Chapter 4Echoes in the Dark

The tunnels groaned around them, stone grinding against stone like the jaws of some great beast. Rissa pressed her palm flat against the wall, feeling the vibration deep in her chest—Vance's rage, traveling through the earth itself.

"He'll bring the whole mountain down," she said, her voice swallowed by the rumbling.

Dorian grabbed her wrist. "Not if we bring it down first."

He pulled out his phone, the screen cracked but still lit. The recording of the frequency waited there, a thin green waveform against black. She understood before he spoke.

"We collapse the tunnel behind us," he said. "Buy time."

"And bury ourselves?"

"Just a section. Enough to slow them down."

A howl cut through the stone—closer now. The scout had their scent. Rissa could hear the scrape of claws on rock, the wet breathing of a wolf pushing through the dust.

She nodded.

Dorian pressed play.

The sound that emerged wasn't a sound at all—it was a wrongness, a pressure behind her eyes, a vibration that made her teeth ache. The walls began to shiver, cracks spider-webbing across the ceiling.

Then the scout burst through the fissure behind them.

He was half-shifted, face elongated, teeth bared, eyes wild with the Moonstone's hunger. He lunged—

And the ceiling came down.

Rissa threw herself sideways, dragging Dorian with her. Rock crashed behind them, a wall of rubble that swallowed the scout's snarl mid-throat. Dust billowed forward, thick and choking.

For a moment, silence.

Then a single, fading howl from the other side of the collapse—the scout's signal, already sent.

"He called Vance," Dorian said, coughing.

"I know."

They ran.

---

The forest emerged like a bruise under gray dawn light. Rissa's lungs burned, her legs shaking from the climb. The trees here were wrong—bark peeling in long strips, leaves curled and brown even though it was spring. The blight Lorna had spoken of, crawling outward from the Moonstone like fingers of rot.

Dorian stopped at the edge of a clearing, bent over, hands on his knees. "There," he said, pointing.

An old ranger station, roof sagging, windows dark. But the door was intact, and smoke curled from a chimney—no, not smoke. Mist. The place had been abandoned long enough for the forest to reclaim it.

"Why that one?" Rissa asked, her voice raw.

"Because I can see the lock from here. It's been jimmied before—someone's been using it." He met her eyes. "Lorna marked it on her map. She said it was a safe house."

Rissa's stomach tightened. "And you trust that?"

"I trust that she wanted the Moonstone destroyed more than she wanted Vance's approval."

"That's not the same as trusting her."

But she was already moving toward the station.

---

The inside smelled of dust and mouse droppings and something metallic—old blood, maybe, or rust. A table lay overturned, a chair splintered against the wall. Someone had left in a hurry, or had been dragged out.

Rissa righted the table while Dorian checked the windows, hammering loose boards across the frames with a rusted fire axe he found in the corner. The place was sparse: a cot with a stained mattress, a kerosene lamp half-full, a portable speaker crusted with dirt.

And medical supplies. A single kit, unopened, tucked behind a loose floorboard.

"Lorna's," Dorian said, holding up the kit. "The board's been lifted before."

Rissa took it, tore it open, and started cleaning the gash on her forearm. The wound was shallow, already healing, but the dirt needed to come out. She worked in silence, the weight of the tunnel pressing on her chest.

"You trusted her too easily," she said finally.

Dorian stopped mid-motion, a strip of cloth in his hands. "I trusted the information. Not her."

"She separated us. She knew Vance was watching. She *used* us."

"She gave us a key." He pulled the metal key from his pocket, set it on the table between them. "She gave us the frequency. And she gave us a way out."

"A way out that led to a trap."

Dorian's jaw tightened. "Lorna's granddaughter is twelve years old. She's never shifted. Vance is going to feed her blood to the Moonstone if she can't prove herself. Lorna is playing a longer game than we are."

Rissa slammed her palm on the table. "And what if her longer game involves sacrificing us?"

"Then we make sure it doesn't."

