THE FLAME BEYOND THE STARS
The stars shifted.
Not subtly—like the quiet tilt of time—but suddenly, as if something had reached down and realigned them with intention. Astronomers in the far-north peaks of Emberwatch noticed first. Then the seers in Hollowpine began dreaming in fire. Then the trees in the deepest parts of the Weeping Woods began humming.
Something old had awakened.
Luna Morgan, once the Alpha Moon, now simply Luna of the People, stood in the tower observatory above the Moonroot Grove. She stared at the sky, hands clasped behind her back, heart steady.
Kael stepped beside her. "It's not a natural shift."
"No," she murmured. "It's a call."
From where, no one knew.
Until the Flame arrived.
It fell from the sky three nights later—a burning comet wrapped in spirals of light, pulsing with soundless music. It didn't crash. It landed. In the heart of the Northern Barrenlands, where no life had grown in hundreds of years.
Luna watched from afar.
And for the first time in years, her wolf stirred with unease.
Asher found her alone on the old balcony. "It's not from our world."
"I know."
He leaned beside her. "Are you going to it?"
"I have to."
"Then I go with you."
The journey to the Flame took seven days.
They rode with an elite team—Brin, Rae, Nyla, Kael, and ten of the new generation Moonborn. The lands twisted as they neared the crater, time stretching, shadows moving where there was no sun.
The Flame pulsed like a heartbeat, tall as a tower, silent yet roaring inside every mind.
When they reached its edge, Luna stepped forward first.
A whisper entered her thoughts.
You are the gate.
She extended her hand.
The Flame opened.
Not with fire.
With memory.
Inside was not heat, but history.
They stood in a vast chamber that looked like starlight carved into shape. The walls were lined with fragments of the first world—visions of wolves with wings, moons that sang, forests that floated.
At the center stood a being.
Neither wolf nor god.
It shimmered with light and shadow, a silhouette of balance.
"You are Luna Morgan," it said. "The last Lightbearer."
"I'm just a wolf," she answered.
It tilted its head. "And that is what saved you."
The being revealed what the Flame truly was.
A vessel.
A prison.
A seed.
It held the last spark of the origin flame, the force that once balanced the world. It had been fractured when wolves turned on one another, when power was hoarded, when love was severed from leadership.
"You carry the legacy," the being said. "But legacy is not enough."
"What must I do?"
"Choose."
Again.
Always.
The Flame offered a path.
Enter it fully. Fuse with it. Become something more than wolf, more than Luna. A guide across realms. A new moon.
But there was a cost.
She would leave this world behind.
No return.
Only echoes.
Her friends stood in silence.
Kael bowed his head.
Nyla stared into the fire, unblinking.
Brin wiped her face, shaking.
Rae gripped her shoulder. "Don't you dare go without writing it down."
Asher didn't speak.
He stepped forward.
Held her face.
"I knew you would change the world," he said. "I didn't know you'd have to leave it to finish the work."
She kissed him.
Then she turned.
And stepped into the Flame.
The world didn't end.
It transformed.
The skies cleared. The trees straightened. Old wounds mended. The wolves who had watched from shadows stepped into light.
Luna was gone.
But she was everywhere.
In the dreams of children.
In the firelight of stories.
In the way the moon now shimmered a little brighter.
And every so often, when the sky was clear and the wind right, the stars would shift.
And a voice would whisper:
I am not gone. I am becoming.