The world around him was made of ash and moonlight.
A vast, ruined hall stretched into forever — pillars carved with sigils that once glowed like stars, now cracked and hollow. Between the shadows, pools of silver light rippled across the floor, reflecting a thousand memories that weren't supposed to exist.
Nani — no, Kieran — stood barefoot on the fractured stone, wind tugging at the remnants of his royal robes. The air smelled of rain and burning roses.
A voice called to him, soft as a sigh.
"You shouldn't be here, my prince."
He turned — and the world shifted.
In the center of the hall stood Lira, draped in pale silk, her silver hair flowing like liquid moonlight. The mark of the first moon clan shimmered faintly on her collarbone — crescent intertwined with flame.
Her eyes — the same eyes that would one day belong to Sky — met his, full of quiet defiance and impossible tenderness.
"If I shouldn't," Kieran murmured, stepping closer, "then why does every path I take lead me back to you?"
Lira smiled — small, sad, radiant. "Because you're cursed to love what can burn you."
He reached for her hand, and when their skin met, light and shadow collided. A hiss of pain, his breath catching — the familiar burn of her divine blood under his touch. Smoke curled from his palm where her mark seared him, and still he held on.
"I don't care," he whispered, voice shaking with something between worship and despair. "Let it burn me."
She cupped his face, thumb brushing the edge of his jaw where the mark of the first blood glowed faintly crimson. "You're the youngest prince of the House of Hirunkit," she said softly. "The heartbeat born among the dead. You weren't meant to feel love, Kieran. You weren't meant to feel anything."
He kissed her fingertips — reverent, desperate. "Then let me be the flaw that breaks your god's design."
The moonlight shivered.
Then the memory fractured.
Screams.
The scent of iron.
The world drowned in blood and blue fire.
The moon clan burned.
The air filled with the shrieks of creatures half-light, half-dark. The ground cracked open, swallowing cities that had once been made of starlight. And at the center of it all — Kieran stood, his eyes empty, his hands red.
Lira's body lay in his arms, her once-luminous hair now soaked in ash and blood. Her guardian sigil dimmed to gray.
"You said you would not let me die..." he whispered, voice breaking.
"But you can't stop death, my love," she breathed, smiling faintly through the pain. "You can only follow it."
And she did what he couldn't — she burned herself.
Moonfire ignited, consuming her body, sealing the bloodline of the moon clan and cursing Kieran's soul with the memory of her light.
He screamed — not in rage, but in the sound of something divine breaking.
The sky wept silver.
When he opened his eyes again, the world was centuries older.
His palace stood in ruins. His heart silent.
And across from him, a seer cloaked in shadows traced a sigil on his chest — half sealing his power, half tearing his memories apart.
"Forget her," the seer said.
"Forget, or lose yourself forever."
He tried. For centuries, he did.
Until her soul found him again.
Time bled forward — flashes like candlelight in a storm.
A battlefield.
A pair of eyes — Niran's this time — gold with defiance and sorrow.
Another death. Another madness.
Then silence.
Kieran — now Nani — stood again in the dream-ruin of his own mind. The ghosts of his past selves watched from the cracked mirrors of memory. His hands trembled, blood and light both staining his fingers.
"Why..." he whispered into the void, voice low, breaking. "Why do I keep losing you, over and over?"
The silence answered in the shape of footsteps.
From the shadows, Dew appeared — younger, smiling, draped in royal blues and silver. His presence was steady, familiar, almost comforting.
"Because you were never meant to have her," Dew said quietly.
"Not as prince, not as supreme. You chose love over the law, and love never forgets its punishment."
Kieran looked at him, something ancient flickering behind his eyes. "And yet you stayed," he murmured. "Even when I destroyed everything."
Dew smiled faintly. "That's what best friends do, don't they? Stay... even when they shouldn't."
He stepped closer, reaching out as though to touch Kieran's burned hand — but the image faltered, distorting.
"Tell me," Dew's voice echoed, soft and almost bitter, "if she hadn't burned for you... would you ever have looked at me instead?"
Kieran didn't answer. He couldn't.
The world around him began to shatter — glass and light and echoes breaking apart.
