The next morning, Elyra called a council.
Not just the usual inner circle—Rhys, Kellan, a few senior warriors.
She summoned the visiting alphas who were still in the territory.
Tiernan and Rian, of course.
Alpha Nyla of Frostfang.
Alpha Varek of Ironpine.
Even a young alpha from the Riverbend delegation—a woman named Sera, Callen’s supposed cousin—was asked to attend.
We met in the war room—a long, low chamber lined with maps and weapons, its central table scarred by decades of claws and markers.
The mood was…electric.
Nyla lounged at one end, dark skin gleaming, braided hair piled atop her head, frost-pattern tattoos curling up her neck. Her wolf’s aura pressed cool and sharp.
Varek sat ramrod straight, every line of his body tightly controlled, fingers steepled under his chin.
Sera looked…lost.
Her eyes darted around the room, not quite meeting anyone’s gaze. She held herself small, shoulders slightly hunched.
Rhys stood at the head of the table, hands braced on the wood. Elyra sat at his right, spine straight, eyes tired but sharp.
Tiernan took the seat across from me, Rian at his side.
Kellan leaned against the far wall, arms folded, eyes scanning.
“Thank you for coming,” Elyra said, voice carrying.
“Your messenger said there was…an incident,” Nyla said, raising a brow. “And that it involved old magic and falling alphas. Hard to resist.”
Her gaze flicked to me, a hint of humor under the steel.
I flushed.
Varek’s jaw clenched. “You should have called us sooner,” he said tightly. “If elementals are being…weaponized…near our borders, it concerns more than just Redwood.”
“We only fully understood the…scope…yesterday,” Elyra said. “And I will not risk lighting fires between packs based on half-knowledge.”
“And now?” Tiernan asked quietly.
“Now,” Elyra said, “we have more than half.”
Rhys gestured to the map spread across the table.
A rough sketch of the northern territories.
Three red Xs marked: Redwood. Stormwake. Frostfang.
Another, in blue, sat near Ironpine’s lands.
“We’ve all seen increased rogue activity,” Rhys said. “Scouts with muddled scents. Elemental surges where there should be none. Fires. Storms. Strange freezes.”
Nyla nodded slowly. “We lost a hunting party three weeks ago,” she said. “Found them encased in ice. In *summer*. No sign of the caster. Just…frost patterns that weren’t natural.”
Varek’s hand tightened on his own map marker. “Lightning struck our watchtower three times in one night,” he said. “The sky was clear. My stormcaller swears it wasn’t his doing.”
Rian spread out the old parchment from Stormwake’s archives again, the one with symbols and circles.
“These patterns,” he said, “match records from the War of Brothers. When a group of alphas tried to use elementals to break the Goddess’s unification. They bled on stones. They woke old magic. They nearly tore the mountains apart.”
“And our ravine,” Elyra said quietly, “is one of those old anchors.”
Silence fell.
Sera swallowed. “What does this have to do with…Callen?” she asked, voice tremulous. “Your messenger said he—he fell.”
Nyla’s gaze sharpened. “Into an ancient magic pit,” she said. “After threatening a pup.”
Sera flinched. “He—he wouldn’t—”
“He did,” Kellan said flatly. “We watched.”
Sera’s eyes filled. “He’s my cousin,” she whispered. “He’s…always been…angry. But he—he lost his pack when he was a boy. Rogue alpha picked them off. Riverbend took him in later. He never…trusted. Anyone. He used to talk about…old stories. About being more than tools. I thought he was just…venting.”
“He was recruiting,” Varek said grimly.
“For who?” Nyla demanded.
“For *her*,” I said quietly.
All eyes turned to me.
“The old storm,” I added. “Ashra. Or whatever name your packs gave her. The one the Goddess bound and buried.”
Nyla’s brows rose. “You’ve…spoken to her.”
“In my dreams,” I said. “In the ravine. She says the leash is fraying. That elementals are waking wild. That she’s…bored. And decided to…intervene.”
Nyla swore under her breath. “Well. That’s…terrifying.”
“She’s using wolves like Callen,” Rian said. “Angry. Hurt. Elemental. Disillusioned with packs.”
“Like my father,” Tiernan muttered. “If he’d been born twenty years later, he’d be bleeding on those stones.”
Rhys’s jaw clenched. “The Goddess bound those old deities for a reason,” he said. “They fed on chaos. On death. We cannot allow them to—”
“Goddess,” Nyla cut in, scoffing. “Bound them? Or caged them because she didn’t like sharing worship?”
Elyra shot her a warning look. “Nyla…”
“What?” Nyla said. “We all pretend the Moon is this benevolent mother. But she’s as territorial as any alpha. She saw wild gods and said, *Mine now.*”
Varek looked scandalized.
