bChapter /bb105 /b

Francesco’s Point of View:

Days turned into weeks.

Weeks into months.

And tomorrow… marks one full year since I lost her.

Eine…

My Luna. My mate. My heart.

I remember the moment the witches told me the rune trail had gone cold. That wherever they took her, the magic used was older than any traceable bline /b-dark, primal, twisted to sever memory and scent. It was like she vanished into mist.

I’ve torn through kingdoms since then.

Scoured forests, broken safehouses, leveled rogue hideouts across continents. Every whisper, every rumor of a white wolf, a magic user, ba /bgirl who once cried beneath the moon–I chased it.

None of them were her.

I am the King of Wolves now.

The packs across the world bow before me. Council systems have been rebuilt under new governance. Rogue activity has been purged from half the globe.

But none of it matters.

Not without her.

This crown weighs heavier than war.

This silence louder than the screams I once endured.

And this pain…It is worse than anything I’ve ever known. Even worse than when I losti/ /i

stasia.

Because Anastasia–she used magic to bind me. To make me believe it was love. And when she died, yes, it hurt. But it was grief soaked in guilt. Manipted love.

But Eine…

Eine was real.

She didn’t need spells. Didn’t ask for power. She stood beside me with nothing but a trembling voice and a brave heart.

And now she’s gone.

Gone like starlight swallowed by morning.

She left me back in this cold, dark shell I thought I escaped.

Beta Alfonso knows bit/b. He watches me every day from behind those bsharp /beyes of his, always knowing bwhen /bbto /bbstep /bbback /bband /bbwhen /bbto /bbstand /bbbeside /bbme/b,

Marlow knows it. He trains harder nowb, /blike fighting is the onlynguage bhe /bbcan /bbspeak /bwhile bwe /bwait for a bmiracle/b.

iTa /i

Audrey tries to keep me busy with war reports and treaty negotiations, but I see it in her eyes–she misses her friend.

And Monica…

She visits once every moon cycle, leaves drawings and messages from Eine’s students–the ones she inspired before vanishing, the children whom she ys in the garden. She believes Eine is still alive. I want to believe it too.

But belief without hope is just pain with a leash.

I sit alone most nights in the observatory tower. It’s where

found

I her painting by moonlight, humiming to herself. Where she cried onceb, /bband /bI bheld /b

her. Where I first truly saw her.

Now all I have left is silence and stars.

Sometimes I close my eyes and reach for the bond. Sometimes I feel it–faint, like a thread brushing against my soul. But every time I pull, it slips brough /bmy fingers.

They say a year changes everything.

But for me? It just made the ache deeper.

Eine’s Point of View:

I sigh when I sat beside the river.

The river speaks to me sometimes.

Not in words, not in sound, but in soft ripples and quiet songs only the trees seem to understand. I often sit by the bankb, /bwatching the way the bcurrent /bmoves like memory–always forward, never still.

That’s what they call me here.

Edith…

A name I woke up to, wrapped in bandages and pain, my body weak and broken, but somehow still breathing.

The couple who found me said I was near death. Covered in bcuts/b, burns, silver wounds that hadn’t closed. Drenched in blood and magic residue. They

said I must have escaped whatever battle had happened at the Council–a war that tore apart the power structure of our kind.

But I don’t remember anything.

Not my name.

Not my past.

Not who I was.

Nothing…..

bAll I /bknew when I woke was pain. So much pain.

bAnd /bthe eyes of two old werewolves who looked at me not with suspicionb… /bbut bwith /bsorrow,

They introduced themselves as Mara and Elias.

bThey /bwere bkind /bcouple I could dream bof /bbto /bhelp me.

b2/4 /b

Quiet. Weathered by time. The sort of love that exists in silence and shared teab. /b

They had no children left. The war had taken them. Their only son had died years ago. The house was too big, the fire too empty.

And so they kept me.

Tended to my wounds.

Fed me with soup and silence..

They asked no questions. Perhaps afraid the answers would break me ollime. /li/ol

So, I stayed.

At first, because I could not walk. Then, because I had nowhere

elso

ito /iolligo. /li/ol

Now… because I’m afraid that remembering will hurt more than forgetting ever has.

They let me help around the vige. It’s small, hidden between forest and river, far from the noise of kingdoms and politics. The other wolves here are like shadows–survivors, not fighters.

And I am something between them all.

I’m not strong. Not anymore I thought since I can’t remember a thing.

But I heal, meaning I have wolf inside me.

Bu I haven’t hear from my wolf, Mara mentioned because I am wounded and give it time until she’s healed, so I wait.

Iugh sometimes when Mara scolds Elias for forgetting to salt the stew. I cry quietly when I find an old sketchbook in the attic, its pages nk but inviting.

And I paint.

I guess I am so good with painting. Sometimes, my hand moves on its own. Rivers. Wolves. A golden glow I can’t name.

And eyes.

Always the same golden eyes.

Who? I don’t know.

And why I keep dreaming of him? Always him…

They haunt my dreams.

I hear a name whispered in the wind sometimes. A name I can’t hold onto. A name that makes my chest ache when I wake up alone.

Something inside me is… waiting.

I don’t bknow /bwhat.

But I know this isn’t the end of my story.

Even if I don’t remember the beginning.