Chapter 115: The Frozen Gate

We were driving right from the civilization-we were driving right off the edge of the world. Trading post, with that smell of ash and death, was the last living outpost. Beyond that was the Frozen Waste, where nothing lived, and the maps had given up trying to name it. We had salvaged this hefty, old, battered transport truck from the ruins of the post-final silent gift from the dead-and were tearing off in a northward direction, racing against a storm of snow and an army of white-clad fanatics that was surely hot on our heels.

I was seated in the passenger seat, looking outside as the whole world turned white and gray. It was worse over here. Pines were dying, but they were petrified, magically decayed into brittle, gray stone. The snow wasn't pure white, but dusted with a fine, choking layer of ash. It looked like a graveyard that stretched on forever.

From the backseat, in the midst of the truck's heater roaring and the howling wind outside, Sofia could barely be heard when she mentioned “The Legion” and overwhelmed me with confusion when I looked over her shoulder to see the ancient scroll open and her eyes scanning the faded text with a combination of fascination and horror. “Blood-bound is what the texts call them because they weren't just soldiers, Adrian; they were the First Alpha's personal guard. Legend says he did not just command their loyalty; their very souls were bound to his own. When he died, they did not disband. They walked into the tomb with him and... waited.”

“Waiting for what?” Leo inquired, checking his rifle magazine.

“A command strong enough to wake them,” Sofia said grimly. “They are an army of the dead, Leo. They has not feel pain and fear. They cannot kill, for they are not alive.”

A legion of non-death, soul-bound warriors. They were just what we needed to fight the High Guard and the monsters of The Withering. But even the thought of waking them, of unleashing that kind of ancient dark magic, made my wolf heart thud heavy and slow in my chest. Am I exchanging one nightmare for another?

The further north we pushed, the colder it got. The heater sputtered and faltered in the truck. Ice began to creep inside the windows. Sofia and the twins clung together for warmth, teeth rattling. Adrian was tense with those Alpha genes; otherwise, he was just fine.

But then, I realized something that terrified me more than the cold. I wasn't cold either.

I was wearing a simple jacket and my breath was generating steam in the icy air, but I felt… fine. Comfortable, even. Something weird and magical heat pumped through my veins by the slow, heavy heartbeat of a wolf inside me. I looked down at my hand. The skin wasn't pale or blue; it was flushed with warmth. I was human in subzero temperatures and my body was acting like an Arctic predator.

Adrian shifted his hand from resting on the gearshift and placed it over mine. His hand felt warm, but mine was a burning thing. He looked me in the eye, and I could see the recognition there. He felt it too. The transformation was proceeding. The environment wasn't killing me; it was feeding the thing within me.

“Close,” he said, his voice low choosing not to mention the heat of my skin, “The land... it just feels different here.”

He was correct. The grey rot of The Withering was fading, replaced with something that was sharper, cleaner, and far more dangerous. The air crackled with static; we were entering the domain of the First Alpha.

We drove until impenetrable terrain appeared-a layer of jagged ice shards and deep crevasses. We left the truck and continued on foot, trudging through knee-high snow with the screaming banshee wind cutting its way through our faces.

And then, looming out of the whiteout like a nightmare made of stone, we saw it.

It wasn't just the fact that it looked like a skull; it was a skull. The black-rock-and-white-ice composition of this massive, geological formation formed the unmistakable features of a wolf's skull, cracked right down its center. The split was a canyon, a dark and gaping wound that led into the heart of the mountain.

“The Tomb,” Lyra whispered, her voice snatched away by the wind.

We moved into the canyon, the high walls absorbed most of the wind, leaving behind a sombre, oppressive quiet, much like a cathedral or a crypt. At the end of the canyon, embedded in solid rock at the base of the skull, was a gate.

It was immense, at least twenty feet high and made from heavy, dark meteoric metal that seemed to capture the light around it. No handles or keyholes existed, while the surface was covered by thousands of jagged, razor-sharp spikes. In the center of the door, carved deep into the metal, was a single, large indentation in the shape of a wolf’s paw.

However, it wasn't a lock for a hand. The indentation was stained dark, rusted with centuries of old blood.

“It’s a blood seal,” Sofia said, her voice shaking as she read the runes carved around the paw print. “‘Only the blood of a Monster may open the way for Legion.’”

“A monster,” Adrian repeated, his face hardening. “The First Alpha considered himself a monster. He wanted only his own kind to follow him.”

He stepped forward, pulling a knife from his belt. “I'm an Alpha. My blood is strong. It should be enough.”

No, I replied, not hesitating at that word. It had come out not so much as a question but as a declaration from well within me. That animal-wolf heart inside me gave a ricocheting thump against my ribs. I walked past Adrian, drawn to the gate by some dark, magnetic pull.

Read the runes again, Sofia, I said, my voice sounding strange to my own ears-deeper, rougher. It doesn't say 'Alpha'. It says 'Monster'.

I looked at the gate, and I understood. The First Alpha hadn't died a hero. That man had died mad, consumed by the spirit he had bound to his flesh. He didn't want a noble successor; he wanted a successor who understood the darkness. He wanted someone who was a hybrid, a mistake, a violation of the natural order.

He wanted someone like me.

“Ethan, don’t,” Adrian warned, reaching for me.

“It won't open for you, Adrian,” I said, looking back at him. My eyes felt hot, and I knew, without a mirror, that they were flashing gold. “You're too pure. You're a leader. This gate… it needs something broken.”

Before he could stop me, I took the knife from his hand. I didn't hesitate. I slashed my own palm, a deep, diagonal cut. The blood that welled up was dark, rich, and hummed with the chaotic energy of the Moon Dancer magic and the Alpha spirit.

I pressed my bleeding hand into the center of the rusted paw print.

The metal drank my blood with a thirsty, sucking sound. The spikes hungered.