The forest changed as they ran.
The red leaves grew thicker, darker, until the canopy above them glowed like a dying ember. The air grew colder. Still. Too still. Even the birds refused to sing here.
Lyra slowed, her breath catching. “Rowan… this place…”
“I know,” he said. “We’re close.”
She swallowed hard. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Maybe not,” Rowan said. “But I’m not leaving you.”
Lyra’s heart twisted — painfully, beautifully — but she said nothing. She led him deeper into the forest, her steps growing hesitant as the trees thinned and the ground sloped downward.
Then the shrine appeared.
A stone archway half?buried in roots.
A staircase carved into the earth.
Moonlight pooling unnaturally at the bottom, even though the sun hadn’t fully set.
Rowan stopped beside her.
“This is it?” he asked.
Lyra nodded. “The shrine of Queen Astra.”
Rowan felt the weight of the name settle over him like a shroud.
The Wolf Queen.
The mother of the curse.
The woman whose grief had broken the world.
Lyra descended the steps slowly, her hand brushing the stone wall. Rowan followed, sword drawn, though he wasn’t sure what good steel would do against whatever lived here.
The shrine opened into a cavern lit by pale, ghostly light. At its center stood a statue — tall, regal, carved from moonstone. The queen’s face was serene, but her eyes were hollow, carved with such sorrow Rowan felt it in his bones.
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Lyra approached the statue with reverence. “My mother brought me here once. She said the queen still listens.”
Rowan studied Lyra’s expression — the way her ears lowered, the way her fingers trembled as she touched the stone.
“You’re connected to her,” he said quietly.
Lyra didn’t look at him. “I’m her descendant.”
Rowan’s breath caught.
“Lyra… the prophecy—”
“I know,” she whispered. “I’ve known since I was a child.”
She stepped back from the statue, hugging her arms around herself.
“They say the queen’s grief was so powerful it cursed her bloodline. Every daughter born after her carries a piece of her sorrow. A piece of her rage.”
Rowan’s chest tightened. “And the moon—”
“Pulls at it,” Lyra finished. “Twists it. Tries to turn us into what she became.”
Rowan looked at the statue again — the sorrow carved into its face, the way the stone seemed to weep.
“What did she become?” he asked.
Lyra hesitated.
Then she whispered, “A monster.”
The word echoed through the cavern like a wound reopening.
Rowan stepped closer to her. “You’re not her.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
Lyra shook her head, tears gathering in her eyes. “Rowan… last night, I almost—”
“You didn’t.”
“I could have.”
“But you didn’t.”
Lyra’s voice cracked. “What if next time I can’t stop it?”
Rowan reached out, gently lifting her chin so she had to meet his eyes.
“Then I’ll stop it,” he said. “Not by killing you. By standing with you.”
Lyra’s breath hitched.
Before she could speak, the shrine trembled.
A pulse of cold light rippled through the cavern, radiating from the statue. Rowan stepped in front of Lyra instinctively, sword raised.
The queen’s hollow eyes glowed faintly.
Lyra gasped. “She’s reacting to us.”
“To you,” Rowan corrected.
“No,” Lyra whispered. “To us.”
The light intensified, swirling around them like mist. Rowan felt something brush against his mind — a whisper, ancient and sorrowful.
A woman’s voice.
Soft. Broken.
“Protect her.”
Rowan staggered, gripping his head.
Lyra grabbed his arm. “Rowan? What happened?”
He looked at her, shaken. “I heard her.”
Lyra’s eyes widened. “The queen?”
Rowan nodded.
Before either of them could speak again, a horn blared in the forest above.
The Silver Oath.
Lyra’s blood ran cold. “They found us.”
Rowan sheathed his sword and grabbed her hand.
“Then we move,” he said. “Now.”
They ran up the stone steps, the queen’s whisper still echoing in Rowan’s mind.
Protect her.
He didn’t know if it was a blessing or a warning.
But he knew one thing:
He would obey it.
