Long before Icefall.
Long before Cain.
Long before the first bond was forged in fire and blood.
There was a god.
No temples bore his name.
No worshipers called him in prayer.
For to speak his name was to unmake what once had remembered you.
He ruled not with flame or fang.
Not with thunder or claw.
He ruled from forgetting.
A void where memory dared not linger.
A silence so deep it swallowed the past whole.
And now, with one ancient eye opening, he remembered Lyra.
She stood at the edge of the southern ruins.
Ancient stones cracked and crumbled, buried beneath frost and silence.
No wolves dared enter this place.
Not even the wind howled here.
Beneath her skin, the sixth ring pulsed faintly.
A slow, steady hum that matched the ash beneath her feet.
The Alpha Unbound appeared beside her, voice low and wary.
"He's beneath this place."
Cain stood on her other side, muscles coiled like a wolf ready to strike.
"What kind of god forgets his name?" Cain asked, eyes scanning the barren horizon.
"The kind who wanted to survive," the Unbound murmured. "He buried his name so he could live beyond time itself."
Kael unsheathed his blade, eyes darkening.
"And now he's waking."
"No," Lyra said firmly, stepping forward. "He's not waking."
"He's listening. To me."
The ruins opened not with thunder or fire, but with a sigh.
Stone shifted slowly, as if the mountain itself exhaled a memory long held in its bones.
A winding stair spiraled down into the earth.
Each step carved with ancient glyphs—forgotten symbols no wolf had read in centuries.
Lyra descended alone.
Cain moved to follow, but she raised a hand.
"This is a trial for the crown," she said without turning.
"If I fail, nothing you do will stop what's coming."
"If I succeed... we may yet survive it."
Cain's jaw clenched, torn between fury and hope.
Then he nodded once.
She disappeared into the dark.
The chamber beneath was vast beyond imagining.
Bones lined the walls.
Not the bones of animals.
Not even wolves.
Something older.
Cold and pale.
And in the center sat a figure.
He was not tall.
Nor monstrous.
He looked like a boy.
Pale-eyed. Skin wrapped in tattered shadows.
But Lyra knew better.
Because silence bent around him like gravity.
He lifted his gaze.
"You wear my crown."
"Do you know what it costs?"
Lyra's voice was steady.
"I carry the names you left behind."
"I carry the truths you abandoned."
The boy blinked slowly, shadows flickering like dying flames around him.
"Then you carry me."
Memory bled from the walls.
Visions flickered like ghosts:
—A god screaming as his name was ripped from him.
—Wolves kneeling in fire, begging to forget their grief.
—A mate sacrificed to seal a curse that could never be undone.
"You tried to protect them," Lyra whispered, voice breaking.
"You thought silence would be mercy."
The god rose.
No longer a boy.
But a figure woven from shadow and smoke.
"I forgot my name so none would remember what I did."
Lyra stepped forward.
"And I carry it so we never repeat it."
His eyes glimmered, sharp and broken.
"You would keep memory alive?"
"Yes."
"Even when it burns like fire in your veins?"
"Yes."
The god smiled.
Broken.
Beautiful.
Tragic.
"Then I will test you, Crowned One."
The world vanished.
Gone was the stone chamber.
Gone was the weight of the crown.
Lyra stood instead in a memory that was not her own.
The day the god sacrificed his mate.
The screams tore through the air—raw, unforgiving.
The hunger gnawed at their bonds.
The bond snapped.
The name unraveled the sky itself.
She felt it all—the pain, the loss, the desperate hope.
She did not cry.
She did not scream.
Instead, she knelt.
And whispered:
"I forgive you."
The chamber brightened with a soft, golden light.
The god fell to his knees.
"I was never meant to be worshiped."
"Only remembered."
Lyra stepped closer.
"Then let me carry your name."
"Let me carry all of them."
His hand touched her brow.
Warmth spread through her like wildfire.
And for the first time in eons, his name formed again.
Soft.
Strange.
Sacred.
—and Lyra bore it without breaking.
In the Hollow Ring, wolves stirred.
Each felt a name whisper through their veins.
A name they did not know.
But would never forget again.
The god had remembered himself.
And chosen a new keeper.
The Weight of Memory
The god who forgot his name was no longer lost to shadow.
He had passed the burden to Lyra—the girl who carried worlds within her.
She was both vessel and sentinel.
The memory and the guardian.
And with every breath she took, the ancient name pulsed—an echo threading through time.
Cain watched her from the ridge.
The dawn painted her silhouette in soft light.
Her eyes no longer just black or gold.
But deep with the infinite weight of memory.
"Do you feel it?" Cain asked, voice low.
Lyra nodded, the sixth ring glowing faintly beneath her skin.
"It's more than a name now."
"It's a legacy."
Kael stepped beside them, hand resting on his sword.
"The trials have only just begun."
"But she will not face them alone."
Cain's gaze hardened.
"Because we carry her."
"And she carries us."