faintly.
"Why is she still alive?"
"She isn't," Kade said. Not in the way we think. She's dormant. Bound by magic older than this town. They locked her away so you could live as human, so the gate could remain closed.
"But I feel her… inside me. Since the dreams started. Since I met you."
"She's waking because the town is failing. Because something breached the laws that bound her. And now, it's not just Silverthorn that's in danger. "It's all of us." They sealed the trapdoor with salt, sigils, and a silent vow Eden didn't fully understand.
The girl below hadn't stirred, but when Eden looked in the mirror that night, her reflection did something she didn't. It smiled.
Silverthorn didn't sleep. By morning, the streets were buzzing. Not with voices, but with warnings. Red thread tied to door handles. Chalk symbols scrawled on thresholds. Bells hung upside down. At the diner, no one would serve her. At the gas station, Eden's card wouldn't work. The pump flickered, then spat out an error screen that read: No escape. Even Clara kept her distance.
"You have to go to the circle," she said, barely opening the door.
"What circle?"
"The Standing Stones. In the forest. East ridge."
"Why?"
Clara looked at her with a mixture of pity and awe. "Because the pack is gathering. And they're going to decide whether to crown you… or kill you."
Eden didn't tell Kade she was going. He would have stopped her. And she needed to do this on her own, even if every instinct screamed otherwise.She followed the trail out past the river, beyond the weeping oaks, to where the trees grew in a perfect ring around a clearing of moss-covered stones. The air there shimmered like heat, even though it was cold enough to bite. The pack was already there.
Twenty, maybe thirty, in their human forms, but their eyes gleamed silver. Some bore scars that looked ceremonial. Others carried weapons etched with moon-metal. And at the center stood Lira. The white-haired woman was barefoot, her robes flowing like mist, and her gaze cut Eden like a blade.
"You shouldn't have come alone," she said.
"I'm not alone," Eden replied.
A few wolves stirred. One of them, a tall, dark-skinned man with a branded shoulder, stepped forward.
She carries the blood. "I can smell it.
"She also carries the curse," Lira said. "We all felt it the night the sky bled feathers." "She didn't cause it," someone else said. "She is it."
Eden stepped into the circle, heart-pounding. "I'm not here to prove anything. I just want to understand what's happening to me, and to this town."
"You are what's happening," Lira said coldly. "You are the Breaker."
"The what?"
"The Gate in flesh" The prophecy walking. Your presence is tearing open what we buried generations ago."
A hush fell. The branded man bowed his head. "Then let her fulfill it. "Let her wake the one below."
"You would doom us all," Lira snapped.
"She is the doom," another growled. "Or the deliverance."
Before Eden could ask what they meant, the ground trembled. A howl split the sky, deep, guttural, not from any throat she knew.
The air stilled. The birds vanished. And from the trees, Kade emerged, furious. His eyes were burning. His teeth were bared. "You brought her here without protection?" he growled. "You fools."
"She is the danger," Lira spat. "She does not need protection. "She needs containment."
Kade stepped in front of Eden. "Say that again."
"She carries the twin soul. The one who will rise if she breaks. You know the legend. You know the risk."
"I also know she saved me. And this town."
"She's not done," Lira whispered. "She's just beginning." Suddenly, Eden couldn't breathe. The world spun.
Something inside her, someone was clawing to get out.
She fell to her knees, gasping. The branded man tried to approach, but was thrown back by an invisible force. A circle of light burst around her. Sigils burned into the moss. Voices began to chant.
Kade reached for her, but his hand passed through her body like smoke.
"Eden!" he shouted.
But she wasn't Eden anymore. Not fully. The girl in the glass had risen. And now she was standing inside her.
The voice that came from her lips was hers, but layered. Echoing and ancient.
"I remember," she said. "I remember the pact." The lies. The day they tore me in two."
"Eden, fight it!" Kade called. But the others were kneeling now.
Even Lira. Because they saw it too: the crown of flame flickering above Eden's head.
The Gate had opened.
And Silverthorn's fate would be sealed… by one woman with two souls.