The smell of wet ground and old blood permeated the evening, reminding us that our pack left scars and sacrifice as its legacy. The silver light of the moon sharply contrasted the silhouette of every wolf around me as I stood on the high hill staring down our campground. On my arm, a live representation of the weight I now bore as the Crescent Alpha, my Crescent Mark pulsed steadily. Still tonight, as always, it appeared to resonate with fresh secrets and hidden sorrows—a continuous whisper of the past interlaced with the present.
Power never comes without ghosts, I had discovered. Every triumph, every act of resistance against our foes—the Dark Wolves, the disloyal few among our own, and even the clever schemes of the Crimson Alpha—left echoes haunting the passageways of memory. But tonight I felt a darker presence in those echoes, a shadow across our heritage threatening to undermine what we had battled to maintain.
