Kael's POV
The forest whispered betrayal long before it struck.
I could feel it in my marrow—the prophecy curling in my chest like smoke: "Only in the breath between love and betrayal…"
Something ancient had heard it too. And it obeyed.
The moment Sophie repeated the words, the ground beneath us cracked open.
"Sophie!"
She reached for me, but something yanked her back—the roots, the mist, the forest itself.
"SOPHIE!"
Her eyes widened as she vanished into the fog.
I roared, shifting halfway without meaning to—claws ripping out, fur bristling, teeth snapping into the open air—but it was useless.
She was gone.
Again.
And then…
"I warned you," a voice said from behind me, low and bitter. "But you never listen."
I turned—my heart dropping.
Ronan.
He stepped through the trees like a ghost—black armor laced with sigils, a massive rune-carved spear strapped to his back.
"You look worse," he said casually. "Not surprising. Cursed beasts don't age gracefully."
"Ronan…" I growled.
He stopped ten paces away. "The elders sent me to retrieve you. Or kill you. Whichever comes easier."
Sophie's POV
I was falling.
Not through air—through memory.
The moment Kael disappeared, the mist swallowed me whole and spit me into a strange realm: a mirrored meadow with no end, no sky, no wind. Every step I took echoed infinitely, as though I walked on the edge of time.
Then I saw them—versions of myself, flickering like reflections in shattered glass.
One crying beside my parents' corpses.
One smiling in Windhollow as a child with my grandmother.
One holding Kael's paw… then stabbing him.
I gasped. "No."
I backed away—but the blade at my side pulsed. The markings glowed again.
"Bearer," the forest hissed around me. "Your trial has begun."
Kael's POV
"You don't have to do this," I said, stepping toward Ronan.
He scoffed. "I didn't come for you. I came for her."
My heart froze. "What?"
"You think the council didn't know? The bearer's awakening didn't just shake the trees, Kael—it shook our bloodline. The elders know the prophecy's alive. They want the girl."
"For what?" I demanded. "To stop the curse?"
"To control it."
Something in me snapped.
I lunged.
He met me with a snarl, steel flashing between us. The blade grazed my shoulder, but I didn't feel it—I tackled him into the roots, snarling, fighting like a beast.
Because if he found her—before I reached her again…
He would kill her.
Or worse.
Sophie's POV
The trial was twisting around me now.
I found myself in the middle of a memory—but it wasn't mine.
It was Kael's.
I stood in the forest as a child version of him—small, bleeding, shifting under a full moon—screamed as his first transformation broke him in half. His father stood nearby, grim. Cold. Watching.
Then the image shifted.
Kael—older—kneeling in front of the pack, chains around his arms.
His father's voice boomed through the air:
"You let your rage loose. You slaughtered without control. You killed the innocent. You broke the pact."
"You are cast out… until the curse finds its breaker."
"May the forest judge you."
And the vision broke.
I was alone again—except for the Guardian Spirit, standing beside me.
"You've seen the truth," he said. "The curse was never just blood for blood… it was fear for fear. Power for power."
I swallowed. "What do I do now?"
He pointed behind me.
I turned—my blade glowing red now—and saw a dark version of Kael walking toward me. His eyes were black. His mouth dripping shadow.
"This is the moment, bearer," the spirit said. "Will you trust him? Or fear him?"
The dark Kael lifted his hand toward me, palm open.
The real Kael's voice whispered through the mist: "Sophie, please…"
I lifted my blade.