Whispers of the First Moonless
The Hollow Cliffs still hummed with the residue of the brothers' gathering when the First Moonless turned her attention elsewhere. Deep beneath the obsidian spires and the frozen vale, hidden in caverns older than any living wolf's memory, she stirred the threads she had woven long ago. No one in Alaric's camp sensed the subtle shifts — not yet. Only the First Moonless felt the resonance of fractures as they widened, as the sparks of rebellion spread like wildfire beneath thin ice.
High among the hidden vaults, where stone met sky in jagged defiance, three figures knelt before a blood-stained altar. Their breaths were shallow, their skins pale. One wore the mark of the Ardent Path on her forehead, a single crescent half-burned into her flesh. Another's hands trembled as she held a vial of silvered oil. The third, perched on a throne carved from the jaws of a long-dead leviathan, tilted his head to the side and listened to the silence. Each of them was bound by a thread of devotion to the First Moonless, yet each had come here for his or her own reasons. They called themselves the Covenant of Ember, yet none were truly kindled by hope. Their loyalty sprang from hunger: a hunger for influence, for vengeance, for the power that could shape the world's bones as easily as one cracked an ossified skull.
A flicker of crimson light seeped from the altar. The room trembled. From the void beyond, something watched, and all three shivered as though the breath of death had brushed their shoulders. In that moment, the First Moonless spoke, not in words, but in a quaking of the earth and a symphony of echoes — a language they felt in their bones.
"Rise," her voice intoned through the rancid air. "The brothers stand at the brink. One binds with law, the other shatters it. Both must learn that the mind knows no master but truth."
The Ardent Path priestess, sculpted by years of burning conviction, exhaled slowly. "Master, guide me." Her voice was too soft for faith, but it thrummed with anticipation. She pressed her palm to the altar, feeling the runes on the cold stone writhe like living things beneath her skin. Silver oil dripped from her fingers as she traced a rune in the shape of a broken moon. "I will tear the council's eyes from their sockets."
Beside her, the pale acolyte — known only as Claren — closed her hand over the vial. "And I will wash the world in memory. Every thought kept silent, every truth unspoken, will rise like vultures to feast on order." The oil's gleam glowed unnaturally bright, and Claren hid her trembling behind a veil of black silk. "They cannot hide what I will unearth."
The third figure, a man with eyes too young for such a throne, cracked his knuckles and smiled. "Let the Council scramble to patch their wounds." He was called Tyron, once a scribe of the Council's inner chambers, cast out when he dared speak of the First Moonless's promise. He tapped his finger on the altar's edge, sending ripples through the runes. "I will place a blade in Alaric's heart and a lie on Caelen's tongue. By dawn, the last strands of brotherhood will fray."
A pulse of light swept through the vaulted chamber, extinguishing their mortal doubts and replacing them with purpose. They rose as one, knowing that they served a force older than justice, beyond cruelty — a force that fed not on blood but on the tremor of revealed secrets.
---
In Ironfang's war pavilion, Alaric sat hunched over maps of fractured alliances. His lips moved silently, tracing routes that bore the names of clans he had yet to meet, of people whose trust he still had to earn. Beside him, Jorren leaned forward, eyes tired, hair graying at the temples. Mira paced behind them, dreams unfurling in her gaze.
Alaric looked up as she knelt beside him, sliding a scrap of parchment across the table. "I found this tucked inside a rider's cloak," she whispered. "Written in shadows."
He picked up the parchment, feeling the familiar hum of forbidden ink. On it, a single phrase was scrawled:
> THE LIES WILL SPEAK WHEN SILENCE CRIES.
Jorren rubbed his temples. "We've seen coded messages before, but this is different. It's a warning and a threat. I don't know whose handwriting that is, but it's been burned with brazen fire."
Alaric pressed his palm against the ink. He felt the echo of torn memories—whispers of secrets shared in darkness. "Someone among us heralds the unraveling." He crushed the parchment in his fist, letting the remnants drift to ash. "We must not let it begin."
Mira's eyes shone with dread. "I dreamt again last night. I saw Caelen's face split into a thousand fragments, each fragment speaking its own truth. I heard his panic." She paused, closing her eyes. "But then I saw his mentor's face—my father—appearing in a dream I had of the Council chambers, smiling. He whispered to me that our 'peace' was merely a cage. He said I would have to choose between them both."
Jorren's nails tapped the table. "You can't trust dreams entirely—but you also can't dismiss them." He leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling as if it held answers. "We've protected the realm against swords and axes. But if the First Moonless is seeding doubt itself, we face a war not of steel but of the soul. We need to find the source."