Their eyes locked. The air between them crackled with everything unsaid—the fear, the exhaustion, the impossible weight of what they were trying to do.

Finally, Dorian looked away. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small chunk of stone, dark and veined with milky white.

"I took this from the chamber," he said. "When we were escaping."

The Moonstone chip was no bigger than his thumb, but it hummed with a faint warmth even from across the table. Rissa could feel it in her teeth, a subtle vibration.

"We need to test the frequency," Dorian said. "Properly."

He set the chip on the table, then connected the portable speaker to his phone. The recording was ready.

"I'll play it," he said. "Stand back."

Rissa stepped away, her back against the wall. The speaker crackled, then emitted that same wrong sound—the pressure behind her eyes, the ache in her bones. The chip sat motionless.

Nothing happened.

Dorian adjusted the volume. Tried again. The chip trembled, a faint shiver, but didn't break.

"It's not enough," he said, frustration bleeding into his voice. "Maybe we need a larger sample. Or the frequency needs to be sustained longer."

Rissa moved closer, studying the chip. "Lorna said the frequency affects the stone because it disrupts its resonance. But the Moonstone feeds on blood fury. Maybe the frequency needs something to amplify it."

Dorian was already bleeding.

A scratch on his forearm, where a sharp edge of rock had cut him during the tunnel collapse. A thin line of red, welling up. He hadn't noticed, or hadn't bothered to clean it.

A drop of blood fell onto the chip.

The reaction was instant.

A high-pitched whine, a blast of heat, and then the chip *shattered*—violently, fragments spraying across the room like shrapnel. Rissa threw her arms over her face, felt something slice across her cheek. The speaker died in a burst of static.

Silence.

Then Dorian's voice, hoarse: "Pack blood. It's a catalyst."

Rissa lowered her arms. The table was scarred, the wall behind it pitted with tiny craters. The chip was gone, nothing left but a fine gray dust and a scorch mark.

"The frequency alone isn't enough," she said, the realization settling cold in her stomach. "You need pack blood to trigger the reaction. Blood from a wolf who's fed the Moonstone with fury."

"Vance," Dorian said. "Or his inner circle."

"Which means we need to get close enough to draw blood from the most dangerous wolves in the pack."

The weight of it pressed down on her. Destroying the Moonstone wasn't just about finding the right frequency. It required a sacrifice—a blood price.

And the only blood that would work was soaked in the very madness they were trying to end.

---

A howl echoed through the trees.

Close. Too close.

Rissa's heart seized. She grabbed the axe, moved to the window, peered through the crack between the boards.

The forest was still. Too still. No birds, no wind, just the oppressive silence of something waiting.

Then the door splintered inward.

It exploded off its hinges, wood shards spraying across the room. Rissa raised the axe, but she already knew it was useless.

Vance stood in the doorway, his massive frame silhouetted against the gray morning light. His eyes glowed amber, his face half-shifted, teeth elongated, claws dripping with something dark.

Behind him, a half-dozen enforcers fanned out, their eyes hungry.

"You've been busy," Vance said, his voice a low growl that vibrated through the floorboards. "I'll give you credit—I didn't think you'd make it this far."

Dorian stepped in front of Rissa, his body a shield. "Let her go. This is between you and me."

Vance laughed, a sound like grinding stone. "Brave. Stupid, but brave."

He reached into his pocket and pulled something out—a lock of hair, long and dark, matted with blood at the roots.

"You forgot one thing," he said, holding it up. "Lorna's granddaughter is still mine. She's locked in the Moonstone chamber, waiting for the next ritual. And unless you both surrender—" He let the hair dangle, a dark promise. "She will die. Slowly. Her blood will feed the stone, and her screams will be the last thing you hear before I tear you apart."

Rissa's vision tunneled. The hair. The blood. A twelve-year-old girl who had never shifted, who had never asked for any of this.

"Choose," Vance said. "The girl's life, or your freedom."

The axe was heavy in Rissa's hand. Dorian's breathing was ragged beside her.

And outside, the howls began to rise, circling the station like a noose tightening around their throats.