The earth breathed under Rose Thornfield's palms.
She knelt in the heart of the Verdant Glade, the air thick with the sweet scent of moonpetal blossoms and damp soil. Here, life was a symphony. She could feel the slow, deep pulse of the ancient oak at her back, the thrumming journey of water through its roots, the whisper of new leaves unfurling in the canopy above. This was her world, a tapestry of living energy that she could not only feel but also guide. With a soft murmur, she coaxed a stubborn vine to curl around its trellis, its tender green shoots responding to the warmth of her magic as if to a lover's touch.
This was the magic of the Wildthorn Pack. They did not conquer; they nurtured. They did not rule; they belonged.
But for the past three moons, a dissonance had crept into the symphony.
It was faint at first, a single, sour note at the very edge of her senses. A coldness that felt like stone in a place that should be soft earth. Now, it was growing stronger, a creeping dread that slithered through the root systems from the northern borders. A scent of decay on the wind, of life not ending, but being unmade. Twisted.
Rose pressed her hands deeper into the moss, closing her eyes and concentrating. She let her consciousness travel, following the threads of life that connected every living thing in her territory. She passed the laughing streams and the sun-dappled groves until she reached the edge of their wards. And there it was. A void. A patch of earth that did not breathe back. It felt hollow, sick, and a tremor of violation shuddered through her.
The blight. The whispers from the few panicked squirrels and weary birds that fled the northern mountains were true. The lands of the Shadowfang Clan were dying.
A bitter satisfaction curled in her gut, swift and sharp as one of her own thorns. Let them rot. The Shadowfangs, with their endless conquest and belief in brutal strength, deserved a barren kingdom. They had spilled enough blood on the earth; it was only right that the earth finally refused to answer them.
A horn blew from the watchtower on the ridge, a single, piercing note that was not a call to arms, but a warning of approach. It was a sound reserved for official delegations, not for marauding beasts. Frowning, Rose rose to her feet, brushing the rich soil from her leather breeches. Visitors were rare. Uninvited visitors from the north were unheard of.
She made her way to the Great Clearing, her long, dark braid swinging against her back. Warriors were already moving into position, their forms half-hidden in the foliage, bows drawn but arrows not yet nocked. They were protectors, not aggressors, but they were not fools. At the center of the clearing stood her pack's matriarch, Elder Maeve, her silver hair a stark contrast to the vibrant green of her robes, her face a mask of serene calm that Rose knew concealed a will of iron.
Rose took her place at Maeve's right hand just as they emerged from the ancient wood.
The Shadowfang Clan.
They were a wound in the landscape. Clad in black leather, dark steel, and gray wolf pelts, they seemed to absorb the light around them. They smelled of iron, cold stone, and something else… a faint, unsettling aroma of sickness and decay. There were five of them, all massive, their faces grim and hard as the mountains they called home. But it was the one in the lead who drew every eye.
Alpha Draven Thorneblood.
He was even larger than the legends claimed, a monolith of muscle and predatory grace. His black hair was shorn close on the sides, longer on top and swept back from a face that looked as if it had been carved from granite. A jagged scar cut through his left eyebrow, giving him a permanent, menacing scowl. But it was his eyes that held her—the colour of a stormy winter sky, cold, assessing, and utterly devoid of warmth. He moved with a coiled stillness, an apex predator so confident in his power he felt no need to display it.
Rose's magic recoiled from him. He was everything she despised: a tyrant who ruled through fear, a butcher whose name was a curse on the wind, the embodiment of the soulless, barren rock his people called a home. Her hand instinctively twitched, the thorns on the bramble bushes beside her lengthening ever so slightly.
Draven's gaze swept over the clearing, missing nothing. It lingered for a moment on the armed warriors in the trees, a flicker of something—not respect, but acknowledgement—in their depths. Then his eyes landed on Elder Maeve, and finally, on Rose. For a heartbeat, that cold, gray stare locked with hers. It felt like being weighed, measured, and dismissed in a single instant. A hot surge of anger rose in her chest.
"Alpha Thorneblood," Elder Maeve's voice was calm, but it carried the authority of a hundred seasons. "You are a long way from your mountain. The air of our forest does not agree with your kind."
Draven inclined his head a fraction of an inch. It was the barest hint of courtesy, and it felt like an insult. "Elder Maeve. Your air is the reason I am here." His voice was a low, gravelly rumble, the sound of rocks grinding together. It held no plea, only demand.
"Our lands are turning to dust," he stated, getting straight to the point. "A rot spreads from the Gloomwood. It poisons the soil, sickens my people. The beasts it touches become monsters."
"A tragedy," Rose said, her voice dripping with ice. "Perhaps if your people had spent more time communing with the earth and less time trying to conquer it, it would not have turned on you."
Draven's stormy eyes snapped back to her. A muscle jumped in his jaw. "The whelp speaks. You must be the healer I've heard whispers of. The one who plays in the dirt."
"And you are the butcher I've heard screams of," she retorted, her chin high. "My name is Rose, and I do not 'play'. I nurture life. A concept you are clearly unfamiliar with."
A low growl rumbled from one of Draven's warriors, but the Alpha raised a single hand, silencing him without a look. His focus remained entirely on Rose, his gaze so intense it felt like a physical pressure.
"Life," he mused, the word sounding alien on his tongue. "My people are dying. My lands are barren. Your pack hoards the last vibrant territory on this continent. I am not here to trade pleasantries, Rose. I am here for the cure your magic can provide."
"There is no cure," Elder Maeve interjected, her voice cutting through the tension. "This is not a simple disease. It is a corruption of the lifeblood of Aerthos itself. It cannot be healed, only cleansed."
"Then cleanse it," Draven bit out, his patience wearing thin.
Maeve's gaze grew distant. "The old prophecies speak of this time. Of the Sanguine Blight that will swallow the world. They also speak of the only remedy." She paused, her eyes finding Rose, then shifting to the grim-faced Alpha. "The Thorn must bind the bleeding Blood to save the land from shadow."
Draven scoffed. "I have no time for the riddles of hedge-witches. Speak plainly."
"Very well," Maeve said, her voice hardening. "We will help. The Wildthorn Pack will not stand by and watch the world die, even a world you have helped poison. But it will be on our terms."
She took a step forward, her presence seeming to grow until she was every bit the Alpha's equal.
"Our greatest healer, the one with the deepest connection to the earth, must be the one to find the source of the blight. Rose will go."
Rose's heart stopped. Go? With them? Into that dying wasteland? Panic and fury warred within her. She opened her mouth to protest, but Maeve's sharp glance silenced her.
"And to fulfill the prophecy," the Elder continued, her gaze locking with Draven's, "she will not go alone. To ensure her safety, to bind your two clans to this sacred duty, you, Alpha Draven Thorneblood, will accompany her every step of the way. You will be her sworn shield."
The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the chirping of a blissfully ignorant bird.
Rose stared in horror, not at her Elder, but at the Alpha. Draven's face was a mask of thunderous disbelief. His hands clenched into fists at his sides, the leather of his gloves groaning in protest. The notion of serving as a bodyguard, a sworn shield, to a woman he had just dismissed as a "whelp" who "plays in the dirt" was an insult of the highest order. His pride, his authority, his very identity as an Alpha was being challenged.
His cold, stormy eyes met hers across the clearing. The dismissal was gone. In its place was a raw, simmering fury that promised a brutality she had only ever heard of in stories. She glared back, her own outrage a blazing fire.
Forced together. A healer and a butcher. A thorn and a fang. It wasn't an alliance. It was a death sentence.