Whispers in the Blood .
Aria hadn't slept in two days.
Not because of pain.
Not because of fear.
Because every time she closed her eyes, she saw her.
The woman in white.
Her face cloaked in moonlight.
Her voice a chorus of wind and wolves.
And every time the dream ended, it ended with the same word burned into Aria's chest:
"Remember."
She didn't know what it meant.
Not yet.
---
Cain had noticed the change.
Aria didn't flinch anymore when blades came near her face.
Didn't wince when she reopened wounds.
Didn't speak unless she had something to say.
She was becoming what the world tried to destroy.
He watched her from the shadows, arms crossed, as she threw a dagger straight into the neck of a training dummy.
A perfect hit.
It hadn't always been like that.
Two weeks ago, she trembled at the sight of her own claws.
Now?
She kissed them after each kill.
---
"There's something wrong with me," she said to Cain that night.
They sat near the edge of camp, the stars dull, hidden by thick clouds.
"Define wrong," he muttered.
"I feel like… I'm not alone anymore."
He turned to her.
"You're not. You've got a goddess screaming in your bones."
She looked at him, eyes glassy. "You believe in her?"
Cain's jaw tightened. "I've seen things no sane wolf would believe. So yes… I believe."
Aria exhaled slowly. "She comes to me in dreams."
He looked up sharply. "What does she say?"
Aria turned her eyes to the moonless sky. "She tells me to remember. But I don't know what."
Cain went still. Too still.
"What?" she asked.
He didn't answer.
---
The next morning, the rogues brought in a prisoner.
A Nightbane warrior.
Young. Maimed. Burnt along one arm — clearly caught in one of Aria's rune traps.
They dragged him into the stone pit and chained him by the neck.
Aria stood above him.
He spat blood at her feet.
"You're the girl they left in the snow," he hissed. "Should've stayed dead."
She didn't blink.
She didn't ask questions.
She just walked behind him, grabbed his ruined hand, and snapped a finger.
He screamed.
The rogues didn't flinch.
Cain didn't stop her.
"I'm only going to ask once," she said, voice flat. "Who gave the order to plant the wolfsbane?"
The warrior's face twisted. "Your sister."
Aria froze. "What?"
"She's the new Luna now, isn't she?" he sneered. "Perfect. Beautiful. Chosen."
Aria's claws unsheathed slowly.
She crouched beside him. "And I'm the one she tried to erase."
---
That night, Aria stood under a sky thick with thunder, the prisoner's final words still echoing in her skull:
"They fear your return. That's why they hunt you."
But the most haunting part?
He didn't lie.
She could smell it.
Rogues gathered behind her. Some whispered. Some waited. Cain stood a few feet back, arms folded, eyes unreadable.
She turned to them, her voice cutting the air.
"They want me dead before the world remembers who I am.
They want to rewrite me as a ghost."
She pulled back her sleeve.
Revealing her skin — marked now with glowing sigils from her wolf's first shift.
"But ghosts don't bleed. And I am not forgotten."
---
Cain approached her later, in the silence of night.
"You're sure she said remember?" he asked again.
Aria nodded. "She looked like me. But older. Not human. She had moonlight in her veins."
He let out a slow breath. "You're a Seer, Aria. Not just a wolf. A direct vessel of the Silver Moon."
"What does that mean?"
"It means you were born for more than just revenge."
She shook her head. "That's all I want."
Cain reached out, touched her jaw gently. "That's because revenge is the only thing they left you. But I see it now… you were meant to lead."
---
That night, the dreams came again.
But this time, she didn't run.
She stood before the woman in white — her mirror, her goddess — and whispered:
"Who am I?"
The woman touched her forehead and said,
"You are the storm. The sword. The salvation. And the sin."
When Aria woke, her hands were glowing.
And behind her… her wolf whispered one word:
"Soon."
---
The next day, Cain didn't show up for training.
It wasn't like him.
He was always there — before the sun, before the wind, before her first breath of pain.
