The village was already dead when Rowan arrived.

  Not burned. Not pillaged. Just… emptied. Doors hung open. Rice bowls still warm. No blood. No bodies. Just claw marks on the walls and silence thick enough to choke.

  He dismounted slowly, boots crunching over broken lantern glass. His armor groaned with every step — heavier than it should be, darker than it used to be. The sword on his back felt like a coffin.

  He’d seen this before.

  Moon-Wraith signs.

  But this time, something was wrong.

  A chime rang through the trees.

  Not wind. Not metal.

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  Bells.

  Rowan turned sharply, hand on his hilt. The sound came again — soft, trembling, like fear made audible.

  Then she stepped into view.

  A girl. Barefoot. Robe torn at the shoulder. Long black hair tangled with silver bells. Wolf ears twitching atop her head. Her eyes — wide, golden, too bright — locked onto his.

  She looked like a child of the forest.She looked like a monster.

  “Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t come closer.”

  Rowan didn’t move.

  The air around her shimmered — not magic, not heat. Emotion. Something ancient. Something lunar.

  “I can’t control it,” she said. “Not when the moon’s this close.”

  Rowan’s grip tightened.

  She flinched.

  The bells chimed again — a sound so fragile it made his chest ache.

  He’d sworn to kill every Moon-Wraith he found.

  But this girl… she wasn’t snarling. She wasn’t hunting. She was trembling.

  And the moon was rising.

  “Your name,” he said.

  She blinked. “Lyra.”

  Rowan drew his sword.

  Not to kill.

  To protect.