Chapter 4The Journal

Rowan's legs moved before her mind could catch up.

The stream cut through the forest like a silver vein, and she stumbled into it, ignoring the cold shock against her boots. Blood dripped from her arm—when had she been cut?—and she watched it spiral away in the current, carrying her scent downstream. *Good. Let them follow the water.*

Behind her, the baying of hounds echoed through the trees. Close. Too close.

She pushed deeper into the stream, fighting the current, her lungs burning. The bond was a dead weight in her chest, cold and hollow. Every step felt like walking without a heart. But she kept moving because stopping meant lying down, and lying down meant dying, and dying meant Darian's sacrifice meant nothing.

The waterfall appeared without warning—a curtain of silver plunging over a moss-covered rock face. Rowan's foot caught on a submerged stone, and she pitched forward, her hands breaking the surface just as she noticed the darkness behind the falling water.

A cave.

She crawled through the icy spray, collapsing onto damp stone, her breath coming in ragged gasps. The hounds' baying grew fainter, then faded entirely, swallowed by the roar of the waterfall.

Rowan lay on her back, staring at the darkness above her.

*He's gone.*

The thought hit her like a physical blow. She pressed her palm to her chest, feeling for something—anything—but there was only silence where Darian's heartbeat should have been.

She didn't know how long she lay there. Minutes. Hours. Time dissolved into the cold and the dark and the terrible emptiness.

Then her hand brushed against leather.

Darian's journal. She'd grabbed it from Lyra's pack without thinking, without knowing why. Now she clutched it like a lifeline, curling her fingers around the worn cover.

*I need to see.*

The thought was small, desperate, but it gave her enough strength to sit up. She fumbled in her pocket, finding the flint she always carried—a habit from her human childhood, when she'd loved camping in the woods with her father.

Her *real* father. The one Aldric had murdered.

Rowan struck the flint once, twice, three times until sparks caught the dry moss she'd scraped from the cave wall. The fire grew slowly, casting dancing shadows across the stone.

She looked down at her arm. A deep gash ran from her elbow to her wrist, still oozing blood. She tore a strip from her shirt, wrapped it tight, and bit down on the fabric as she pulled the knot with her teeth.

Then she opened the journal.

Darian's handwriting filled the pages—neat, precise, the script of a man who thought before he spoke. She flipped through entries about pack politics, about his father's growing paranoia, about the weight of being the alpha's son.

Then she reached the last pages.

The handwriting changed. It became frantic, jagged, the ink smudged in places as if his hands had been shaking.

*If you're reading this, I'm gone.*

Rowan's breath caught.

*I know what my father is. I've known for years, but I was too cowardly to act. I told myself I could change things from within. I told myself I could protect you without any of us having to die.*

*I was wrong.*

*The Emberbond isn't just a bond—it's a contract. Blood for blood. Life for life. If one of us dies, the bond should break completely, consuming the survivor in the same fire.*

*But I've been studying. There's a loophole. An old ritual, written in the diaries of the first Ashen Pack alphas. If the surviving mate can find the blood of a betrayer—one whose treachery caused the death—and burn it with the ashes of a sacred tree, the bond can be rekindled. The dead can be pulled back from the edge.*

*A betrayer's blood.*

Rowan's mind flashed to Lyra. Lyra, who had loved her mother's potential but despised her mercy. Lyra, who had betrayed them.

*I've marked the location of the Ashen Pack's hidden sanctuary on the map in the back. That's where the sacred tree grows. That's where you can find what you need.*

*I love you, Rowan. I'm sorry I couldn't say it when I had the chance.*

*If you're reading this, don't mourn me. Fight.*

Rowan's vision blurred. She pressed the journal to her chest, feeling the pages against her skin, and let out a sob that echoed through the cave.

Then she felt it.

A flicker.

Warmth, barely perceptible, deep in her chest. The bond—*alive*.

She gasped, pressing her hand to her heart. The warmth flickered again, weak as a candle in a storm, but *there*.

*He's not dead. Not completely.*

She scrambled to find the map, unfolding it with trembling hands. The parchment was yellowed, the ink faded, but she could make out a path leading through the mountain range to the east, to a valley marked with the symbol of the Ashen Pack.

The sanctuary. It was real.

Rowan was still staring at the map when the howl came.

Low and mournful, cutting through the waterfall's roar. She stiffened, her wolf surging beneath her skin, ready to shift. But the howl came again—and it was *alone*.

One wolf. Not a hunting pack.

Rowan crawled toward the cave entrance, peering through the waterfall. A shadow moved at the edge of the clearing. A wolf, gray-furred, its eyes gleaming in the moonlight.

It carried something in its mouth.

The wolf padded forward, stopping at the edge of the stream. It dropped the object at its feet, then backed away, watching her.

Rowan's instincts screamed *trap*, but the wolf made no move to attack. It simply sat, waiting.

She stepped through the waterfall, her injured arm raised. The wolf whined, then turned and vanished into the trees.

Rowan approached the object cautiously. It was a locket, silver and tarnished, with a faint inscription on the back.

She picked it up, her fingers numb.

Inside was a picture of her mother—young, laughing, her eyes full of light. Below the photograph, an inscription in elegant script:

*For when you are ready to forgive me.*

Rowan's blood turned to ice.

Lyra's scent clung to the locket like a ghost.