Chapter Three: The Sun and the Wolf
Auron woke to silence. Not peace, but the hollow kind that lingers after screaming—after a world breaks and forgets how to start again.
His eyes opened slowly. The sky above was gray, washed in the color of ash. Snow had fallen again, soft and unfeeling, erasing the battlefield as though mercy could be painted in white.
He lay in the back of a small wooden cart. The leather canopy was torn, darkened where blood had soaked through. Near his feet, a brazier hissed faintly, its last ember breathing light into the cold. The air smelled of pine and smoke, and beneath that, the metallic sting of dried blood.
For a long while, Auron didn't move. He watched the light tremble on the canvas above him and waited for a sound; the gravelly laugh, the rough voice calling his name. His grandfather's voice.
It never came.
Then memory returned: the crater, Malvio's knife, the spectral wolf rising from fire. The breath caught in his throat. He sat up too fast and pain lanced through his ribs.
His body felt wrong; heavy, too aware. Veins pulsed faintly with light beneath his skin, as though his blood remembered something his mind could not.
His wrist throbbed.
He looked down. The bronze bracelet glowed softly with silver light. The wolf sigil within it seemed to breathe. its eyes twin stars flickering beneath the metal. Every time Auron looked too long, a sound stirred at the edge of his hearing.
A heartbeat.
No. A growl.
He pressed a trembling hand to his temple. "What's happening to me?"
No answer. Only the wind, whispering through the torn canvas, carrying distant howls from the mountains.
When he finally climbed out, the world felt sharper. The trees rose taller than he remembered, their bark veined with faint lines of light. Every snowflake shimmered in strange color, every breath of air humming with unseen rhythm.
He blinked. The forest shimmered with rivers of faint energy flowing between stone and root. Mana alive, tangible. He could feel it brushing against his skin, humming through his bones. It wasn't beauty. It was perception sharpened until it hurt, a new sense that made the world too alive to bear.
He followed it back to the grave.
The mound was already half-buried again, a soft rise beneath the snow, marked only by the sword thrust upright into the ground. Godfrey's sword. Its runes still glowed faintly, like eyes that refused to close.
Auron fell to his knees. The cold bit into his skin, but he barely felt it. "You said I'd never be alone again," he whispered. "You lied."
The wind said nothing.
The bracelet pulsed once slow, steady, like a heartbeat. Warmth spread from his wrist to his chest, soft and rhythmic.
Then came a voice. Not in words, but instinct. Rise.
Auron's head snapped up. Snow drifted through empty air. No one was there.
He touched the hilt of the sword. The runes blazed brighter under his palm, and for a heartbeat, he saw his grandfather's face reflected in the glow, smiling, proud, alive.
The sun rises and sets. The wolf endures.
Auron's throat tightened. "Then I'll endure."
Far beyond the grave, deep within the frost-bitten woods, something stirred.
Bloodshed of that scale
the death of a Seventh-Star warrior, the birth of untamed mana; never went unnoticed. Such power called to the Veil, drawing things that should not cross it.
The first to answer was a Shadow Lynx.
It moved between the trees without sound, its massive frame shrouded in fur dark as wet ash. Each paw left deep, smoking impressions in the snow.
Yellow eyes gleamed with sickly light, twin coins of corrupted mana. It could smell the blood of power and the scent of a grieving boy who carried it unguarded.
Auron sat in the snow, sword across his knees, copying the breathing patterns Godfrey had taught him long ago. In, hold, release. The rhythm steadied the storm inside him.
He didn't know what he was doing, only that it helped. The mana within him flowed thick and sluggish, like molten metal through narrow veins. When he closed his eyes, images came: the wolf's burning eyes, Malvio's trembling hands, his grandfather's final smile.
Each vision hurt. Each bled into the next.
He didn't hear the forest go silent.
A shadow fell over him. Snow shivered from the branches. Then came the sound a low growl, deep as thunder rolling under the earth.
Auron turned just as the Shadow Lynx dropped from the trees. It hit the ground with enough force to shake the frost loose from the trunks. Black claws gleamed like polished iron. Its breath steamed in great clouds.
He stumbled back, sword rising instinctively. His pulse roared in his ears.
The Lynx's lips peeled back. It moved with dreadful grace, circling him. Somewhere in the back of his mind, the wolf's voice rumbled again
Run.
Not a command. A warning.
The Lynx lunged.
Auron threw himself sideways. Snow exploded where he'd been. The shockwave hurled him down the slope, crashing into the roots of an oak. His arms burned. His ribs screamed.
He pushed up, gasping, and swung the sword in a desperate arc. The runes flared weakly. The blade scraped the Lynx's hide, throwing sparks but drawing little blood.
The creature roared, offended more than hurt. It struck back, a single paw swiping with enough force to fell a man. The blow caught Auron's shoulder and sent him spinning through the snow. His vision went white.
He couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.
The beast's shadow loomed over him, vast and merciless.
Get up.
The voice again clearer, closer.
Auron's hand closed around the sword hilt. The cold bit deep, but he held on.
The sun rises and sets. The wolf endures.
Light surged from the bracelet, burning hot against his wrist. The sigil flared, and his veins shone gold beneath his skin. His breath steadied. The pain dulled.
He rose.
The Lynx charged. Auron lifted his sword and met it head-on.
Steel met claw, and the air cracked like lightning. Power flooded him, raw and terrifying. For a heartbeat, he thought he'd shatter from the force of it—but the wolf stood behind him, vast and spectral, its fur a storm of silver fire.
The Lynx roared, slashing down. Auron caught its paw in both hands. The world froze. Snow suspended in midair. The beast's weight pressed down, bones straining, muscles burning, but he did not break.
His voice was quiet, almost calm. "Get away from my grandfather's grave."
The wolf's snarl joined his.
Auron swung the sword. Golden light split the air.
The Lynx reeled back, chest torn open by a crescent of fire. The sound that left its throat was not pain but reverence. Its form collapsed in on itself, dissolving into ash and light.
Auron stood trembling in the ruin. The snow hissed into steam around him. The spectral wolf circled once, luminous eyes watching, then faded into mist.
He dropped to his knees beside the grave. The sword slipped from his grasp. Power drained away, leaving only the ache of loss.
Snow began to fall again; gentle, unjudging.
Auron bowed his head, tears vanishing into frost. For the first time since that night of blood, his eyes closed without fear.
And the world, at last, was quiet.
He slept beside the sword, beneath the falling snow.
Not as a boy.
But as something new.
The heir of the Sun and the Wolf.