Mira Thornvale

Lia was once the healer of the White Rose Clan. At seventeen, she watched her people slaughtered by the Bloodclaw Legion. She survived only because she treated an injured enemy soldier—an act that branded her a traitor. To protect that boy, she willingly endured three years of imprisonment in the Bloodclaw camp, never uttering a word.

She believed he had long forgotten her. Yet she never knew that boy was now the Bloodclaw's ruthless warlord—Karl Thorne, codenamed "The Bone General," who swore an oath to "sever all ties to the past with his own hands."


The Wolfbone Promise

Snowmelt swelled rivers into roaring beasts, sweeping sediment—and something darker—through the lowland valleys.


A scout’s voice cracked through the comm runes:


**“Sir. The toxin’s entered the water. Farms downstream are already showing rot.”**


Karl stared at the map. Five river branches. Three towns. One week until the crops turned black.


He looked down at Lia’s old field notes.


*Wolfbone’s molecular hooks bind to organic oils. Not water-soluble. But frost enzymes… slow absorption.*


He closed the journal. “We’ll build barges.”


He worked through day and night, hauling crates with local engineers, bolting filtration rigs from old airships onto hollow rafts.


At dusk, a nurse tried to hand him tea.


“I slept for three years,” he said.


She hesitated. “You’re humming again.”


Realized the lullaby was in his throat.


On the third night, he collapsed on the barge deck.


Chapter 18 – The Price of Redemption