CHAPTER THREE: The Girl with No Name
Morning light cut through the canopy of blackwood trees, filtering gold over Kael's blood-streaked face. Every joint in his body throbbed. His muscles screamed from the fight with Garreth. But it wasn't the pain that made his chest ache.
It was the stillness.
The eerie quiet of the forest that had once been filled with howls of his kin.
Now, even the birds had gone silent.
The girl followed a few paces behind him. She didn't speak. She hadn't spoken since they left the ruins. Her steps were light, almost too light for someone her size—another sign that confirmed what Kael had feared.
She wasn't normal.
He stopped suddenly.
She bumped into his back, stumbling.
Kael didn't look at her. He just stared forward, toward the moss-covered marker half-buried beneath tree roots.
Another grave.
Smaller.
Fresher.
The name carved on the stone was unfamiliar—Lirael. But the scent clinging to the soil…
Wolf.
One of ours, Kael thought. Or what used to be ours.
"Who was she?" the girl asked softly, sensing his tension.
Kael bent slowly and pressed his palm against the cold stone. It vibrated with something ancient. Not magic. Not life. Something darker—stolen death.
"Someone who should've never been touched by them."
The girl crouched beside him, brushing a strand of tangled hair from her face. Her voice was almost a whisper.
"Is this why you're angry all the time?"
Kael didn't answer. He couldn't.
Because if he spoke, the rage would spill out.
So much had been taken.
So much broken.
He couldn't afford emotion—not yet.
The girl tilted her head. "You don't even know my name."
Kael turned to her slowly.
She was pale, bruises still fading under her eyes. Her left wrist bore a burn scar, too clean to have been an accident. It was the kind left by restraints—metal cuffs, heated by fire.
They had her in a cage.
Kael studied her face. "Who are you?"
"I… don't remember," she said, looking down. "Not really. Only bits. They called me 82."
Kael's jaw clenched. "A number."
She nodded. "One of many."
He stood and paced away, fury rising again.
The Blood Lords had been doing this for years. Kidnapping wolf pups. Experiments. Breaking their minds. Binding their bodies. Turning them into things that weren't quite wolf, weren't quite human.
Just weapons.
And yet… she still had a soul. He could feel it.
"You need to choose your own name," he said at last.
She looked up.
"I don't know how."
He crouched beside her again. "Names are power. Names tell stories. Yours should tell the world who you'll become—not what they made you."
She thought for a moment.
Then whispered, "Riven."
Kael blinked.
It was a strong name. Harsh. But real.
And fitting.
"Riven," he echoed.
She smiled slightly.
It was the first time he'd seen her smile.
---
They moved again by midday, heading north through the hollow hills, where blackened trees gave way to ice-crusted rivers. Kael knew the path well. It led to a forgotten outpost once used by rogue packs to escape persecution from the Council.
A place not even Garreth would find them—if it still stood.
He led her into a narrow gorge between jagged cliffs. Frost clung to the rock, and the wind howled between the walls like a ghost. At the far end of the pass, a small wooden door lay half-buried under snow.
Kael cleared it, muttering old tongue words under his breath.
The door clicked and creaked open.
Inside: silence.
Dust.
And then—movement.
Kael raised his blade immediately.
"Who's there?" he barked.
A shadow darted from the corner, fast and low.
Riven flinched behind him.
But the figure stopped in the torchlight.
It was a boy. No older than twelve. Gaunt, but sharp-eyed.
He held a wooden spear, shaking.
Kael lowered his weapon slightly.
"Name," he demanded.
The boy looked between Kael and Riven. "Fynn."
"Pack?"
The boy looked down. "None. Not anymore."
Kael's gaze softened slightly. He could smell the wolf in the boy—weak, but still alive.
"How long have you been here?"
"Since the culling," Fynn said. "I ran when the flames came. I thought the outpost would be empty. I didn't know others would come."
Kael nodded slowly. "You can stay. But if you betray us…"
"I won't," Fynn said quickly. "I swear."
Riven stepped forward. "He's like us. Isn't he?"
Kael nodded.
Another orphan.
Another broken soul.
His mission was changing. He had come to bury the past. Now he was gathering its survivors.
---
That night, Kael dreamed again.
He stood in the Hollowdeep sanctuary. Whole. Powerful. His mate, Elira, by his side.
But something was wrong.
The sky above was red—not from the setting sun, but blood. The moon split in half like a shattered eye. And in the center of the sanctuary stood a tree that hadn't been there before.
Black bark.
White leaves.
And dangling from its branches… the bodies of his kin.
He tried to run, but his feet sank into ash. He screamed, but no sound left his mouth.
The tree whispered.
"They will all kneel or burn."
He woke gasping, drenched in sweat.
Riven and Fynn were still asleep.
But something was watching.
From the open window above, Kael sensed a presence. He turned—and saw nothing.
No shadow.
No eyes.
But he felt it.
The enemy was already closing in.
---
Far away…
In the Council Court of White Fangs, old wolves gathered around a circular table carved from glacier bone. They wore robes dyed in the blood of the first fallen alphas.
And they were afraid.
"Kael has returned," said the Arch-Seer. "And he walks with the cursed child."
The First Fang growled. "Then we should kill him now before he regathers the broken."
"He is already regathering," said another. "One of the Blood Lord's hounds has failed to kill him."
A pause.
Then the Arch-Seer whispered, "He has found the girl. And she remembers more than she lets on."
They all went quiet.
"She remembers the gate," she continued. "She knows what lies beneath the Hollowdeep."
The First Fang stood. "Then we end this."
He turned to a younger man at the end of the chamber.
"You. Send the Ravagers."
"But sir," the boy stammered. "They're still recovering. You said—"
"I know what I said. Send them."
"They'll tear through everything. Innocents. Survivors—"
"We are long past innocence," the Arch-Seer interrupted coldly. "If Kael reaches the gate… none of us will survive what's inside."
---
Back in the outpost, Kael opened the leather pouch he'd kept strapped to his belt since the ruins. Inside were two things:
A shard of bone, carved with a runic curse.
And a sealed letter.
The seal bore the mark of Theron's war sigil—twin wolves with tongues of flame.
He hadn't dared open it yet.
But tonight, something told him it was time.
He broke the seal.
And as he unfolded the paper, a single line was scrawled across the page in blood-red ink:
"You are not the last. She is not the first. Come to me, and I will show you what they took."
Kael stared at it for a long time.
Then looked up.
Outside, in the woods beyond the gorge, flames danced in the distance.
And the wind carried the howl of a wolf—
No.
A pack.
The Ravagers had come.
---