Why

The last murmur died as Beta Cael rose from our Feabhas row. His movement wasn't loud, but in the Hall of Echoes, the scrape of boot on stone might as well have been a shout. He walked the short distance to the central platform with that unnerving, silent grace, the indigo starlight catching the sharp planes of his face. The air thickened, charged with the weight of hundreds holding their breath.

"Newly Bonded of Zevarra," his voice cut through the silence—clear and cold as mountain runoff. It didn't echo; the hall swallowed it, making it feel like he spoke straight into our minds. "There are six packs, as you see," he said, pausing where Nyx had vanished. "Sezja, the protectors. The guardians."

 He shifted slightly to the left. "Leighis, our lifeblood. The healers."

 My gaze followed our Beta's hand as it gestured toward the pack where Zale stood, almost indistinguishable among them. "Lorgaire, our trackers," he continued. "Gaische, also known as the Kuzgun pack. Our warriors."

A quiet stir passed through us at the mention of Kuzgun—the only pack with that kind of effect. The harbingers of death. I noticed Beta Weles draw himself a bit taller, his face unreadable, while the freshly bonded from his pack wore smug, satisfied expressions. Fair enough—they'd earned it.

"Nathair, our shadows and spies." Beta Cael now faced Marco's group, nodding subtly to someone seated at the front. Before we could see who, he turned to face us—his own pack.

"Feabhas. The leaders. The strategists," Beta Cael declared, his hand sweeping towards us on the dais."You stand within the heart of our strength, and tradition honors this moment with the presence of our Alphas. Only two could answer the call from the bleeding edge." He paused, his pale gaze sweeping the assembled packs. "Alpha Dareth Villeran of Nathair."

My eyes snapped to the Nathair section. A man unfolded himself from the shadowed front row beside Beta Rydeen. He was tall, even seated, and when he stood, he seemed to draw the dim light towards him. Dark hair, sharp features that belonged on a coin, eyes that held a stillness deeper than the hall's hush. He gave a single, curt nod towards Cael, then settled back down beside Rydeen, a study in contained power. 

"And," Cael continued, his gaze shifting towards the Sezja contingent, "Alpha Lyra Vanneck of Sezja."

She was already standing beside Gamma Jia, having risen smoothly as Cael spoke her name. The starlight fell full upon her. My breath hitched. A thick, diagonal scar carved a brutal path from her left temple, across the bridge of her nose, and down onto her right cheekbone, a stark white slash against skin the rich, deep brown of dark chocolate. Her hair was a complex crown of tightly woven braids, threaded with what looked like thin strips of leather or bone. 

Cael dipped his head slightly towards her. "Tradition dictates the ceremony welcoming the newly forged into the Citadel's service be conducted by an Alpha. Alpha Lyra."

She acknowledged him with a tilt of her chin, her gaze sweeping over us. She moved towards the platform, and grace was too soft a word. It was the fluid, deadly precision of a wolf crossing open ground. Every line of her spoke of violence held in perfect check as she stepped onto the dark stone circle beside our Beta. 

When she spoke, her voice was lower than Cael's, rougher, like stones tumbling in a deep river, yet it carried the same impossible clarity. "Congratulations and welcome," she said, the word simple, yet imbued with a weight that made my spine straighten. "You have crossed a threshold few dare, and fewer survive. You stand here, forged in trial, bound to magnificent beasts. That is no small thing. It is a gift, a responsibility, and a profound honor." Her dark eyes held a fierce pride, but also a genuine welcome that softened the lines of her scar. "You are not just Zevarra's edge, its teeth, or its shield – though you are those things, fiercely. You are its heartbeat now, its next breath. This Citadel," she gestured around the hall, encompassing the stone and the sky above, "is your home, your sanctuary, and your forge. Let it strengthen you. Let it teach you. Let it help you grow into the protectors your wolves already know you can be."

She paused, letting the warmth of her words settle. "But the old ways also demand an older ritual on this night. Alpha Dareth," she turned towards Nathair, her voice gaining a formal edge. "Join me."

As she looked at us, a strange sensation washed over me – not fear, but a profound, unexpected warmth, like standing near a banked hearth on a frozen night. It radiated from her, incongruous against the fierce wildness etched into her scarred face.

Dareth rose again, that same unnerving fluidity in his movement. He crossed the open space between the sections, his tall frame seeming to absorb the starlight. Up close on the platform, the handsome lines of his face were even more pronounced, sharp and intelligent, his dark eyes scanning the crowd with an assessing calm that felt centuries old. Gods below, I thought, my cheeks warming slightly. Is being devastatingly attractive a prerequisite for being an Alpha? 

The memory slammed into me then, unbidden: Alpha Zion, back in Sundra, his presence like a thunderclap in that cramped tavern, his gaze locking onto mine with an intensity that had stolen my breath. Handsome didn't cover it. It was like looking at a weapon forged for beauty as much as lethality.

My heart gave a traitorous little flutter at the recollection, quickly buried under a wave of self-consciousness. Focus, Iris.

As Dareth took his place beside Lyra, a figure detached from the Leighis section – a woman with serene eyes and robes covering all over except her face. She carried a small, sturdy wooden table onto the platform, setting it down between the two Alphas. On it rested an object covered by a cloth of deep, midnight blue velvet. The Leighis woman bowed slightly and retreated.

