"She dreams of golden eyes. But the ones waiting in the shadows burn violet…and fate will never let her choose."
Chapter 2:
Sanathiel closed his eyes for a moment. But the darkness brought no calm—only a vision he could not tell if it was his own, or woven by the echoes of the medallion.
A hanging garden. Red and pink roses blooming among blue and yellow flowers. Sunlight filtering through dangling leaves, and the intoxicating scent of spring.And in the center, a girl.
A red dress, pigtails swaying in the wind. A fallen basket. Red roses scattered at her feet."Are you alright?" he had asked, his voice still teenage, uncertain.
The girl lifted her gaze, and her green eyes pierced straight through his chest."Thank you, kind knight," she replied with a smile made of light and clay, as if the world had not yet managed to stain her.
Sanathiel had laughed then, not knowing why."Your name?"
She curtsied like a lady from an old tale and whispered as if confiding a sacred secret:"Aisha."
The scene vanished with the same fragility with which it had arrived, but the emptiness it left was real. Deep. As if he had lost her twice without ever knowing when the first time was.
"How can you miss someone you've only seen once?Or was it more than once?"
Sanathiel's eyes snapped open. He was not asleep, yet the voice that called to him rose from a place deeper than thought, an echo resonating in the darkest part of his being.
—Aisha…
The voice repeated her name, more insistent this time, as if an invisible hand were reaching for him from the shadows.
His jaw tightened. But then, another whisper chilled the air.—Sanathiel…
It was another presence. One he recognized, but had not expected to feel at that moment."Sooner or later, you had to appear," he muttered, closing his eyes again for an instant.
The bond with his brothers was a distant echo, a broken string that sometimes still vibrated with the memory of what they once were. And now, on this night heavy with omens, one of those echoes resonated with clarity.
Sariel.
The name burned in his mind like a brand of fire.The one who had once been his shadow… and was now only the echo of betrayal.
A metallic chill thickened the air, tainted with the scent of iron."Don't play with me," Sanathiel growled, crushing the paper with Aisha's portrait in his hand until it crumpled, as if he could wring truth out of the memory.
The voice faded, but its presence clung to the air, sticky and persistent like perfume. Sariel was watching. From the shadows. From some hidden corner of the city.
It had been two decades since that failed attempt to destroy everything tied to Kerens. Even upon awakening, Sanathiel had found himself a prisoner, punished for defying the Community of the Thirteen.
Until winter came, wrapping everything around him in a shroud of white frost.
Sanathiel looked out at the landscape bathed in moonlight, and his mind wandered back to that fateful night. The night of the crimson moon.
He sighed, turning his gaze to the horizon."Aisha…" he whispered, clenching his claws into his palm until the pain pierced through his skin.
A figure who, for reasons he neither knew nor understood, was bound to him.
Determined to drive away his thoughts, he returned to his room, seized a pencil, and with controlled fury traced lines across the paper, sketching Aisha's face.It was only a rough sketch, but in its strokes he sensed something unsettling—like the reflection of his own curse.
"Perhaps you are the key to avenge myself against Luciano, the Banished.Then you would be the path I've been searching for."
The car descended an avenue lined with towering buildings and neon lights. Artificial glow replaced the moonlight, but the true darkness lingered in the alleys—in the shadows where creatures like him prowled unseen.
When the limousine stopped in front of a luxury hotel, a suited man opened the door with a servile gesture."Welcome, Mr. Ruanda."
Sanathiel stepped out without replying, his innate elegance evident in every movement. He took his suitcase and crossed the lobby, its crystal chandeliers glittering overhead. Opulence did not impress him; he had once possessed fortune himself, yet none of it filled the void gnawing within.
At the reception desk, the woman greeted him with a professional smile, oblivious to the shadow that clung to him."Your room is ready. Shall we send anything special?""No." His voice was cold, cutting.
He took the key card and entered the elevator. As the doors closed, he stared at his reflection in the mirror.
A handsome young man with a commanding gaze stared back at him. But the reflection flickered. For an instant, it was not a man—it was a white wolf, its fangs drenched in blood. Then, a child covered in ashes.
Sanathiel looked away. The wolf haunted him even in his own face.Sariel's voice had been only the first warning.
Tomorrow, he would find Aisha.And the hunt would begin.
Elsewhere, at Colegio Mayor Unidad, Aisha struggled to ignore the oppressive heat of the classroom. Yet a shiver ran down her spine. Something was watching her.
Crossing the hallway toward the library, a sudden image tore through her mind: a white wolf with burning eyes. The impact was so overwhelming she froze in place, her breath caught in her throat.
The stench arrived before the vision—flesh, gunpowder… death. And something inside her recoiled as if her body recognized an ancient threat.
She covered her mouth and ran to the bathroom, her stomach revolting against whatever she had felt."There's nothing…" she whispered, gripping the sink.
But when she raised her gaze, her reflection stared back with green eyes that, for a split second, gleamed with golden light. She stumbled back against the door."What… is happening to me?"
Hours later, in her room, her fingers wandered absentmindedly through the pages of an old book. The title froze her in place: The Nevri.Her pulse raced as her eyes caught on a highlighted line:"He who hears the howl in his own blood cannot escape the bond."
Her breath faltered. The echo of a howl vibrated in her chest, tearing through the night's calm.
Far away, in the shadows of his refuge, Sanathiel felt the subtle brush of a presence inside his mind.It wasn't Sariel.It wasn't Luciano.It was her.
A wolfish smile spread across his face as the car drove into the night."Soon, Aisha… very soon," he whispered, his voice reverberating in the dark.
And at that very instant, the girl awoke with a start, her lips burning with a single name:"Sanathiel…"