Dew's final words chased him as the dream dissolved into black.
"Some loves are written in blood.
Others... are born from the ashes it leaves behind."
When Nani stirred, breath catching in the real world, the echo of his name — Sky — trembled on his lips.
And somewhere nearby, Sky's light flared faintly, like a heartbeat that refused to stop answering his.
----
Outside the chamber, the night pressed close against PP's lair — thick with the scent of smoke, iron, and damp earth.
The wards shimmered faintly across the perimeter, like silver mist breathing in and out.
Beyond them, wolves and vampires kept uneasy watch — two ancient rivals now forced to stand side by side beneath the same moon.
Inside the hall, the tension was a living thing.
Felix stood with his arms crossed, exhaustion carved into every line of his face. Est hovered nearby, eyes darting between the wolves and vampires like a man trapped between storms. PP sat cross-legged atop a desk cluttered with half-burned scrolls and potion vials, chewing the end of his quill as if to keep himself from screaming.
Across the room, Alpha Juno leaned heavily against the wall, his left shoulder bandaged, amber eyes still glowing faintly from the fight. Beside him, Alpha Kazen—broad, calm but coiled with barely restrained power—rested his bloodied claws on his knees. The wolves' presence made the air heavier, their wild aura thrumming against the vampires' cold stillness.
William broke the silence first, his voice low, clipped, carrying the weight of centuries.
"We can't stay here long. The creatures retreated for now, but it wasn't a defeat. They'll regroup. Whoever's summoning them won't stop until they find what they came for."
Felix let out a bitter laugh. "You mean whoever wants to wake a damn demon that's been dead for millennia?"
PP nodded grimly, finally setting his quill aside. "Mara's blood isn't something you just call back. It demands sacrifice, life force, and a summoner powerful enough to control the echo. That's not a child's spell. That's a declaration of war."
Juno growled under his breath. "Then they've already started it."
The words hung heavy in the air.
No one argued.
Kazen spoke next, his voice deep, steady, but threaded with the kind of grief only alphas carried. "We lost too many tonight. Entire packs burned in The guardian's light—and yet, without him, we'd all be dead."
He looked toward the closed door where Sky and Nani lay. "The wolves owe him. But this alliance won't hold long if the elders of council or your coven find out what he truly is."
William's eyes flicked up—cold, sharp.
"Then no one finds out. Not until we're ready."
Felix crossed his arms tighter. "You're assuming we'll ever be ready. If the Council learns the Guardian's alive, every faction will come for him. Even our own kind. Guardian blood is—"
"—power," PP finished softly, his tone darker than usual. "Old, pure power. Enough to cleanse or to kill. The last time that power awakened, the world nearly ended."
Est swallowed hard. "And if the Mara comes back, it'll finish what that war started."
Silence fell again, thicker this time.
The sound of crackling fire and the faint, rhythmic beeping of a monitoring charm filled the void. Outside, distant howls rolled over the forest — half-mournful, half-watchful.
Finally, William turned toward the window. His silhouette was framed by moonlight, sharp and regal, the mark of his House faintly glowing at his throat. "Our priority now is keeping the Guardian and the Supreme alive. Together, they might be the only thing standing between us and extinction."
PP tilted his head, curiosity breaking through his fatigue. "And if they destroy each other first?"
William's jaw tightened, a flicker of emotion ghosting across his usually unreadable face.
"Then all of this," he said quietly, "ends before it even begins."
The wolves and vampires exchanged wary glances.
For the first time in centuries, they shared the same fear — and the same fragile hope — both tied to the two figures resting behind that sealed door.
Felix sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Great. So now every creature on this damn continent wants to kill us, the Council wants to dissect us, and the Mara's ghost is whispering in someone's ear. Fantastic."
PP chuckled softly — a sound too light for the weight of the night. "Well," he said, picking up a scroll and blowing dust off it, "at least it's never boring."
Juno's gaze sharpened toward the window. "Stay alert," he murmured. "They'll come again before dawn. I can feel it."
And outside, deep in the dark forest, something moved — something that wasn't wolf, nor vampire, nor human.
A whisper of black smoke unfurled against the ward, testing its strength... and smiling through the veil.