Tiernan looked…thoughtful.
“Regardless of divine politics,” Rian said dryly, “we’re left with a problem. Someone—Callen and whoever’s behind him—is trying to pry open those cages. They’re using old stones and old blood. And our elementals and stormcallers are in the crossfire.”
All eyes slid to me again.
I shifted under the scrutiny.
“We need to decide,” Elyra said quietly, “whether we stand together on this. Share knowledge. Training. Rituals. Or whether we retreat to our territories and hope the storm eats someone else first.”
“That’s not an option,” Tiernan said. “Stormwake is in this whether we like it or not. Our stones are singing the same song as your ravine.”
“Frostfang too,” Nyla said. “We’ve got icebound shrines older than any pack. They’re humming.”
Varek hesitated. “Ironpine has…caves,” he said eventually. “Deep ones. With old marks on the walls. We…lost a hunter to a fall there last month. He said he heard…voices…before he fell.”
“Then it’s everywhere,” Elyra said softly.
Sera’s voice shook. “What do we…do?” she asked. “About…Callen. About wolves like him.”
“First,” Rhys said, “we do everything in our power to close what he opened. Here. At the ravine. Before it spreads further.”
He looked at Rian. “You said Stormwake has old rituals.”
“Yes,” Rian said. “Binding circles. Warding chants. Methods of…negotiating…with land-bound spirits.”
“We also have stories,” Nyla said. “Of how not to do it. Of packs who tried to rip power away instead of…asking. They died. Messily.”
“We’ll need both,” Elyra said. Her gaze slid to me. “And we’ll need Kaia.”
Tiernan stiffened. “She’s not—”
“I know she’s not a tool,” Elyra said, her tone sharp enough to cut. “I know she’s not a sacrifice. I also know the land has already…accepted…her touch. It listened when she asked it to hold. We can’t pretend that connection isn’t there.”
“I don’t *want* to pretend,” I said hoarsely. “I just…I don’t know if I’m strong enough. Or trained enough. Or—”
“Willing enough?” Nyla suggested.
I met her gaze.
“Yes,” I said quietly. “That too.”
“You don’t owe the gods anything,” she said. “Or the Goddess. Or the old storms. Or your alphas. You *do* owe that pup,” she added. “And the ones who’ll come after if we leave this hole open.”
“I know,” I whispered.
Ashra paced, restless.
*We are scared,* she said. *But we are not weak.*
Tiernan’s hand found mine under the table again.
“I won’t let them throw you in alone,” he murmured.
“I know,” I said.
Elyra exhaled. “We have to be careful,” she said. “If we use Kaia’s connection to help seal the ravine, we risk drawing Ashra’s attention. More than she’s already given it. If we *don’t*…we risk leaving a crack she can pry at from the inside.”
“Storms either blow over or build,” Rian said. “They don’t pause politely because we’re indecisive.”
“You’re very poetic for a Beta,” Brenna muttered from the corner, where she’d slipped in with a tray of tea and then refused to leave.
Rian winked at her.
Sera cleared her throat, voice small.
“Callen isn’t…evil,” she said. “He’s…hurt. Angry. He lost everyone. The pack that took him in treated him like a weapon and a freak. I’m not…excusing what he did. But if we find him—if he’s still…alive…down there—I don’t want you to just…kill him. Please.”
Varek’s jaw tightened. “If he threatens my wolves,” he started.
Tiernan raised a hand. “We’re not promising anything we can’t keep,” he said. “If he’s too far gone…we’ll do what we must. But if there’s a chance to…pull him back…” His gaze slid to Sera. “We’ll try.”
She blinked back tears. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Rhys made a low, skeptical sound, but didn’t argue.
“We’ll need time,” Rian said. “To gather the right songs. The right stones. The right…people.”
“I’ll have messages sent to the old stonekeepers in Stormwake,” Tiernan said. “And to the wandering singers who remember the war ballads.”
“I’ll reach out to the Frost Witches,” Nyla said. At Rhys’s look, she added, “They owe me a favor. And they know more about binding than any of us. Even if they are dramatic.”
“Ironpine’s scribes have records from before the unification,” Varek said reluctantly. “Clan oaths. Cave chants. I’ll…ask them.”
Elyra nodded. “Good,” she said. “In the meantime, we seal what we can with what we know. Temporary wards. Physical barriers. Extra guards.”
Kellan grunted. “Already posted,” he said.
“What about me?” I asked.
Rhys hesitated.
I braced myself for *you stay out of it*.
“Kaia,” Elyra said instead, “we need you rested. Grounded. Your training with Tiernan continues. But no more…heroics. Not until we have a plan we all agree on.”
It was more trust than I’d expected.
It felt…heavy.
