Chapter 89

Kieran.

Not in person, not entirely, but as light. His shape formed at the edge of the clearing gold and shadow, wolf and man. His eyes burned that familiar molten amber.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I whispered.

His voice, soft and steady, carried through the hum. “I didn’t come. You brought me.”

The runes flared once, their light spilling through the trees like dawn breaking early.

Tristan shouted my name, but his voice felt far away.

The world around me blurred gold, silver, dark. For a heartbeat, I wasn’t in the forest anymore. I was between things. Between past and present. Between who I was and who I was meant to be.

And I saw it just for a moment. The first wolves, their eyes glowing with the same gold fire. The Moon above them, bright and bleeding. And a woman standing in the center, her hands pressed to the earth, whispering the words that bound light and shadow together.

The bridge must remember.

When I blinked, I was back. The light faded. The forest stilled.

Kieran’s image flickered once, then vanished.

Tristan rushed forward, grabbing my shoulders. “What happened? What did it do?”

I looked down at my hands, the faint glow still fading beneath my skin. “It showed me where it began.”

Lyra approached slowly. “And?”

I met her gaze. “And it’s not done yet.”

Later, after everything had quieted, I stood on the balcony again. The rain had returned, soft and steady. The gold light was gone, the forest dark once more. But I could still feel it beneath the surface alive, waiting.

Tristan was somewhere below, checking the borders. Lyra was recording everything she could remember. And me? I was just standing here, trying to breathe through the weight of it all.

Kieran’s voice brushed the edge of my mind again, faint but sure.

You saw it.

“Yes,” I whispered. “And now I can’t unsee it.”

You were never meant to.

I closed my eyes. “What happens now?”

A pause. Then, Now, the world decides what it wants to remember.

The bond pulsed once more gentle, steady, alive.

And for the first time, I didn’t fight it.

Because maybe remembering wasn’t the end of everything.

Maybe it was the beginning.

The beginning of balance.

Of truth.

Of whatever came next.

The forest breathed.

The rain whispered.

The world waited.

And somewhere between light and shadow, I stood

the bridge,

the heartbeat,

the reminder that some things were never meant to be forgotten.

Not yet.

Not ever.

Kieran POV

The morning after the forest remembered felt like standing at the edge of a breath that hadn’t finished being exhaled.

The light that filtered through the clouds was weak, hesitant as if even the sun was afraid to disturb what the night had done.

I hadn’t slept either. Sleep had become something I only pretended to chase these days. My body could rest, but the bond never did. It moved under my skin like a tide that refused to go out, tugging at every quiet thought, every unguarded heartbeat. And at the center of that pull was her.

Isla.

Even from this distance, I could feel her the faint, steady rhythm of her mind brushing against mine, the echo of her breath, the trembling calm after revelation.

She’d seen what I saw long ago. The bridge. The first light. The memory the world had buried but could never destroy.

And now, she was remembering.

The forest outside my window was still humming. Not loudly just enough to make the air taste metallic, alive. The runes etched into the stone walls of my chamber glowed faintly, breathing in time with something older than either of us.

I rose, the wooden floor cool beneath my feet, and crossed to the balcony. The air bit cold against my skin, but it was grounding. Below, the world was drenched in gray mist and the scent of pine and rain. Wolves moved in silence along the perimeter, their forms shadows between the trees.

Everything was changing.

Quietly, but irrevocably.

“Still watching ghosts?”

The voice behind me was dry, familiar. I didn’t need to turn to recognize it.

Luca leaned against the doorway, his arms crossed, the faint scar along his jaw catching the weak light. He looked tired, like the rest of us, but his gaze was steady too steady.

“She saw it,” I said simply.

“The forest?”

“The beginning.”

He exhaled slowly. “And you think that’s a good thing?”

I didn’t answer right away. “It’s necessary.”

“Necessary doesn’t mean safe.”

He was right, of course. But safety stopped being part of the equation the moment the bond between Isla and me reawakened. The world didn’t want safety. It wanted balance. And balance was never gentle.

“She’s stronger than before,” I said finally. “The forest responds to her now.”

“That’s what scares me,” he muttered. “It responds. It remembers. And every time it does, something inside the borders shifts. The wards flicker, the air thickens like it’s choosing sides.”

I met his eyes. “It is.”

Luca studied me for a long moment, then shook his head with a faint, humorless smile. “You sound too calm for someone standing at the edge of a storm.”

“I’ve already lived through worse storms.”

He snorted softly. “Yeah, but this time, the lightning’s got your name written on it.”

When he left, I stayed where I was, staring out at the mist until it began to thin. My wolf stirred beneath my skin restless, alert, aching for the pull of the bond.

It wasn’t just longing anymore. It was recognition.

As if some primal part of me finally remembered why we were connected in the first place.

You are the bridge.

The words from last night still echoed in the back of my mind.

But bridges didn’t just connect two sides. They held the weight of everything that crossed between them. And right now, Isla was holding far too much.

I needed to see her.

The journey to her pack lands was quiet.

The rain had eased into a steady drizzle, the kind that blurred the line between earth and sky. Every step I took left behind faint ripples of light in the puddles a side effect of the magic that refused to sleep inside me. I’d learned to hide it before. Now, it refused to hide me.

By the time I reached the ridge overlooking her territory, the fog had begun to lift, revealing the stretch of forest that marked her borders. The runes that guarded her land pulsed faintly gold the same shade that lived beneath her skin.

She was awake.

And she already knew I was here.