The Path of Ashes 

~Elara's POV~

The dawn broke over the mountain pass like a promise I didn't yet trust. The path to the Guardians was steep and treacherous, veined with snowmelt and whispers of old magic. Nyssa had insisted I take the long way through the ruins of Aeryndale, the last known sanctuary of the Old Ways. She said it would prepare me, but what I found there wasn't training. It was a test.

The ancient village was half-swallowed by the earth, its shattered stones overgrown with thorn and silence. I walked through the skeletal remains of forgotten houses and broken shrines. My footsteps echoed against history itself. The moment I stepped through the central arch, the air changed. Cold. Watchful. And then the whisper came. "You walk in the blood of the cursed." A blast of wind knocked me to my knees. My pulse roared in my ears, and suddenly I wasn't alone.

Shadows coalesced around me, figures in hoods, faces hidden by swirling magic. They spoke in a tongue I somehow understood, even though I'd never heard it before. My body burned, not from pain, but recognition.

The air rippled, and the hooded figures vanished, replaced by a blinding light that swallowed the ruins whole. I stood alone at the heart of the village, yet I felt thousands of eyes on me—spirits of the Old Ways, testing my worth. A rune ignited beneath my feet, casting a pale violet glow across the ground. My chest tightened as power surged upward, cracking open something dormant inside me.

Visions assaulted me. Witches dancing beneath the moon. Wolves crowned in silver and shadow. A child born screaming beneath the eclipse. And then, fire, consuming everything. A voice, neither male nor female, echoed through the light: "Pass through the flame, or be consumed."

I blinked and found myself standing before an ancient fire pit. Cold ashes swirled as if breathing. I knelt, placing my palm into them. They ignited at my touch, flaring violet and gold.

The fire pulled me in. Not physically but deeper, into memory. My feet moved of their own accord. Through the flame, the world changed. I saw a younger version of Seraphine, my mother kneeling with bloodied hands over a circle of dying witches. Their magic flickered like candlelight in a storm.

Seraphine turned to me, her eyes hollow. "You will have to make the choice I couldn't."

I wanted to speak. To scream. But my throat closed. I watched her carve a rune into her palm, her magic falling like tears onto the broken earth. She looked right at me. "What will you sacrifice to break the chain?"

The fire flashed, and I was back in the ruins, gasping, cold sweat soaking my skin. But the mark of the flame remained, burned into my palm. A violet sigil pulsing with unspent magic.

My legs gave out, and I sank against the nearest pillar, every nerve alight with pain and something far worse clarity. I wasn't just walking a cursed path. I was the curse. The ghosts hadn't spoken out of malice. They'd spoken truth. I carried not only a bloodline but also a prophecy that had been whispered through time. My fingers traced the mark in my palm. The rune still pulsed, and deep within me, the memory of my mother's voice lingered.

~Kade's POV ~

Tracking Elara from afar wasn't just instinct, it was necessity. I didn't trust Nyssa's path. Too old. Too dangerous. The ruins she sent Elara into weren't just sacred; they were haunted.My wolf hated the idea of her facing it alone. But she had to do this.I'd split my time between handling the growing threat of Ronan's faction and watching Elara through the bond that now felt more like a tether wrapped around my heart. I could feel her pain. Her fear. Her strength.But I couldn't protect her from everything, not even myself.

And the stronger she became, the more I feared what she might become.

Even now, standing atop the cliff overlooking Aeryndale, I could feel her magic rising like a storm beneath my skin. I closed my eyes and let the wolf in me reach for her. It howled softly, not out of longing but warning.

I remembered something my father once told me, before he went feral with the curse. "Power bends to the will, but curses bend the will itself."

I'd never understood it then. I do now.

She was becoming something the world hadn't seen in generations. And if I wasn't careful, I'd be the one forced to stop her.

~Nyssa's POV~

In the haven's scrying room, I watched the vision in the obsidian mirror shimmer. Elara had crossed the threshold. The spirits of Aeryndale recognized her, not just as the cursed, but as the last heir of Seraphine's line.It was happening. The first trial.She must not fail. If she did, there would be no second chance.

But I hadn't told her everything, not about the true nature of the Guardians. They were not simply guides. They were fragments of the ancient magic that once kept the balance whole.

To reach them, Elara would have to surrender. Not her body but her certainty. The bloodline required sacrifice.

And sacrifice always came with pain.

As the mirror flickered, I whispered a prayer to the Moonmother. Not for success. But for mercy.

Because if Elara unlocked what I feared lay dormant in her, the path forward would not just be steep.

It would be fatal.

Even now, the wards in the sanctuary trembled with each pulse of her power. The forest animals had gone silent, the winds shifting like breath from another world. Sariah's essence stirred beneath the veil. If Elara fell into that memory too deeply, we wouldn't be able to pull her back.

There was still hope. A spark of it, thin as gossamer—but hope nonetheless. Elara had survived the first call of the flame. But surviving wasn't enough. She had to rise from it.

And the question none of us dared ask lingered heavily in the silence: when she rose, would she still be Elara?

~Elara's POV~

The spirits led me to the heart of the ruins—an altar scorched black by time and magic. They didn't speak again. Instead, one by one, they extended their ghostly hands and pressed them against my chest. Fire licked through my veins.

I screamed as the vision came.A woman wreathed in black flame stood at the edge of a cliff, her arms outstretched, her face obscured by shadow. "You are not a prison," she said. "You are the blade."The fire didn't burn me. It forged me.When I woke, the altar was no longer ruined. It shimmered with violet flame, runes glowing in harmony with the beat of my heart.I had passed.

I arrived too late to stop the vision, but not too late to see the aftermath.Elara stood in the center of the altar, her skin glowing faintly, her eyes hollow and ancient. My heart stumbled.She didn't look like the girl I'd met. She looked like the witch the old wolves feared.But when she turned to me and whispered my name, I knew—whatever darkness she'd faced, she had won.