Chapter 21: The Wolfmother’s Wrath — The Purge Begins
509words
It came from the main tower of the Trial Grounds.
Sharp. Shrill. Final.
“The purge has begun,” Koren said grimly, standing by the window.
I joined him, cloak wrapped tight, eyes fixed on the dormitories below—
Where Mother's enforcers, the Silverflame Guard, moved in formation.
No questions.
No explanations.
They simply dragged trialists out, one by one, under the charge of “abnormal behavior.”
Some screamed.
Some fought.
Some… simply vanished without a sound.
“Did we mess up?” Amy whispered.
“No,” I said coldly.
“She did.”
“The more control slips through her fingers—
The more she reaches for a blade.”
“She thinks fear will silence them?”
I looked to the hills.
“She’s wrong.”
Raccoon burst in, pale as death.
“Two of ours—taken!”
“Kahn didn’t come back.”
“And Chuanzi—he’s in a cage.”
My chest tightened.
Kahn: our lead operator.
Chuanzi: our youngest shadow.
This was Mother speaking.
You reached too far. Now I’m cutting off your fingers.
I exhaled, fast and sharp.
“Severed Moon—full concealment protocol. All channels closed.”
“Raccoon, relocate the files. Amy, burn our safehouses. Tai—you’re with me.”
Tai chewed on a blade of grass as we walked.
“Where to?”
“To find another one of my mother’s plants.”
“One who—might prefer I win.”
We found him on the eastern ridge.
Glass, the only Silverflame officer who had ever sent me a silent signal.
He was directing a sweep.
But he pretended not to see us.
“Cold night,” I said softly.
“Wolfmother’s fire burns fast, dies faster,” Tai chimed in.
Glass clenched his jaw. Then, in a low voice:
“You’re insane. But your insanity… makes sense.”
“She’s afraid of you.”
“We need Kahn and Chuanzi,” I said.
“I can get you to them.” He swallowed. “But you need to know—she’s using internal clearance protocols now.”
I froze.
“She’s using her authority as an experimenter?”
He nodded.
“She’s labeled you ‘unstable.’ Guards have permission to execute on sight.”
I felt the blood in my veins freeze and then surge, molten and backwards.
“She’s going to kill me?”
“She’s discarding you like a failed specimen,” he rasped.
“But she doesn’t realize—
You’re not a specimen anymore.”
“You’re a variable.”
That night, we got our first lead.
Kahn and Chuanzi were being held on the Ninth Floor,
Deep beneath the trial grounds.
The Lunarium.
Where only traitors and discarded experiments go.
The place no one talks about.
“If she wants them buried,” Amy muttered, “that means they know something big.”
“Something she can’t risk leaking.”
I nodded. “We have to get them out.”
“But not just with Severed Moon.”
“We’re going to stage an uprising.”
Raccoon choked. “We’re really going to riot?!”
“No,” I said with a sharp smile.
“Not a riot.”
“An exercise.”
“We’re going to show her a chaos she didn’t foresee—
Precise.
Measured.
Deadly.”
“We’ll make her realize: we’re not just wolves with teeth.”
“We’re wolves with minds.”
I turned to them all, voice steady.
“Tonight’s mission codename is—Echo of the Dark Moon.”
“Let her purge.”
“We’ll make it the prelude… to our counterattack.”
