Chapter 32 Kaden's POV
I would hunt them down every last one. And I would make them pay for every wolf they'd killed. But first, I needed to make sure my pack and my family were safe.
I shifted and ran back toward the pack house. Toward Elara toward the child who might be the key to everything.
As I ran, I noticed something I'd missed in the chaos of the battle.
More symbols carved into trees all along the border. A trail of marks leading away from the attack site. Leading deeper into our territory.
They had been here before the attack. Had marked our land. Had planned this down to the last detail.
I followed the trail of symbols, my wolf growling with each new mark I found.
The trail led to a clearing about a mile from the border. And in the center of that clearing was something that made my heart stop.
A body.
One of my patrol wolves. A male named Thomas who'd been on solo reconnaissance last night.
He was dead for hours but it was the way he'd died that sent horror through me.
He was arranged carefully positioned on his back, arms spread wide. And burned into his chest, fresh enough that the smell of burned flesh still lingered in the air, were the symbols.
But these were different from the more elaborate and detailed ones.
And beneath them, carved into the ground around his body, were words in an ancient language I barely recognized.
"Ethan!" I called through the pack link.
"I need you at my location now bring someone who can read Old Tongue."
While I waited, I studied the scene. This wasn't just a killing. It was a ritual. A ceremony.
They'd sacrificed Thomas for something. But what?
Ethan arrived with Elder Miriam, who was one of the few pack members who still studied the old languages.
She took one look at the scene and gasped.
"What does it say?" I demanded.
Miriam knelt beside the body, her hands shaking as she traced the words carved into the earth.
"It's a summoning," She whispered.
"An old magic forbidden magic."
"Summoning what?"
She looked up at me, her eyes wide with fear.
"The darkness they are trying to summon the darkness that Erebus commanded two hundred years ago. The shadow magic that nearly destroyed the pack system."
The words hung in the air between us.
Then Miriam continued, her voice barely audible.
"And according to this... they're almost ready.”