I was chained in the center of the water prison.
The eerily green-glowing, icy water covered my ankles. This was Morgana's specially brewed "Water of Lethe," which inhibited cell regeneration, preventing wounds from healing and stopping an ordinary werewolf from being able to shift.
At a fixed time each day, Morgana would appear like a ghost, her face hidden behind a stark white, expressionless mask.
"This is the 'Ash of the Black Marsh'," she said, pouring the viscous liquid from the vial into the water. "The sacrificial sigil you saw in Creek Valley was made from its powder."
As the potion entered the water, the once-icy liquid instantly became boiling hot, scalding my skin. A few hours later, it would turn extremely cold, freezing and cracking the very wounds that had just been burned. And the old wound on my calf from the hunt, in this repeated torment, could never heal.
Day after day, my body was being corroded, inch by inch.
But whenever my consciousness was about to be overwhelmed by the pain, a thought would always remind me—Willow, Lisa… they had not been found yet.
I bit my lip hard, using the pain to stay awake.
I began to carefully observe every detail of this water prison—the direction of the runes, the pattern of the drainage, the sound of Morgana's footsteps…
As long as I was alive, there was still a chance.
On another sleepless night, I closed my eyes and forced myself to remember the "dream" I had in the Black Forest. In that dream, my consciousness had left my body, and I had become an invisible observer.
I tried to focus all my mental energy, repeating a single thought in my mind:
I want to get out.
I want to see what's happening outside.
Liam… Ulf…
Gradually, the sound of the water and the chains in the prison began to fade. My consciousness grew light, as if it could truly pass through the thick stone walls…
But every attempt failed.
The intense pain from the "Water of Lethe" at my feet was an unyielding barrier that would always viciously drag my spirit back, leaving me to faint in the waves of agony.
After another session of torture, Morgana, for the first time, brought up another topic.
"Your healing ability is… interesting," she said, looking at my mangled ankle. "At the hunt, why do you think the griffin went mad and attacked only you?"
A chill ran through me.
"It was because," she said slowly, "I had Clara smear 'Corpse Soul Konjac Juice' on that old shawl of yours. Its scent attracts and enrages griffins. And the poison on its feather-darts should have made your wound fester. But your blood… it purified it."
I finally understood. The seemingly accidental injury at the hunt had been an experiment she had designed from the very beginning.
"Your bloodline is more… special than the ancient texts describe," she continued. "A pity your Alpha doesn't seem to know how to appreciate it."
It was as if she could read my mind.
"Don't count on him," she said. "This Lethe water prison has a special shielding sigil that minimizes the connection of the blood pact. Right now… he can't feel anything."
I was stunned, as if plunged into an icy abyss.
"What can he feel? What do you mean?"
"The blood pact is a connection of the soul," her voice was laced with mockery. "Both parties can sense each other's emotions, pain, even their strongest intentions. What, have you not felt anything?"
"I…"
"It seems you don't care much for Lord Alpha either," Morgana sneered. "And to think he would risk his life for you… heh, how pathetic."
Her words were a key, instantly unlocking the floodgates of my memory.
I remembered.
I remembered in the tower, whenever I was starving, there would always be food by my bed the next day; whenever I was lonely and in despair, a single white flower would quietly appear on my pillow… It wasn't some mysterious "visitor"; it was him, sensing my hunger and loneliness through the blood pact.
I remembered in the Moon Shadow Courtyard, when Clara tore my shawl, how my extreme anger and grief had, in an instant, summoned the out-of-control black wolf.
I remembered in the council hall, when I had smiled and accepted the herbs from Liam, how my inner joy had made him say, "She is
my
concern, not yours," a sentence filled with possessiveness.
And, by the bonfire in Creek Valley, when I mentioned Liam's gentleness, how the light in his eyes had instantly died…
In the Wailing Canyon, when both Rosalind and I were in danger, he had unhesitatingly charged towards me, taking the fatal blow with his own back.
And after I was framed, how he had, against the pressure of all the elders, "imprisoned" me by his side under the guise of guarding a "suspect." He had forced me to eat, thrown northern history and military strategy books at me, and in every silent night, in his own way, he had awkwardly protected me…
So… I had been wrong from the very beginning.
My hunger, my loneliness, my anger, my grief, every flutter of joy and excitement I felt because of Liam… all my emotions had been transmitted to him, unfiltered, through the blood pact.
He had felt everything I felt, responded to everything I felt, even protected everything I felt with his own life.
And I, like a selfish blind and deaf person, knew nothing of his world, cared nothing for his pain and struggles.
"What? Can't argue with that?" Morgana looked at my pale face, her voice growing even more shrill. "Or is it that your feelings for Liam are the real ones?"
I was speechless.
"It seems our 'Luna' is as promiscuous as the rumors say."
I bit my lip hard, letting her vicious words, like the Water of Lethe, completely drown me.
In the days that followed, the physical pain became secondary.
Morgana's words were a dagger named "regret," constantly twisting in my heart.
I yearned to live, to have a chance to see Kaelen one more time, even if it was just to say "I'm sorry."
But I also knew that, perhaps, I would die in this cold water prison, forever carrying this guilt.
The full moon arrived, right on schedule.
The "Silver Frost Blood" in my veins erupted on time. A chill seeped from the depths of my bones, like countless ice needles piercing every inch of my being. At the same time, the "Water of Lethe" at my feet was like boiling oil, scalding my festering wounds. The two extremes of pain, from within and without, nearly tore my sanity to shreds.
Just as my consciousness was about to be completely consumed by the pain, Morgana appeared again.
She slowly poured a vial of a strange, purple-glowing potion into the water.