Alaric nodded grimly. "Then we find the Covenant of Ember." He stood. "But they hide beneath layers of sanctuary wards and false identities. I need eyes I can trust—runners who can move unseen."
Jorren rose as well. "I'll send scouts disguised as traders. They'll pose as itinerant herb merchants, offering salves and potions. If we gild their cloaks with our mark, you'll know where to send help."
Mira pressed a hand to his shoulder. "I can dreamwalk again, but this time I must anchor myself deeper—tether my mind to you, or I risk becoming lost in the tide of memory." She met his gaze. "I'll find them, Alaric. I'll see into their hidden chambers."
Alaric studied her face, knowing the peril that awaited her. "If you fall, I will raise your name in every valley until the mountains crumble. But do not walk alone in that dreamscape. I will tether myself to you."
Mira nodded, silent tears glinting on her cheeks.
---
Far above them, in a hidden fissure carved by ancient magics, the Covenant of Ember prepared their first assault. The Ardent Path priestess, her hands stained with runic ash, readied a ritual: a network of dream-skulls that, once lit, would open a floodgate of memory. When the dream-skulls ignited, every captive thought of the Council's sins would pour into the world like a thousand poisoned springs. Pain long forgotten, transgressions hidden by time, names that had been erased—all would be cast into the daylight, seeping into the minds of every wolf and human loyal to Ironfang.
Claren held the silver oil aloft. She had dipped her quill in it, drawing a flawless rune in the air. "When this burns, no vow will hold. Every lie they told themselves will become their bedfellow." She smiled, though no light touched her face. "This is how we topple kings without sword."
Tyron knelt to light the dream-skull with the flicker of a bone-torch. "Once the first skull gleams, the Council's own archives will crumble under the weight of truth. I will be waiting to gather them—and weave them into a new gospel. Not of kingship, but of awakening."
The skull ignited with a low, keening cry, the flame inside it a roiling violet that seemed almost alive. A shockwave rippled through the vaulted hall. The runes beneath their feet flared, and the walls of the fissure seemed to expand, swallowing the torchlight so that only that violet glow remained.
Upon that glow, a thousand faces appeared—memories of wolves who had been exiled, of healers buried alive, of scholars tortured for speaking truth. They hovered like flickering specters, a silent army of grievances. And then the flame died, leaving the faces imprinted on the darkness—ghostly reflections that would not fade.
---
Mira's breath shuddered as she stepped into the Circle of Stillwater, the dream-skulls embedded around her pulsing with the residue of altered vows. Shapes coalesced in the darkness—long-thought ghosts emerging. A healer who had cured the Alpha's plague, only to be banished. A young warrior whose loyalty had been bought and sold. A father who had thought his child dead, only to discover she was bound to the Iron Fang's shadow legions.
Each spirit pressed against her, offering fractured memories, half-truths, wounds that spat open. She gasped, struggling to maintain her grip on the waking world, but the force of their collective pain pulled her deeper into the dreamscape. She saw Alaric's face, twisted in sorrow as he clutched his fang-blade, torn between fury and mercy. She felt Caelen's hallowed presence, calm yet brimming with resolve, watching her from the edge of the dream.
And in the heart of that dream, she heard the First Moonless, a silent sigh that stirred the echoes of centuries. She felt the presence of hidden strings, the steady tug guiding the exiled, whispering in their minds that the time for revelation had come.
Then Mira broke free, bolstered by Alaric's tether. She emerged beneath the pre-dawn sky, knelt in the frost, and cast her hands to the heavens, chanting a sealing invocation. The dream-skulls collapsed into ash, the echoes of hollow promises snuffed out with a hush.
She turned to find Alaric standing above her, eyes red but resolute. "They have begun," she said, voice trembling. "The Covenant has lit the first flame of memory."
Alaric exhaled, drawing his cloak around them both. "Then we stand at the crossroads. We either embrace that truth or let it shatter us."
She nodded. "I saw their eyes—those waiting souls. They want not just freedom, but reckoning."
Alaric's gaze hardened. "Then let them come. Let the hidden names rise. We will meet them with truth, not steel. This fight… it will be a storm of words and memories. But I will stand by you, as brother and alpha, until the last lie falls."
Mira reached for his hand, strength merging with fear. "Together, we will hold the hollow line."
Above them, the first rays of sunlight cut through the mists, illuminating the valley. In that fragile dawn, they understood that the battle for Ironfang — and for every soul bound by oath and blood — had truly begun. The hidden machinations of the First Moonless had been unleashed, and no blade could cut deeper than the truths they would soon face.