Chapter 100

Our meager fire crackled weakly beside us, its dying embers casting long shadows across our faces while thin smoke spiraled toward the twilight sky. And somewhere far beneath the ancient roots, something pulsed rhythmically, synchronizing with our heartbeats an impossible connection that made my skin crawl.

A new rhythm emerged from the darkness, foreign yet intimate.

A new danger lurked, patient and calculating.

A watchful presence waited with a patience that couldn't possibly belong to any living creature.

Isla's fingers found mine in the growing darkness, her touch trembling slightly despite her composed expression. Kieran stood rigid, his shoulders tense as he scanned the perimeter, one hand resting on his weapon.

And for the first time since the war had ended, the peace we'd fought so desperately to achieve no longer felt like the safety we'd dreamed of during those blood soaked nights.

It felt like a countdown to something inevitable something we weren't prepared to face.

POV: Isla

By morning, the mist still hadn’t lifted.

It clung to the trees like breath on glass, thick and quiet, swallowing sound until even the forest seemed afraid to speak. The air was colder now, heavy with the memory of what had happened last night the crack, the roots, the light that bled red instead of gold.

We hadn’t gone near the fissure again. Kieran had ordered the area cordoned off, and the bridge if it was even still a bridge lay sleeping in its own pulse, faint but constant, like a dying ember refusing to go out.

I sat by the fire outside the main den, staring into the flames. My hands were wrapped around a cup of something hot that had already gone cold. I didn’t drink it. I just needed the weight.

The elders sat across from me, murmuring softly to each other. Old voices. Voices that had seen centuries pass like seasons. They’d been the ones to stay silent last night when the ground split open, but now, as dawn bled pale through the mist, I saw it the fear in their eyes.

Kieran stood nearby, arms folded, his jaw tight. He’d been awake all night, pacing, thinking, doing anything but resting. Tristan lingered near the clearing’s edge, quiet and watchful, his eyes on the crack that still pulsed faintly beneath the bridge’s roots.

Finally, Elder Cael broke the silence. His voice was low and rough, like gravel soaked in smoke.

“It’s the same rhythm,” he said. Kieran turned toward him. “What rhythm?”

Cael’s eyes, clouded with age, lifted to the bridge. “The heartbeat beneath the roots. I heard it once before.” Lyra frowned. “When?”

Cael took a long, slow breath. “A hundred years ago. Before the bridge went dark.”

CHAPTER 78

POV: Tristan

I’d heard pieces of the story before, back when I was a child and stories were just that fairytales told to keep pups in their dens after dark. But something in the way Cael spoke that morning it didn’t sound like a tale.

It sounded like confession.

“The bridge wasn’t always silent,” he began, voice steady now, though his hands trembled slightly in his lap. “Before your fathers’ fathers were born, it sang. A low hum that carried through the roots, through the stones, through the rivers. The old wolves believed it was the world’s heart made visible.”

He looked toward the mist. “But we grew greedy.”

Another elder, Runa, nodded solemnly. “We used it for power. To bind lands, to move faster than the wind, to see through fog and time. Every pack wanted its blessing, every king his piece of light. And so came the War of the Hollow Bridge.”

Kieran leaned forward slightly. “War?”

Cael nodded. “The war that split the North and the South. Wolves, fae, spirits of the forest all drawn into blood and ruin over what was never meant to be owned.”

Lyra frowned. “But the bridge wasn’t a weapon.”

Cael’s eyes darkened. “It became one.”

He looked at Tristan then at me as if the weight of what he remembered belonged to all of us now.

“When the bridge’s light was strongest, it didn’t just connect lands. It connected lives. It linked hearts, minds, even souls. But when the war began, those bonds turned to chains. Packs tore each other apart through the bond. You could feel your enemy’s pain as your own, and still you’d strike again. It was madness.”

Runa’s voice cracked as she added softly, “We called it the War of Reflections. Because no one knew, by the end, who they were fighting anymore.”

The fire popped sharply, breaking the silence that followed.

I could feel it in the air now the grief in their words, still raw after a century.

Cael’s gaze drifted back to the bridge. “When it was over, the survivors sealed the heart of it beneath the roots. They called it mercy. But the truth is, no one knew how to destroy it. So they buried it. And prayed it never woke again.”

POV: Isla

I listened without moving.

The firelight flickered against the elders’ faces, their wrinkles deep like tree bark, carved by time and loss. Every word they spoke felt older than the forest itself.

“So what changed?” I asked quietly. “Why now?”

Cael looked at me for a long moment, then said, “Because something’s been disturbing the seal. The bridge responds to will. To want. And lately, there’s been too much of both in this valley.”

Kieran’s brow furrowed. “You think we did this?”

“Not you,” Runa said. “Not entirely. But the bridge is born of unity, and lately, this land has known nothing but fracture.”

Her gaze lingered between Kieran and Tristan, then drifted toward me. “Old wounds have long memories.”

For a heartbeat, no one spoke. Only the fire breathed.

Then Tristan stepped closer to the light, his expression shadowed. “If it’s really waking, we can’t just sit and wait.”

Cael gave a slow nod. “No. But tread carefully. The bridge remembers the war better than we do. And memory can be a cruel thing.”

POV: Tristan

Later that night, after the others had gone, I stayed near the river. The mist hung low, curling over the water like smoke. I could see the faint pulse beneath the bridge’s cracked surface, a heartbeat buried under soil and root.

I remembered what Cael said the bridge responds to will.

I crouched, pressing my palm to the damp earth. It thrummed faintly beneath my skin, as if recognizing something in me. My pulse stuttered to match it, and for a second, I wasn’t sure where mine ended and its began.

A memory not mine, but something ancient flickered behind my eyes.

The bridge alive and golden. Wolves standing on both sides, their eyes bright with light, their voices raised not in war but in song. And then the sound shifting turning sharp, furious, drenched in blood. Screams swallowed by the hum of power turned violent.

I jerked my hand back, gasping. The vision vanished, leaving only the faint echo of that scream.