“I’ll…do my best,” I said.
“Your best is enough,” Tiernan murmured.
Rhys’s eyes flicked between us.
There was something like grudging respect in his gaze.
“Stormwake,” he said. “Redwood. Frostfang. Ironpine. Riverbend. We stand together on this. No one runs home and pretends it’s not their problem. Agreed?”
A murmur of assent circled the table.
“Then we begin,” Elyra said.
---
The next few days blurred into a strange mix of the mundane and the monumental.
By morning, I trained—staffs, shifts, elemental control.
By afternoon, I sat in on ritual planning sessions where old alphas and betas argued over chants and offerings and whether goat blood or wolf blood was more effective (Brenna nearly fainted at that part until Rian pointed out we weren’t using *either* unless absolutely necessary).
By evening, I ran with the trainees, the forest a reassuring constant under my paws.
And at night…
At night, when I closed my eyes, I listened for the hum of the ravine.
Sometimes, it was quiet.
Sometimes, it laughed.
Sometimes, it sighed, a sound like wind through dead branches.
Ashra stood with me in those dream-spaces, massive and bristling, refusing to let anything creep closer than the edge of our shared circle.
Tiernan checked in each night, sometimes with words, sometimes with just a pulse of presence along the bond.
I hated how much I came to rely on it.
On him.
On *them*.
One evening, after a particularly frustrating ritual session where Nyla and Varek nearly came to blows over the wording of an invocation, I stomped out into the training yard, needing to punch something.
Tiernan found me there, hammering fists into a practice bag until my knuckles throbbed.
“Who pissed you off?” he asked mildly.
“Everyone,” I said. “You. Them. The Goddess. The ravine. Stonekeepers who speak in riddles. Rian with his smug metaphors. Brenna for eating my last honey cake. Myself. Take your pick.”
He chuckled. “Brenna’s probably the only one who *actually* deserves it.”
“I do not eat your cakes,” Brenna’s distant voice called from the kitchen window. “I *borrow* them with intent to never return.”
Tiernan snorted.
I punched the bag harder.
Sweat dripped down my face.
“You’re burning hot,” he observed.
“That’s new,” I said. “Must be all this fire inside. Or anger. Same thing, probably.”
He stepped closer, catching the bag when my last strike made it sway dangerously.
“Kaia,” he said softly.
I blinked sweat from my eyes and glared at him. “Don’t use your soothing alpha voice on me right now,” I warned. “I might bite you.”
His lips twitched. “Promise?”
Heat flared in my cheeks.
I punched the bag again just to have somewhere to put the feeling.
He let it go, then reached out, catching my wrist mid-swing.
“Breathe,” he said. “Before you fracture something.”
I yanked half-heartedly.
He held on.
Not with alpha command.
With stubborn, gentle strength.
“I’m tired of arguing,” I muttered, slumping back against the bag. “Of carrying everyone’s expectations. Of being in every room where the stakes are high.”
“You could leave,” he said quietly.
The words hit like a slap.
I stared.
He met my gaze evenly. “You could walk away,” he said. “From the war room. From the ravine. From all of it. You’re not bound to fix this, Kaia. You’re not obligated to carry every stone.”
“Who would?” I demanded. “You?”
“Yes,” he said. “Me. Nyla. Rian. Kellan. Elyra. Varek, even if he grumbles. This is our mess too.”
“And you’d be okay with that?” I asked, voice shaking. “With me…stepping back? Letting you shoulder it while I hide in the training wing?”
He swallowed.
“No,” he admitted. “I’d hate it. I’d argue. I’d try to convince you your voice matters. But I’d rather see you walk away than break in the middle of it.”
Ashra hummed. *He means that,* she said. *He would stand in front of the storm for us.*
“It’s not just *your* ravine,” I said. “It’s mine. My pack’s. My stones. My…storm.”
“I know,” he said. “I’m not telling you what to do. I’m reminding you you have a choice. That’s all.”
Choice.
Such a small word.
Such a massive thing.
“I’m staying,” I said, after a long moment. “I’m…angry. And tired. And scared. But I’m not leaving you all to handle this without me.”
His shoulders eased.
“Good,” he said simply.
“Don’t sound so smug,” I grumbled.
“I’m not smug,” he said. “I’m…relieved.”
His thumb brushed the inside of my wrist, where my pulse fluttered.
We stood like that for a moment—sweaty, breathing hard, hands tangled.
Then Brenna’s voice floated across the yard again.
“If you two are going to make heart eyes at each other,” she yelled, “at least do it somewhere I can sell tickets.”
I let my head thunk back against the bag.
Tiernan laughed.
Ashra purred.
In the middle of ancient storms and impending rituals and pack politics, it was absurd how much that laugh mattered.
---