So when Aria walked into the clearing and found nothing but shadows, her instincts sharpened like blades.
Something was wrong.
She sniffed the air.
Smoke. But not from firewood. From binding ink.
She followed the scent deep into the forest — until she reached a cave she hadn't seen before.
Hidden behind twisted roots, cloaked in magic.
She stepped inside.
And found Cain… kneeling before an altar of bones and ash.
---
He didn't turn when she entered.
"You weren't supposed to find this," he said quietly.
"I wasn't supposed to survive," she shot back.
He let out a bitter chuckle. "Fair."
Her eyes scanned the space.
Lit by dim blue fire, scrolls lined the walls. Symbols she didn't understand pulsed on the cave floor. And in the center, resting on bloodstained stone, was a book bound in black fur.
It pulsed. As if it breathed.
"What is that?" she asked.
Cain stood slowly.
"The Book of Moons," he said. "The Goddess's final gift. Or her greatest curse."
---
He stepped forward and placed his hand over the book.
"Only one of blood and fury can open it. That's why I've guarded it. For you."
Aria took a step back. "What's in it?"
"Truths," Cain said. "Too old for the Elders. Too dangerous for the packs."
He looked at her then, really looked.
"You're not a rogue, Aria. You were born of something ancient. Your bloodline traces back to the first Luna. The one they burned in silence. The one they erased from history."
Aria's voice trembled. "So they knew."
Cain nodded. "They didn't cast you out because you were weak. They cast you out because you're a threat."
---
Aria reached for the book.
Cain caught her wrist. "Once opened… it changes you. There's no turning back."
"I don't want to turn back."
She placed her palm against the cover.
The book shuddered.
It opened.
And the cave filled with voices.
They didn't speak in language. They spoke in power.
Images rushed into Aria's head — a woman bathed in silver fire, howling as the moon bled behind her. A temple crumbling. A child screaming her first shift under a red eclipse.
And then — her own face, older, crowned, stained with blood.
She gasped and stumbled back.
Cain caught her.
---
"What did you see?" he asked softly.
"Me," she whispered. "As Luna."
"Not just any Luna," Cain said. "The Chosen One."
She turned to him, eyes shining gold. "But the prophecy says the Chosen Luna must be born during a blood moon."
"You were," he said.
She blinked. "No, I—my records—"
He shook his head. "They lied, Aria. Your parents. The council. Everyone. You were born on the night of the last blood moon. I checked."
Her heart thudded. "Why would they hide that?"
Cain's voice was hard. "Because they knew you were never meant to serve. You were meant to rule."
---
That night, she sat by the altar alone.
The Book of Moons still glowed behind her, its pages rustling despite the still air.
She couldn't sleep.
Not because of fear. Not even because of power.
Because for the first time, she knew.
She wasn't an accident.
She wasn't forgotten.
She wasn't weak.
She was chosen.
And now she had proof.
Cain joined her just before dawn. He handed her something wrapped in cloth.
"What's this?" she asked.
"A blade," he said. "Forged from silver and starlight. My mother passed it to me. I'm giving it to you."
She unwrapped it slowly.
The blade shimmered, its edge glowing faintly in the darkness.
"It has no name," he said. "Name it."
Aria looked at it — then at the moon slowly rising.
"Wrath," she said.
---
When she rose the next morning, the rogues saw something different in her.
Her step was heavier. Her gaze more ancient. Her presence no longer a question — it was a command.
Even the wind paused when she passed.
They began to kneel without knowing why.
Cain stood behind her, arms crossed, nodding.
Later, when Aria stood on the altar to speak, her voice rang like thunder.
"I am not your queen."
The rogues murmured.
"I am your storm.
Your vengeance.
Your last breath before you break."
They howled.
And deep in Nightbane, Seraphina snapped her goblet in two, trembling.
"She's alive," she whispered.
Alpha Magnus's jaw clenched. "Then we send someone else."
Seraphina turned, smiling cruelly.
"I already have."
---