Beneath the River’s Breath

The river didn't move the way it used to.

Not since that day.

Magnolia stood at its edge, staring into the shifting water, and realized the surface didn't ripple with wind it pulsed with memory. Like it was breathing. Alive. Watching her.

It was cold. Colder than it should have been in spring.

Mist hovered above the water in a slow, curling dance, and every few seconds, it parted just long enough for her to glimpse a shape beneath the surface. A shadow that didn't belong to her. A face that wasn't her own.

Camille.

Not as she was now, but as she had been.

Seven.

Drenched. Laughing. Innocent.

Before everything fractured.

Magnolia dropped to her knees at the riverbank, fingers brushing the wet stones, skin tingling as the mist clung to her like fog with a pulse. Her wolf stirred under her skin, restless and wary.

"She drowned here," Magnolia whispered. "But she didn't die."

The current whispered back.

Not words. Not sound.

A memory.

Her hand plunged into the icy water without her permission, as if something guided it craved it. Pain shot through her wrist like frostbite. She gasped but didn't pull away.

She couldn't.

And then she saw it.

A flash.

The past.

Camille standing in the middle of the river, arms outstretched, mouth open in a scream but no sound coming out. Her eyes wide with horror, with betrayal. Her little hands clutching at invisible vines, her lips forming one word over and over.

Maggie.

Magnolia screamed and tore her hand back, falling onto the mud-soaked earth. Her palm was blistered. Raw. Burned by something colder than fire.

Behind her, the trees rustled.

She twisted to her feet instantly, claws half-shifted, teeth bared.

"Easy," a voice said. "It's me."

Beckett emerged from the treeline, clothes damp, blade at his side.

She let her claws retract, but her voice stayed sharp. "You followed me."

"Someone had to."

"I told you I'd go alone."

"And Rhett told me not to let you."

"I don't answer to either of you."

"No," he said. "You don't. But you're the only one the river wants, and if it swallows you, there's no backup plan."

She looked down at her hand. The burn had started to fade, but the ache remained deep in her bones. "It showed me something."

"Camille?"

"She wasn't just pulled under. She was marked."

Beckett knelt beside her, pulling a cloth from his belt. "Let me see."

She let him wrap her hand, even though she didn't need it. It wasn't about the pain.

It was about the message.

"She was calling to me," Magnolia said. "Even then. I just didn't hear her."

"She doesn't blame you."

"You don't know that."

"I know she wouldn't want you to walk into the same trap."

"I'm not walking," Magnolia said. "I'm digging."

Beckett looked past her toward the river. "You think the pact started here?"

"No," she said. "I think the pact ended here."

"And what lies beneath…"

"...was never meant to be uncovered."

Beckett stood, offering her his hand. She took it, and he pulled her up. "Then we start at the beginning."

"We already did," she said softly. "And it led us back here."

They walked in silence toward the edge of the forest, but something shifted behind them. The mist recoiled. The river moaned.

And for just a second, a figure stood in the center of the water.

Camille.

Older.

Burned.

Eyes glowing black.

Then she was gone.

The estate was in disarray when they returned.

Three patrols had gone missing during the night.

No tracks. No blood. No signs of a fight.

Just… vanished.

Rhett met them at the gates, his jaw tight, his eyes storm-dark. "Where the hell have you been?"

Magnolia didn't stop walking. "The river."

"You shouldn't have gone alone."

"I wasn't alone."

He turned to Beckett. "You were supposed to report to me first."

Beckett raised a brow. "I made a choice. Sue me."

Rhett's voice dropped. "Three scouts are gone."

Magnolia stopped. "Gone how?"

"No trace. No shift. Just gone. And all of them were assigned to the east woods. The side closest to the forest line."

Her stomach dropped.

"He's testing the perimeter," she said. "Looking for weak points."

"Or creating them," Rhett added.

Magnolia looked up at him. "We need the council."

"They won't act without proof."

"Then give them me."

He frowned. "What?"

"I'll call the meeting. I'll speak as Luna."

"They don't accept you."

"Then they'll accept me as a witness."

His jaw flexed. "You're asking to walk into the viper's den."

"I'm asking to light it on fire."

That evening, the council gathered in the great hall twelve wolves of rank, old bloodlines, iron loyalties.

Sterling did not attend.

Celeste sat quietly in the far corner, her shawl drawn tight, watching with eyes that seemed to see more than anyone ever gave her credit for.

Ivy remained under guard.

Magnolia stood at the center.

She didn't wear the Luna pendant.

She didn't need to.

"My name is Magnolia Blake," she said, voice clear, calm, controlled. "You know my bloodline. You know my history. What you don't know is what lies beneath this territory, waiting to reclaim what we buried ten years ago."

Murmurs.

Frowns.

Rhett stood behind her but said nothing.

"This is not about Camille alone," Magnolia continued. "It's about what was done to her. To me. To all of us."

She placed the sealed pact on the table. "Read it. Her blood. Their signatures. A deal made by someone in this room or with their knowledge."

The councilor on her left, a narrow-faced woman with silver hair, scoffed. "You bring ancient myth to a war council?"

"You call it myth," Magnolia said. "But three of your own disappeared last night. No scent. No remains. Just gone. Tell me that's a coincidence."

Another councilman stood. "And what do you propose?"

"We prepare," Magnolia said. "We reinforce the western crypt. We set silver wards in the eastern valley. And we dig into Sterling's records fully."

"That's not your call."

Rhett stepped forward. "It is if I say it is."

The room went still.

"She speaks with my authority," he said. "And if any of you doubt that doubt me you can challenge it now."

No one moved.

Because no one dared.

Magnolia looked across their faces. "You don't have to believe in monsters. You just have to believe they believe in us. And they're coming."

The room remained silent.

But it was the kind of silence that follows the first shatter of a falling wall.

Celeste's voice rang out softly. "Let the girl speak truth. We've all been too quiet for too long."

After the meeting, Magnolia found herself back in the library.

She didn't expect company.

So when Rhett entered, she didn't speak.

He walked to her slowly, quiet, not the Alpha tonight just the man beneath it.

"I remember the night they told me you ran away," he said finally. "I broke a chair. Cut my hand on the splinters. My father didn't flinch. My mother didn't speak. No one ever told me why."

She looked at him. "And now you know."

"Yes."

"It's too late."

"Maybe," he said. "But that doesn't mean I'll stop trying."

She closed her eyes.

And for once, she didn't stop him when he stepped closer.

She didn't resist when his fingers brushed her scarred palm.

"Do you feel it?" he asked.

"The bond?"

He nodded.

"It's pulsing again," she whispered.

And for the first time, it didn't hurt.

Far beneath the estate, in the forgotten vault below the crypt, the shadows rippled.

A hand emerged from the floor.

Not human.

Not wolf.

Something in between.

And it began to crawl upward.