"Bury your secrets deep enough… and they learn how to crawl back out."
---
The city of Tarvax was dead.
Not just ruined—cursed.
Salt coated the streets like frost. Bones decorated doorways like garlands. Shadows moved even when nothing breathed.
Selene led the way, her gauntlet glowing a faint ocean-blue. The power of Velex and Drellos surged in her chest, but it came with a price—her emotions grew colder. Sharper. Less... human.
Kai watched her from behind, blade drawn, heart uneasy.
> The way she walked now—like she didn't fear death.
Like she was death.
---
Nyra wandered off first.
She was drawn to the Hall of Monarchs, a crumbled temple with ancient stone thrones. The moment she stepped through the shattered arch, her eyes burned gold.
A crown sat at the center of the chamber.
Not a king's crown.
A god's.
Made entirely of bone—wolf skulls, fang fragments, horned remains. It pulsed like a heart.
She heard a voice.
> You are flame. Take me, and burn the false queens.
Her hand reached.
But a voice behind her stopped her.
"You touch it, and you die."
It was Riven—barely standing.
Eyes haunted. Magic flickering.
Nyra scowled. "You don't know what this crown is."
"I know what it costs." Riven coughed blood. "No one who wears it stays themselves."
Nyra hesitated.
> "Maybe that's the point."
---
Meanwhile, Kai searched the city archives.
He wasn't looking for treasure.
He was looking for truth.
What he found… broke him.
A mural.
Depicting Selene. Her face. Her eyes.
But ancient.
Thousands of years old.
Carved in obsidian. Labeled not as Alpha. Not as hero.
But as "Goddess of the Final Blood."
> "She's not cursed," he whispered. "She's prophesied."
Behind him, something moved.
A shadow. Familiar.
He turned—
And came face-to-face with his past.
---
The ghost of Varok, the Alpha Kai murdered to escape his cursed bloodpack.
But Varok wasn't angry.
He was smiling.
"You thought you killed me," the ghost whispered, claws dragging along Kai's jaw.
"I did."
"You killed my body. But the blood? It still lives in you."
Kai gasped. Fell to his knees.
Varok touched his chest—and burned a mark into Kai's heart.
> A curse sigil.
One that would eat at him. Feed on his doubt. His guilt.
And when the time came… turn him.
---
Selene stood atop the drowned throne, staring out at the ghost-sea below.
Memories not her own swam in her head.
Fires.
Battles.
A time when she was a goddess.
Or something like it.
> "I've lived before," she whispered.
And each time… she'd died the same way.
Betrayed.
Alone.
Drenched in blood.
---
Nyra returned wearing the Crown of Bone.
Riven limped behind her.
"What did you do?" Selene asked.
"I chose power," Nyra said, voice lower, almost inhuman. "And now… I can hear them."
"Who?"
Nyra grinned.
> "The Bone Court. The dead gods. They remember you, Selene. They fear you."
---
A quake shattered the silence.
The ground split.
And from beneath Tarvax, they rose.
An army.
Not human.
Not wolf.
But something in-between.
Drowned Wargs.
Their eyes glowed with sea-cursed light. Their bodies armored in coral and rusted gold. They howled like death itself.
Risen by Drellos.
Drawn by Selene's blood.
> "They're bound to you," Nyra said, half-worried, half-thrilled. "You're their queen."
"I didn't ask to be," Selene snapped.
"No," Nyra smirked. "But maybe you were born to be."
---
The drowned god's voice echoed through them.
"Lead them, Blood Howl. Or be consumed."
Selene stepped forward.
Looked back at her pack—Kai, marked and breaking.
Nyra, crowned and dangerous.
Riven, fading like a dying flame.
Then forward at the army waiting for command.
She raised her gauntlet.
And they knelt.
Every last monster.
---
But deep in the ruins… someone else watched.
Eyes golden.
Wearing a mask of moonlight.
Another Alpha.
One thought long dead.
One bound to Selene by blood and betrayal.
He whispered:
> "The howl returns… and with it, the end."