They left at dawn.
Two cars. Helena drove alone. Kael and Lyra took her father's Audi, borrowed without permission. The road wound east, away from the coast, into the Cascade Mountains.
Lyra was quiet. Kael drove, his hands steady on the wheel.
"What are you thinking?" he asked.
"That three months ago, I was standing in the rain, afraid of my own shadow. And now I'm driving into the mountains with a wolf, chasing a prophecy that might not even be real."
"Does it feel real?"
She considered. "Yes. It feels like the only thing that's ever made sense."
The mountains rose around them. Snow on the peaks. Forest thick and dark. The road narrowed, became gravel, then dirt.
Helena's car stopped at a trailhead. They parked beside her and got out. The air was cold and thin.
"The sanctuary is two miles up," Helena said. "On foot."
They walked. The trail climbed through old-growth forest. Kael's senses were alive—the scent of pine, the distant sound of water, the warmth of Lyra beside him.
After an hour, they reached a clearing. In the center stood a stone structure—old, covered in moss, but intact. Symbols covered its walls. The same symbols from the tunnel. From the scrolls.
"What is this place?" Lyra asked.
Helena touched the stones. "It's where the first alliance was forged. Where the prophecy was written. And where your story begins."
Kael looked at Lyra. She looked back at him.
"Ready?" he asked.
"No. But let's go anyway."
They stepped inside.
The interior was dark. Cold. But as they entered, the symbols on the walls began to glow. Soft at first, then brighter. A voice—not a voice, a presence—filled the space.
"You have come. The blood-bound. The ones who chose each other over war. The prophecy awakens."
Lyra's hand found Kael's. Warm against cold.
"What prophecy?" she asked.
The presence shifted. The symbols flared.
"The one that ends the silence. The one that begins the song."
And then, in the darkness of the ancient sanctuary, the prophecy began to speak.