They did not speak on the climb.
Not because there was nothing to say.
But because the air between them was too thick for words.
Kai led, axe biting into the ice, every movement sharp, precise, like a man afraid of what might happen if he hesitated.
Lena followed, silent, her breath steady, her hand brushing the wall of the glacier as she passed — not touching for balance,
but as if listening.
The deeper they went, the stranger the ice became.
Not clear.
Not white.
But blue — deep, endless, like the sky at midnight.
And within it —
shapes.
Not bubbles.
Not cracks.
But forms — long, low, coiled — like beasts sleeping beneath the world.
Kai didn't look at them.
Lena did.
"They're not frozen," she said, her voice low, echoing strangely.
"They're* held*."
He didn't answer.
Just kept climbing.
At last, they reached the fissure — a narrow split in the ice, barely wide enough to pass.
Beyond it:
a cavern.
Not carved.
Not formed.
Grown.
The walls pulsed faintly — not with light, but with rhythm, like a slow heartbeat.
The floor was not ice, but frozen water in motion — ripples suspended in time, as if the lake had been stopped mid-swell.
And at the center —
a pillar of black ice, taller than a man,
its surface etched with runes —
not carved,
but frozen in place, like words caught in breath.
Lena stepped forward.
Placed her palm on the pillar.
And the cavern sang.
Not in sound.
In memory.
A wave of images — not in her mind, but in the air, like smoke forming truth:
The first winter.
The first Alpha and Beta, standing in snow, hands clasped.
The Wolf not entering — but emerging from the earth, like breath from frozen ground.
Not as beast.
As voice.
They did not command it.
They sang with it.
And the song — not in words,
but in harmony —
became the Oath.
Then — betrayal.
Haldor, on his knees, offering himself.
The Wolf not refusing — but changing.
Its voice turning from song to hunger.
The Balance broken.
The Bloodlines scattered.
The Wolf not dead — but imprisoned,
its song frozen in ice,
its spirit split,
its fire turned to ash.
And the last command, whispered into the glacier:
"Wait.
Wait for the ones who remember how to sing."
The vision ended.
Lena gasped — not from fear,
but from the taste in her mouth:
Snowmelt.
Blood.
And something sweet —
like a lullaby half-remembered.
She looked at her palm.
No cut.
But the skin was frosted,
and beneath it —
a mark bloomed.
Faint.
Silver.
Like a vine made of light.
The mark of the True Beta.
Not inherited.
Not chosen.
Earned.
Kai watched her.
His breath came fast.
Not from the climb.
From the pull in his chest.
The mark on his back — cold for years —
was burning.
The runes pulsed — not red, not gold —
but gray, like storm-light on snow.
He stepped to the pillar.
Placed his hand beside hers.
And the ice cracked.
Not loudly.
Not violently.
But deep within —
like a bone healing.
And from the fissure —
a sound.
Not a howl.
Not a growl.
But a note —
low, pure,
like a single voice rising from the earth.
Kai fell to his knees.
Not from pain.
From recognition.
"It's not dead," he whispered.
"It's* singing*."
He looked at her.
"And it knows you."
She didn't flinch.
"Then let it in."
They did not couple that night.
They converged.
Not in fire.
Not in storm.
But in silence.
They lay together on the frozen swell, wrapped in furs, skin to skin, breath mingling in the cold air.
No words.
No ritual.
Just presence.
She placed her palm on his chest — over the mark.
He placed his on her back — over the new scar.
And they listened.
At first — nothing.
Then —
a pulse.
From him.
From her.
From the ice.
Then —
a hum.
From the pillar.
From the walls.
From the frozen beasts.
Then —
a voice.
Not in the air.
In the blood.
"You are not the first."
"You are the first to choose."
"The Wolf was not cursed.
It was forgotten."
"Now sing —
not to command,
not to conquer —
to remember."
And so they did.
Not in words.
Not in song.
But in breath.
In touch.
In the slow, steady beat of two hearts syncing in the dark.
And as they sang —
the ice cracked further.
The pillar split.
And from within —
not a beast,
not a spirit,
but a sound —
a single, sustained note —
rising, rising,
until the cavern trembled.
Kai's runes blazed.
Lena's mark glowed.
And the thing beneath his skin —
the thing he thought was dead —
stirred.
Not with hunger.
Not with rage.
But with relief.
And for the first time in centuries,
the Wolf did not howl.
It answered.
But the ice was not the only thing that cracked.
Far above, on the surface,
in the ruins of an abandoned research station,
a figure stood —
tall, too thin,
its joints moving wrong.
Its skin not flesh, but shadow-stuff, clinging like smoke.
It watched the glacier.
Listened to the rising song.
Then smiled —
a mouth that opened too wide.
And from its chest —
where a heart should be —
a second mouth opened.
And it screamed —
not in rage,
but in hunger.
The Hollow Fang had heard.
And it was coming.