Saphira woke with the wrong name on her lips.
She sat upright, breath shallow, heart racing like she had been running—but she hadn't moved. The Silverlight quarters were quiet, the night thick with moonlight spilling across stone floors.
Her chest ached.
Not pain.
Not fear.
A pull.
She pressed her palm over her sternum, confused, unsettled. Werewolves didn't feel like this. Bonds were forged after wolves emerged—after claiming, after ceremony.
She had no wolf.
So why did it feel like something inside her was reaching—
searching?
Far away, in Redmoon territory, Kael stopped mid-stride.
The sensation hit him like a blade between the ribs.
He staggered, catching himself against a pillar, teeth clenched as his wolf surged forward, restless and furious.
Mine.
The thought wasn't conscious.
It terrified him.
Kael had felt attraction. Desire. Curiosity. Even obsession in battle.
This was none of those.
This was instinct.
Raw. Ancient. Unignorable.
He could feel her.
Not her scent. Not her presence.
Her existence.
Kael forced a slow breath, fighting the urge to shift, to run—to cross territory lines that had been respected for generations.
This couldn't be happening.
She was Silverlight.
She was unbonded.
She was fragile—by their standards.
And yet his wolf paced like a caged storm, snarling at the distance between them.
Back in Silverlight, Saphira stood, legs trembling as the pull intensified. It wasn't a direction—not yet—but a gravity, tugging at something deep inside her ribs, beneath bone and blood.
She felt… seen.
Claimed, without touch.
Her healer instincts flared—something old and buried stirring uneasily. She wrapped her arms around herself, whispering into the quiet:
"This isn't real."
But the moon answered.
Bright. Watching.
Waiting.
Both of them stepped outside at the same moment—miles apart, under the same sky.
Saphira tilted her face upward, tears stinging her eyes for reasons she couldn't name.
Kael bared his throat to the moon, jaw tight with restraint.
The bond didn't snap into place.
It didn't claim.
It warned.
Soon.
Very soon.
And when it did, neither Alpha nor Princess would be able to pretend they hadn't felt it first.
THE WHITE THAT ENDS SILENCE
The Second Trial was not meant to be survived.
Everyone knew that.
The Circle of Thorns—ancient, merciless, designed to expose weakness—had claimed more lives than any ritual still sanctioned by the Council. This wasn't about skill. It was about instinct.
And instinct had never favored Saphira Silverlight.
The arena was carved into stone and ice, ringed with towering obsidian pillars etched with old runes. Snow fell in slow spirals, unnatural, summoned by magic older than the packs themselves.
Saphira stood at the edge of the circle, hands trembling.
No wolf.
No enhanced strength.
No instinct to kill.
Around her, whispers cut deeper than blades.
"She won't last a minute."
"The Alpha's fragile daughter."
"Watch her break."
Alpha Roderick watched from the high platform, jaw tight, fists clenched at his sides. He had allowed this trial for one reason only—to force her awakening.
But as the gates slammed shut and the Trial Beasts emerged, something in his chest twisted.
This wasn't awakening.
This was execution.
The beasts were wrong—too fast, too many. Shadows with fangs, eyes glowing an eerie blue as they lunged.
Saphira ran.
Ice burned her lungs. Her foot slipped—she hit the ground hard, pain exploding through her side. The crowd went silent as one of the beasts leapt—
Too close.
Too fast.
She thought, So this is how it ends.
Then something inside her answered.
Not her healer's instinct.
Something older.
Something furious.
The world shattered.
A shockwave of power exploded outward, cracking the ice beneath her, throwing the beasts back as a blinding white light consumed the arena.
Saphira screamed—not in pain, but in transformation.
Bones shifted. Power surged. Snow spiraled violently as her wolf rose.
Gasps rippled through the stands.
No one spoke.
Because standing where the fragile princess had fallen was a wolf the color of untouched snow—fur glowing faintly silver beneath the moon, eyes like frozen starlight.
A Snow-White Wolf.
Myth.
Extinct.
Last seen centuries ago—before wars, before Councils, before balance was broken.
The beasts didn't attack.
They fled.
Saphira lifted her head and howled, the sound ripping through the sky, ancient and commanding. The ice stilled. The storm bowed.
On the Redmoon platform, Kael went rigid.
His wolf slammed forward, recognizing power that made his blood burn.
There you are.
Alpha Roderick staggered back a step, disbelief written across his face.
"Impossible…" someone whispered.
But the wolf turned—steady, regal, unafraid—and met her father's gaze.
Not fragile.
Not weak.
A force.
When the light faded, Saphira stood trembling in the snow, breath ragged, surrounded by silence so thick it hurt.
She looked down at her hands.
At the shattered arena.
At the space where death had been—and wasn't.
"I didn't…" she whispered. "I didn't know…"
The Council members exchanged looks of pure panic.
Because they knew what this meant.
A Snow-White wolf did not emerge by chance.
And if the healer secret was dangerous—
This?
This was war-altering.
Far across the arena, Kael exhaled slowly, eyes never leaving her.
The bond inside him tightened—no longer a whisper.
A vow.