Ryker's POV
Darkness wasn't the absence of light.
It was the presence of weight.
That's what I realized as I came back to myself—beneath stone, buried deep in the shattered veins of the Aether Cradle.
Pain anchored me. Thick, molten in my bones. My lungs refused air. My ears rang with silence.
Then—a sound. Water dripping somewhere. A slow, rhythmic tap that carved a rhythm into the dark.
Alive.
Barely.
I forced my fingers to move. The motion sent fire lancing through my arm. Broken, maybe. My left leg too. But I could move. I could still fight.
"Sora," I rasped, but the sound was devoured by the stone.
Nothing answered.
No light.
No breath.
No heartbeat but mine.
Until something shifted behind the silence.
A flicker of movement—no, not movement. Presence.
Then came the voice. Low, guttural, ancient as the earth itself.
"You reached into the Cradle. And it reached back."
I froze.
"Who's there?"
The darkness answered not with words, but feeling. Cold. Endless. Old rage coiled with a kind of sorrow that tasted like ash.
"You carry the mark. The Aether does not forgive."
I struggled upright, bracing against the broken stone. Violet light bled from cracks in the cavern wall, pulsing like a heartbeat. My own skin was glowing faintly—runes etched by heat, seared into my forearms.
Not ink. Not magic.
Chosen.
But not by the Moon.
"Where's Sora? Hale?" I demanded.
"One walked away. One did not.
A roar ripped through me—grief and rage and refusal. Hale had been our anchor, the unflinching wall between chaos and collapse. He couldn't be gone. He couldn't.
I punched the stone wall. The Aether flared in response, burning down my arm—but not consuming. It accepted me.
"You want a vessel?" I growled. "Then give me strength."
For a moment, the Cradle pulsed—like it considered.
Then it opened.
The stone beneath my feet shifted. The chamber cracked. Air surged in from somewhere below, and a current of energy swept through me, lifting me off the ground.
Memories that weren't mine crashed into my mind. Battles long past. Kings lost to greed. Wolves who once walked as gods.
And always—her.
Clara.
Burning.
Weeping.
Rising.
A final whisper slid into my head like a dagger.
"She will bring the flame. You are its shadow. Bind yourself… or be devoured."
Then—release.
I collapsed to the stone floor, coughing blood. But I could breathe. I could feel. The bond between Clara and me—it hadn't broken.
It had shifted.
Sharper. Wilder. Like something older than matehood had been awakened.
I dragged myself to my feet and limped toward the breach the Aether had carved—a tunnel lit with silver veins, ancient and untouched.
I didn't know where it led.
But I knew who was waiting.
And Dorian—he'd made one critical mistake.
He'd tried to kill me in fire.
But some things don't burn.
They become the flame.The tunnel curved like a serpent, winding deeper than should have been possible. The walls whispered in forgotten tongues, voices etched into the stone by agony and time. My breath came ragged. My body trembled. But the further I went, the more the pain turned into something else—
Purpose.
Each step peeled back layers of who I'd been. Alpha. Brother. Weapon. Betrayer. Protector. And beneath it all, something older. Something primal.
The Cradle hadn't just marked me. It had called to me. It knew what I was. What I had always been.
Not just a wolf.
A remnant of something lost.
Something the Aether remembered.
And maybe... needed.
A low hum began to thrum through the stone, rhythmic and deep, like a heartbeat. No, not a heartbeat—hers. Clara's. Distant, but unmistakable. It tugged on the bond between us like a thread pulled taut, and I followed it with every ounce of strength I had left.
The tunnel opened into a vast chamber—a cathedral carved by time and magic. Obsidian pillars loomed around a wellspring of violet flame. The air shimmered with heat, and floating above the fire, suspended by threads of light—
A figure.
Not Clara.
Hale.
But he was… wrong.
His body hung in the air like a marionette, arms slack, eyes open but blank. His chest rose and fell—barely. His essence flickered like a candle fighting the wind.
Still alive.
But bound.
"Don't touch him," a voice said, smooth and cold.
I turned.
A woman stood at the far edge of the chamber. Not Aetherborn. Not wolf. Something between. She was clad in silver robes threaded with runes I couldn't read, her hair white as bone, her eyes lit with the same fire that pulsed in the walls.
"You're not supposed to be here," she said.
"Said the ghost in a tomb," I replied, taking a step toward Hale.
She raised a hand. The flame surged.
"I am the Warden of the Cradle. I keep the balance. And you—you're a fracture."
I bared my teeth. "Then you know what I'll do to protect what's mine."
"He is not yours," she snapped. "He touched the truth and couldn't contain it. I am holding what's left of him together. If you remove him now, he dies."
My chest clenched. "Then let me speak to him."
She hesitated. Her eyes narrowed. "Why?"
The tunnel curved like a serpent, winding deeper than should have been possible. The walls whispered in forgotten tongues, voices etched into the stone by agony and time. My breath came ragged. My body trembled. But the further I went, the more the pain turned into something else
Purpose.
Each step peeled back layers of who I'd been. Alpha. Brother. Weapon. Betrayer. Protector. And beneath it all, something older. Something primal.
The Cradle hadn't just marked me. It had called to me. It knew what I was. What I had always been.
Not just a wolf.
A remnant of something lost.
Something the Aether remembered.
And maybe... needed.
A low hum began to thrum through the stone, rhythmic and deep, like a heartbeat. No, not a heartbeat—hers. Clara's. Distant, but unmistakable. It tugged on the bond between us like a thread pulled taut, and I followed it with every ounce of strength I had left.
The tunnel opened into a vast chamber—a cathedral carved by time and magic. Obsidian pillars loomed around a wellspring of violet flame. The air shimmered with heat, and floating above the fire, suspended by threads of light—
A figure.
Not Clara.
Hale.
But he was… wrong.
His body hung in the air like a marionette, arms slack, eyes open but blank. His chest rose and fell—barely. His essence flickered like a candle fighting the wind.
Still alive.
But bound.
"Don't touch him," a voice said, smooth and cold.
I turned.
A woman stood at the far edge of the chamber. Not Aetherborn. Not wolf. Something between. She was clad in silver robes threaded with runes I couldn't read, her hair white as bone, her eyes lit with the same fire that pulsed in the walls.
"You're not supposed to be here," she said.
"Said the ghost in a tomb," I replied, taking a step toward Hale.
She raised a hand. The flame surged.
"I am the Warden of the Cradle. I keep the balance. And you—you're a fracture."
I bared my teeth. "Then you know what I'll do to protect what's mine."
"He is not yours," she snapped. "He touched the truth and couldn't contain it. I am holding what's left of him together. If you remove him now, he dies."
My chest clenched. "Then let me speak to him."
She hesitated. Her eyes narrowed. "Why?"