Chapter 1

A hundred years ago, the seven great clans ambushed the Black Sun Wolf King.

The Cunning Wolves brewed silver poison. The Ironback, Grayridge, Redsand, and Frostbone clans led the assault. The Blackwater clan sealed the waters. The Wolf King, stricken with silver poison, activated a bloodline seal at the brink of death, regressing into an ordinary wolf cub and vanishing into the snow.

Not shrinking. Everything—power, memory, bloodline—was locked deep within his bones, leaving only the shell of a pup on the outside.

The seven clans searched for him for a hundred years.

They found nothing.

Because a seer of the Silvermoon clan found him, and named him Ryan—in the ancient wolf tongue, Little King.

My name is Ryan Bloodmoon.

The Black Sun Wolf King ambushed a hundred years ago, and the one standing on this land now—are the same person.

Between them lay a hundred years. And a forgetting.

The laws of the wolf clans are cruel.

The seven great clans uphold pure blood as supreme. Each clan has its own unique ability. The Silvermoon clan births seers with the Moon Eye. The Ironback clan possesses strength enhancement. The Cunning Wolves excel in illusion. The Grayridge clan specializes in speed. The Blackwater clan masters underwater concealment. The Redsand clan endures heat and excels in desert tracking. The Frostbone clan is impervious to extreme cold. Pure blood is iron law; half-bloods are recognized by neither clan and are outcasts from birth.

I was not outcast.

I was hunted.

But before I turned sixteen, I knew none of this.

My first memory was snow. Cold snow falling on my nose. Then hands—hands warmer than my entire body, lifting me out of the snow. Silver-gray hair fell from the side of her face, the ends brushing my eyelids.

That year, she was fifteen. I had just opened my eyes.

My memory begins with her fingers. Everything before that would not return until sixteen years later.

She knelt in the snow, two adult werewolf corpses beside her—Ironback clan rebels who had been executed. She wrapped a wobbling wolf cub in her cloak. The cub was covered in dried blood, still nursing, his dark gold eyes silently watching her.

She reached out and touched his head.

Then her whole body went rigid.

When she saw that vision, her fingers were still on his head.

A grown man's silhouette stood atop a mountain of corpses, ten thousand wolves prostrate, dark gold eyes burning under a blood moon. He turned—the vision broke. It lasted only a second.

This wobbling cub and the man atop that mountain of corpses—were the same.

Ella Moonshadow, fifteen, the youngest Moon Eye seer of the Silvermoon clan. There were only seven Moon Eye seers in the entire clan—touch someone and see a key frame of their fate, at the cost of life force. Hair was the balance. Every prophecy turned black hair white. Formal prophecies differed from daily predictions. Daily predictions cost little—but formal prophecies, those touching royal fate, war outcomes, life-and-death matters—each consumed a measurable portion of lifespan. With each use, more white strands appeared, until all was white—and then death.

She wrapped the cub in her cloak.

His dark gold eyes watched her, silent.

She made a decision.

She looked down at him. Firelight reflected in her silver-gray hair, her voice soft as if speaking to herself, or to a distant place.

"From now on, your name is Ryan. It means Little King."

She paused.

"The wolf clans owe me. You will pay it back."

I didn't understand. I couldn't stand, I hadn't been weaned, my teeth had just come in. All I knew was that her fingers were trembling—not from cold.

Many years later, I understood that those words were a woman's honest confession to an infant. She wasn't speaking to me. She was speaking to the blade of the future.

When we returned to Silvermoon territory, Selena stood at the stone hall entrance.

Selena—Cunning Wolf bloodline, wed into Silvermoon as wolf queen, skilled in politics and illusion. Flame-red pupils. Her gaze swept over me like a blade across ice.

"Ella. Raising a half-breed outcast is a provocation to the other clans. You know the consequences."

Ella didn't answer. She placed me on the furs by the fire and stood up.

"I'll trade prophecies."

Selena's eyes narrowed.

"Three times," Ella said. "Three formal prophecies, in exchange for him staying."

Silence stretched long at the stone hall entrance. Firelight played across Selena's profile.

Then she smiled.

Ella didn't look at that smile. She turned, crouched down, and placed her hand on my head. Her fingers were still trembling.

"Deal."

Selena's footsteps faded. What that smile meant, I wouldn't understand until much later—she had bought the evidence of her adoptive daughter's first emotion at the price of three formal prophecies.

That night, Ella held me by the fire. I gnawed on her fingers with my new teeth.

"Ryan. Little King. You need to grow up fast."

Firelight danced in her silver-gray pupils.

"I need a blade."

I wagged my tail. I didn't know what a blade meant. I only knew her hands were warm.

For the next six years, I grew into a silent wolf cub.

Other cubs could shift between human and wolf forms by age three or four. I still couldn't shift freely by four. No one in Silvermoon territory wanted to come near me—except her. I followed her to the seer's stone hall, curled in the corner watching her prophesize for the clans: ambush routes, hunting timing, alliance directions. After every formal prophecy, a few more silver-white strands appeared in her hair.

I counted.

Six years, over a hundred prophecies. Her hair went from pure silver-gray to a mix of silver and white.

She never let me see her truly weakened. Only once—after three consecutive formal prophecies that shielded Silvermoon from a pincer attack by Grayridge. That night she returned to the stone hall, slid down the doorframe, and sat on the floor. I walked over and rested my chin on her knee.

She didn't open her eyes. Her hand found my head.

"It's fine."

Her voice was hoarse.

"I'm fine."

That year I was six and couldn't speak yet. But I understood one thing—she was lying.

Six years later.

At ten years old, in winter.

A Silvermoon youth confronted Ella on the training ground. He said her prophecy had killed his father—and swung his fist at her face.

I shifted for the first time.

The transformation came like an explosion—bones stretching, tearing, re-forming, flesh splitting and healing as the form switched. I went from a half-grown gray wolf to the shape of a youth, unsteady on my feet, covered in blood. My own blood, seeping through torn skin.

But I stood.

Then I bit off his arm.

The dull crack of bone in my mouth. His scream was louder than the pain of shifting. I turned back, blood filling my mouth, waiting to be scolded.

Ella walked over.

She crouched down, wiped the blood from my mouth with her sleeve. Slowly, carefully. Her expression was as calm as it had been six years ago.

"Next time, go for the throat."

I remembered.

That winter, I learned to speak. My first full sentence was to her.

"Whoever hurts you, I'll kill."

She didn't answer.

But she stepped back.

That step—I thought about it for a long time afterward.