Lyra reached out, her scarred hand hovering over the cloth. "The Glass of Unfolding Skies," she announced, the rough timbre of her voice dropping into a register that resonated in my bones. "It shows what was, what is... and shadows of what may yet be. On the night of the Bonding, tradition demands we look. To remind us of the stakes. Of the shadows we face. It tells us, why, why did the wolves as mighty as they are, had to forge an alliance with us, humans." Her gaze, fierce and warm and ancient, swept over us once more. "It tells us why the Volanema began to bond and continue to do it for centuries now. Prepare yourselves."

The velvet cloth seemed to pulse with its own inner darkness under the open sky. Alpha Dareth's hand rested lightly on the table beside it, his expression unreadable. The hum of Kaelum's presence was still frustratingly absent, but the air in the Hall crackled with a different kind of power now – ancient, expectant, and heavy with the promise of visions yet unseen.

The velvet cloth seemed to pulse with its own inner darkness under the open sky. Alpha Dareth's hand rested lightly on the table beside it, his expression still the same blank as it had been.

Why did they bond with us? The question slipped into the silent void within me, born of Lyra's words and the history of our kingdom. I had always wondered. Back in Sundra, One of the kids' mother at Lorraine's archey school used to organize nights where she would tell the stories of the fierce wolves and their bonded. All of my knowledge, however less it was, came from only those nights but even then, I didn't know why it started. Why did the Volanema begin this?

The cold wall in my mind didn't just flicker; it dissolved instantly, replaced by a wave of ancient, weary amusement. "Because your kind begged." His mental voice was a low rumble, like distant rockslide. "Cowered in your caves, watching the shadows devour your weak. You offered nothing but desperation and clumsy hands. We took pity."

I jolted on the stone bench, the suddenness and the sheer arrogance of his answer shocking me more than the reconnection. Pity? You arrogant fur-tank! And now you want to talk? Where the hells have you been?

Silence. The cold wall slammed back down, thick and impenetrable. It was infuriating.

Kaelum! I pushed against it, mentally shouting into the void. Where were you?

A beat passed. Then two, before finally the wall thinned just enough for a single, utterly matter-of-fact thought to slip through: "I forgot."

Forgot? I nearly choked on the mental word. Forgot what? 

"Forgot I was bonded at all," came the reply, utterly devoid of apology or even awareness that this might be offensive. "I was with... a female.."

The concept was so alien, so jarringly normal amidst the solemn ritual and his terrifying presence, that I could only mentally scoff. Of course. He'd just... wandered off for a romantic interlude and completely dismissed the existence of the human now permanently linked to his soul. Typical. My irritation flared, hot and bright, but before I could form another scathing thought, Alpha Lyra's voice filled the hall again, commanding attention and scattering my focus.

"Centuries have passed," Lyra continued, her scarred hand now resting gently atop the velvet shroud, her gaze distant, seeing beyond the stone walls. "The reasons etched in desperation and survival may blur with time. But the Glass remembers the first plea, the first pact forged not just in desperation, but in a spark of shared defiance against the devouring dark." Her voice softened, that surprising warmth threading through the gravity. "It remembers the first human hand that did not flinch from fur, the first wolf who lowered its mighty head not just in pity, but in... recognition. A flicker of something new. Something worth shielding."

Her fingers tightened almost imperceptibly on the velvet. "That fragile spark grew. It became trust. It became partnership. It became the Bond. It became us. Zevarra." She looked out at us, her dark eyes fierce. "The Glass will show us echoes of that beginning. It will show us the shadows that pressed us together then, and the shadows that press us still. Look closely. Remember why the wolves stay bonded. Not just why they began."

Alpha Dareth shifted beside her, his handsome face set in lines of solemn focus. He placed his hand beside hers on the table, not touching the velvet yet, but ready. The Leighis woman who had brought the table stood poised nearby, her serene expression now taut with anticipation.

Lyra took a deep breath, the starlight catching the white line of her scar. "Prepare your hearts," she murmured, the sound barely more than a breath amplified by the hall's magic. "The past bleeds into the present. You might want to look out for a message, it's usually delivered towards."

Her eyes met Dareth's. Together, their hands moved to the edges of the midnight blue velvet. The fabric seemed to drink the light around it, the darkness beneath it feeling suddenly vast and deep. 

"Like a prophecy?" Roan's voice was a low murmur beside me, barely more than an exhale. His eyes, usually so guarded, were wide with a mix of awe and wary curiosity fixed on the shroud.

The velvet shroud slipped away, revealing not some ornate relic, but an object that seemed both impossibly ancient and vibrantly alive. It was a sphere, but calling it a mere crystal ball felt inadequate. It pulsed with a deep, internal light – not the harsh glare of the sun, but the cool, shifting luminescence of captured moonlight or the heart of a glacier. It sat cradled in a stand of dark, heavily pitted metal, rust blooming like old blood across its surface. Even from our distance in the Feabhas tier, I could see intricate shapes carved into the metal base, worn almost smooth by time and countless hands, their meaning lost to the years.

"It could be," I whispered back, my own gaze locked on the Glass. The light within it swirled slowly, like smoke trapped under ice. "Or... a window. To the why."