The battlefield was silent now. Only the wind moved, tugging at banners torn beyond recognition. The ground was black with ash and red with blood, the stench of death choking the air.
The Eryndors stood victorious — but hollow. Their numbers were a fraction of what they had been when the war began. Sons, daughters, brothers, sisters… reduced to corpses littering the field they had claimed.
At the center, Lady Eryndor knelt beside her blade, shoulders trembling. Her silver hair was matted with blood not her own. Her claws retracted, bones grinding back into their human form. The wolf retreated, leaving behind a woman whose body bore wounds that would never truly heal.
Her people looked to her, eyes filled with both reverence and dread. They had won, but at what cost?
Weeks passed. The war ended, but its shadow lingered.
The survivors returned to their stronghold — once a fortress brimming with life, now echoing with absence. Halls once filled with laughter and song stood silent. Children born after the war carried the curse of weakened blood, their wolf-forms frail, their senses dulled. Some never lived past childhood.
The Matriarch pressed on. She gathered healers, priests, alchemists. None could mend the bloodline's decline. Her people, once feared predators, grew thin and brittle, a dying breed in a world that moved on without them.
And worse still, the Upper Realm nobles — who had once praised the Eryndors as protectors of the border — withdrew their hand. The alliances forged in blood and battle vanished like smoke. No reinforcements. No resources. No marriages.
The wolves had become expendable.
Lady Eryndor sat upon her throne in the great hall, her body cloaked in shadow. Her once-burning eyes now glowed faintly, their brilliance dimming with each passing year. She stared at the fading wolf-sigil carved above the doors, the cracks running through its stone jaws.
Her hand clenched the armrest until her nails drew blood.
"This will not be our end."
Her voice was hoarse, yet filled with the same madness that once carried her through fire and steel.
"If our blood has thinned… then I will make it strong again. If the gods themselves deny us, I will carve a new fate. Eryndor will not vanish. Not while I still breathe."
From that night on, her obsession took root. She began to send the Hound, her most loyal servant, into the realms — searching not for gold or land, but for children strong enough to carry her name.
If her clan could not be saved by birth…
it would be rebuilt by fire.