"This is the 'Tears of the Dream-Weaver'," her voice echoed in the vast water prison. "It will make you see… what you most want to avoid."
"Why?" I squeezed the word from between my teeth. "Why are you tormenting me like this?"
"Because I need your 'Silver Frost Blood'."
"My blood…?" I gritted my teeth, trying to grasp at the last straw. "But Kaelen needs me. He needs me to help him stabilize his rage blood on the full moon."
"Oh?" Morgana let out a small laugh. "Do you think you are irreplaceable?"
She slowly shook her head.
"With your blood as a 'primer,' I can create the true 'Moon Essence Sedative.' And then…" her voice was filled with mockery, "you, the 'primer,' will no longer be so important."
"So, what you gave him before… was a fake?" a sense of foreboding rose within me. "Kaelen… is he alright?"
"Him?" Morgana laughed. "He's fine. Without you, he still has Lady Rosalind, doesn't he?"
She took out a crystal ball and placed it before me. The light within it swirled, and a clear image appeared—
In the dim light of the border military camp, Kaelen was leaning back wearily in his chair, and Rosalind, wearing only a thin silk gown, was intimately embracing him from behind, her head resting on his shoulder.
I looked at the scene, and my heart felt colder than my ice-water-soaked ankles.
"What you don't appreciate, others will," Morgana said, putting away the crystal ball. "Now, let us begin the final step."
As the potion entered the water, a strange fragrance filled the air.
An immense pain washed over me, and my consciousness was instantly ripped away, plunging me into a nightmare of endless darkness and blood.
I saw it.
I saw the square of Winterfang, a heavy snow falling.
Kaelen was standing before me, in front of all the people of the pack, looking at me with a coldness I had never seen before.
I couldn't hear what he was saying, only see his lips moving.
Then, after a complex ritual I couldn't understand, he raised a dagger and, with a vicious slash, cut through the empty space between us.
I felt no pain, but I felt something deep within my soul being brutally severed. An unfillable void instantly consumed me.
Then, he turned and tightly embraced the slender figure in a magnificent wedding gown who was standing beside him.
I watched their intimate embrace, and I felt as if an invisible hand were squeezing my heart, the pain making it hard to breathe.
—So, this was what I most wanted to avoid seeing.
Just as I was about to be completely consumed by this heart-wrenching pain, the image before me shattered, like the surface of water after a stone has been thrown in, rippling outwards.
My consciousness seemed to travel at the speed of light, to another time and place.
The scene shifted abruptly.
In her immense pain, it was as if time had stopped. She flew at the speed of light to another scene.
The scene shifted abruptly.
I saw a small boy, a young Kaelen.
His lightless eyes held no tears, only a loneliness and suppression that did not belong to his age.
His parents had just died in battle, and he, so small, was being forced onto a cold throne by his uncle, Barton, to undergo the so-called "education of the strong."
"A king cannot have feelings," Barton's voice was cold.
I saw a young Liam, free to chase butterflies in the courtyard, while he, Kaelen, could only, day after day, swing a heavy sword that was taller than he was in the training grounds, until his hands were blistered and bloody, and still, he could not stop.
I saw, at the dinner table, that he had to eat a fixed amount of all the food at a fixed time, even the bitter greens he hated most. When he looked a little too long at his favorite roasted meat, he was met with Barton's cold whip in the middle of the night.
He could not show any likes or dislikes. At a banquet, he had just spoken a few more words to a young Rosalind and was, for "indulging in women and having a weak will," hung from a training post for an entire night.
The council hall, the study, the training grounds—these three points formed the entirety of his gray childhood.
On the night of the full moon, he was roughly bound to an altar. Morgana used cold silver needles to prick his skin, cutting his young wrist and drawing his burning, fiery blood, drop by drop, into a crystal vial.
The scene, following the crystal vial filled with the blood of his childhood, zoomed forward, through the mists of time, to the present.
The scene changed to a dark, green-glowing secret chamber in a shrine.
I saw them.
I saw Emily, Nora, Lisa… all the missing girls.
Their bodies had been twisted and modified, like broken dolls, submerged in giant glass containers filled with a green liquid. Metal plates with their names were engraved on the containers.
Their eyes were empty, and black runes moved under their skin. They had become soulless puppets.
On the floor below the containers was a massive rune, drawn in black blood. The pattern of the rune was a twisted, snake-like, claw-like eye, the same as the rune we had seen in Creek Valley, filled with an evil aura.
I saw Emily. Her face, which had once been "glowing" from the potion, was now gaunt and sunken, her skin stretched tightly over her skull.
I saw Nora. Her hand, the one with the ruby ring, had been cut off at thewrist. Her empty wrist was chained to the top of the container.
I saw Lisa. Her face, which had always been so timid, was now half-human, half-wolf, her fingers turned to claws, as if she had died in the process of shifting. She was no longer the girl who would secretly give me a baked potato.
I looked at them and couldn't help but let out a grief-stricken cry.
At the end of the vision, I saw a hand in a white mask pick up the crystal vial filled with the blood of Kaelen's childhood.
She walked to the center of the secret chamber and slowly poured the burning, red, fiery blood into the core of the massive rune-eye on the floor.
The next second, a horrifying scene unfolded.
The massive network of runes on the floor seemed to come to life! The black lines began to pulse like veins, and they sent the red power upwards, through tubes connected to the bottom of each glass container.
Finally, the power, following the runes on the inner walls of the containers, silently flowed into the center of each puppet's forehead.
I instantly understood.
The source of the "Ghoul-Wolf Knights" was the stolen, pain-filled childhood of Kaelen.