Kael POV
The screaming came from somewhere outside her body.
Kael realized, dimly, that it was coming from her own throat. But she wasn't in the stone room anymore. She was running through snow that burned her feet. She was ten years old and her pack was dying.
Fire. Blood. The smell of burning flesh and death.
Her mother was there, trying to shield her. Her father was fighting something with silver claws. Silver. The word meant danger. The word meant death.
Then they were both gone and she was alone in the snow and her wolf was screaming.
Kael's eyes opened but the memory didn't fade.
Cassian was holding her. His voice was coming from far away, telling her she was safe, telling her it was a nightmare, telling her to come back to him.
But she couldn't come back. The past had its teeth in her and wouldn't let go.
"No," she whispered. "No, no, no. Mama. Papa. They're..."
"They're not here," Cassian said gently. His hands were moving over her hair, over her back, trying to ground her in the present. "You're here. You're safe."
"Not safe." The words came in fragments, like broken glass. "Never safe. Running. Always running."
She saw it so clearly now. The hunters on horseback. The silver weapons that hurt to look at. The Moonshadow village burning. The elders standing in the circle, their eyes glowing silver, their voices speaking in that ancient language.
They were dying. All of them.
And they were putting something inside her.
"The elders," Kael gasped. "They marked me. Before they died. They put their magic inside. Put their power in my blood. I could feel it burning. Burning like the fire but cold. So cold."
Cassian didn't ask questions. He just held her and listened.
"I was small," Kael continued, the memories pouring out now like a dam breaking. "They found me. After my pack burned. I was alone in the snow for so long. Thought I would die. Wanted to die."
She could remember the cold. The way her small body couldn't keep warm anymore. The way the snow kept piling up and she didn't have the strength to run anymore.
"An old wolf found me," Kael said. "Elder of the Moonshadows. She was so big. So strong. She carried me to the mountains where the world was different. Where the snow didn't fall as hard. Where the trees talked to you if you listened."
"The trees talked to you," Cassian repeated. Not a question. Just repeating it back to her.
"In your mind," Kael explained, her voice becoming steadier as she pulled herself into the memory. "The elders taught me. They said I was blessed. They said my blood carried old magic. Magic from the First Wolves who could speak to nature. Who could tell the earth what to do."
She could see their faces now. The elder who found her. The younger wolves who became her pack. The way they moved through the forest like they were part of it. Like the trees bent around them and the animals ran with them.
"They marked me," Kael said, looking down at her scarred body. "To bind the magic. To make me strong enough to carry their power. Each mark was a blessing. Each scar was a promise."
"A promise of what?" Cassian asked softly.
"To survive," Kael whispered. "To be the last of them. To carry their spirits forward."
The memory shifted. Became darker. Became the night that hunters surrounded their hidden village with weapons and torches.
"They came with silver," Kael said, her voice dropping to barely a whisper. "So much silver. The elders tried to fight but silver burns us. Burns our magic. Burns us from the inside."
She was back there. Back in the village as it burned. Back watching the wolves she loved fall to the hunters' weapons.
"The head elder," Kael continued, her hands clenching into fists, "she pulled me close. She was dying. So much blood. And she looked at me and I could feel her power. All of it. Every ounce of their magic that they'd spent years putting into my body. She made it stronger. Made it deeper. Made me into a vessel."
Cassian's arms tightened around her.
"She said I had to run. Said I had to live. Said the spirits of all the Moonshadows would be inside me. Protecting me. Guiding me." Kael's voice broke. "Then she was gone. They were all gone. Just me and the fire and the hunters and nowhere to go but out into the winter."
"You ran," Cassian said.
"I ran," Kael confirmed. "I shifted. Became wolf. The wolf was stronger. The wolf could hunt. The wolf could survive. I forgot how to be human. Forgot words. Forgot how to walk on two legs. Forgot everything except hunger and pain and the burning inside me that never went away."
She was quiet for a long moment, breathing hard, the memories still vivid in her mind.
"Twelve years," she said finally. "Twelve years alone. Just me and the spirits of dead wolves inside my blood. I could hear them sometimes. Calling to me. Telling me to be strong. Telling me not to die."
Cassian was crying silently. She could feel the tears against her skin.
"You survived," he said. "You made it through."
"I don't know who I am," Kael said, and the words felt true in a way nothing else had. "I'm not the girl from my birth pack. She died in the fire. I'm not the young wolf the Moonshadows taught. I'm something else. Something that's not quite human and not quite animal. Something that's all the dead people inside my body trying to live."
Before Cassian could respond, the door opened.
Lyra stood there with a lamp, her expression concerned. The healer had clearly heard the screaming and come to help. Her eyes moved across the room and landed on Kael, who was sitting there in Cassian's arms, covered only in the thin sleeping cloth.
Lyra set down the lamp and approached carefully.
"Can I look at something?" she asked gently.
Kael nodded, too tired to resist.
The healer examined her body carefully, running her fingers over the scars that covered nearly every inch of skin. Cassian watched her face change. Watched her eyes widen.
Lyra's hand stopped on a scar that ran down Kael's spine.
"These are ritual marks," Lyra whispered.
She touched another one. And another. Her hands were gentle but her expression was becoming something like awe.
"They're not random scarring," Lyra said, looking up at Cassian and then back to Kael. "These are blessings. They're intentional. They're beautiful."
She pressed her palm flat against a mark on Kael's shoulder.
And both women gasped.
A faint silver light pulsed beneath the scar. Soft at first, then brighter. A response to Lyra's touch. A response to being recognized for what it actually was.
"Kael," Lyra said, her voice shaking slightly. "These scars... they're not just marks. They're conduits. They're alive. They're pulsing with power."
The light grew brighter, spreading across Kael's skin like silver vines. Every scar, every ritual mark, every blessing the Moonshadow elders had carved into her flesh began to glow with the light of ancient magic.
Lyra looked at Cassian with absolute certainty in her eyes.
"She's not cursed," the healer said. "She's blessed. She's carrying the entire magic of a dead tribe inside her body. And it's only just starting to wake up."