Chapter 4 The Stone and the Silence

I didn't tell anyone about the pendant. Not Kael. Not Corin. Not even the healer with eyes too sharp to be blind to what she saw. Stormveil had watchers everywhere. People who spoke with glances, people who heard without moving. And I-no, I wasn't about to hand them more reasons to whisper.

But something had shifted. I felt it that morning the second I stepped outside my quarters. The air tasted wrong. Heavy, like it was holding its breath.

The wolves training in the lower yard stopped mid-motion when I crossed the steps. Blades hung in the air. No one blinked. Their gazes clung to me like I had grown another skin.

I didn't look away. Let them stare. Fear was a weapon, wasn't it? And right now, it was the only one I had.

Rumors moved faster than fire. Some said Kael had chosen me because I looked like someone he lost. Others whispered I was cursed, that I wasn't rejected at all, only marked twice. That the moon hated me.

They were all wrong. And the worst part-I didn't know what the truth was either.

Corin met me near the eastern boundary, the mist curling behind him.

"You shouldn't be out here alone," he said.

"I'm not alone," I told him.

His brows lifted, just slightly. "You're not?"

"No."

I didn't explain. He didn't push. Instead, he handed me a satchel. "The Alpha wants you to learn the land."

"Why?"

His gaze didn't waver. "Because land remembers what wolves forget."

Then he left me standing there, the satchel heavy against my side.

Inside: a map, a compass, and a leather-bound book without a title. The first page had a name scribbled faint in the corner.

Elandra.

I didn't know the name. Didn't want to admit how my chest clenched at the sight of it. Like memory scratching at a locked door.

I took the trail north. It wound through silver trees, stones cracked and overgrown, many etched with crescents. The air thinned the farther I went.

One stone stopped me. Crescent carved deep, with a fourth symbol scratched beneath it. A flame.

I touched it. The wind stilled.

No rustle. No breath. Just silence.

Then, from behind me, a voice.

"You shouldn't touch that."

I spun.

Rowen Vale leaned against the tree line, arms folded, cloak hanging dark around him. His sword strapped to his back glinted when light hit. His stare was flat, unshakable.

"Why not?" My hand stayed on the stone.

"Because you don't know what it answers to."

I should have stepped back. I didn't. "What do you want, Rowen?"

He pushed off the tree. Walked forward slowly, deliberate like a predator who already knew the outcome. "I want to know why the ground burns after you walk on it."

The words scraped something raw in me. "What are you talking about?"

"The training yard. The garden path. The cliffs. Everywhere you pass, the earth pulses. I see it." His voice didn't rise, didn't accuse. It was fact.

"I didn't do anything."

"Exactly," he said.

He came close enough that I could hear the weight in his breath. Close enough my pulse betrayed me.

"I don't trust you," I said. My voice was steadier than my hands.

"Good."

He reached for the pendant at my throat, brushing it with a touch too careful to be accidental.

"It's older than it looks," he said.

I froze. "You've seen it before."

"I've seen what it was made for."

My mouth went dry. "What was it made for?"

The corner of his lips twitched, not quite a smile. "To wake something."

Before I could press him, he turned and vanished back into the trees.

Back at the estate, my feet carried me to the archives. Down stone stairs carved into the cliff, into a chamber lit with torches that hissed low.

Shelves groaned under scrolls and ledgers. Some too faded to read. I found a ledger marked with bloodlines-births, Luna pairings, alliances.

Ashfall was there. So was Thorne. Cian's family line.

But not mine.

No Caelwyn. Not even in the outlier files.

I didn't exist. Not in their records. Not here.

Later, Kael found me in the courtyard. He sat beside me on the cold bench without asking, handed me a flask.

"It's not poisoned," he said.

I gave him a sideways look. "Comforting."

The drink burned. Sharp, unfamiliar.

"Did you know," he said, voice even, "that there are stories of Luna-born girls who go unmarked?"

I stilled. "Stories?"

"Old ones. Before pact law. They weren't chosen. They weren't claimed. They were left to the moon."

"To die?"

"To wake something worse."

The wind cut across the courtyard. I shivered, but he didn't flinch.

"I've seen three bloodlines carry that pendant you wear," he added.

"And?"

"None of them lived past twenty-one."

The air stuck in my lungs. "I'm twenty-one."

"I know."

Then he stood, cloak snapping like shadow, and left me with the flask still burning in my hand.

That night, I dreamed again.

The three wolves circled me-not still this time, but moving. One cautious. One violent. One silent.

The silent wolf opened its mouth. My mouth.

You belong to no one.

I woke gasping, window iced over from the inside. Veins of frost crawled across the glass. I hadn't opened it.

And written there, in the frost, traced by a fingertip I didn't feel, was a word.

Unclaimed.

I wiped it away. It returned.

Three knocks followed-not on the door. From the wall.

I pressed my ear against the stone.

This time, something knocked back.

And the whisper that slid through wasn't sound-it was memory.

Old. Familiar. Hungry.

Watching.