The wind whispered secrets I couldn't yet understand.
I stood at the edge of the clearing behind Lucian's cabin, barefoot on the cold earth, eyes closed, letting the night wrap itself around me like a second skin. The moon hung low—half-full, a silver scythe slicing through the clouds. It felt... different now. Like it watched me not from above, but within.
Inside me, something stirred.
Something old.
Lucian stood a few feet away, arms crossed, watching in silence. He hadn't said much since I'd told him about the vision. But his eyes—those storm-gray eyes—held a mix of awe and wariness. Like he didn't quite know what I was anymore.
"I need to train," I said, without turning around.
He was quiet for a long beat before answering. "Training for wolves like us doesn't happen in gyms, Raven."
"I figured."
"You're not just learning how to fight. You're learning how to become. And becoming... means letting go."
I opened my eyes, turning to him. "Letting go of what?"
He stepped closer. "Your name. Your past. The way you saw yourself before all this."
I stiffened. "So you do believe what she said. About giving up who I was."
He nodded. "The Moonborn line carries deep memory. Generations of knowledge, instinct, and power. You can't carry all that while still clinging to your human self. You have to choose who you are now."
I looked down at my hands. They still looked like mine—still small, pale, with a scar on the knuckle from the time I punched my locker door in middle school. But they felt different. Charged.
"What if I don't want to forget her?" I asked quietly. "The girl I was. The one who sat on the couch eating stale cereal. The one who used to write poetry no one would read. The one who still remembers her mother's laugh."
Lucian's voice softened. "You don't have to forget her. But you can't be her anymore."
That hit harder than I expected.
"I don't even know who I'm supposed to be," I admitted. "Moonborn? Monster? A mistake that shouldn't exist?"
"You're not a mistake," he said, stepping closer. "You're the answer to something the world forgot it was asking."
I met his gaze. "So, what now? You want me to take on a new name and start speaking in riddles too?"
He smiled slightly. "The name part isn't symbolic. It's tradition. It's how you accept the bond to your bloodline. Every Moonborn who survives the awakening takes a new name—one that carries power, purpose. One that tells the world what you've claimed."
"And what if I can't think of one?"
"You won't have to." He reached into his coat and pulled out a small, silver dagger. "You'll find it."
The blade glimmered in the moonlight. Ornate. Ancient. Runes etched along its edge hummed with low energy.
"What do I do with that?"
He handed it to me. "You carve your name into the stone behind the cabin. The one that marks our territory. Once it's written, it's bound. No one—not even fate—can erase it."
My fingers closed around the hilt. It was cold, but comforting. Heavy with expectation.
Lucian nodded toward the hill. "I'll wait here."
I made my way up the slope, heart hammering louder with each step. When I reached the stone—tall, weather-worn, and covered in names—I hesitated.
There were so many.
Each one carved deep into the surface: Thorne, Maera, Ash, Cael, Virex...
All names that once belonged to someone who had made the same choice. Who stood where I stood.
I raised the dagger. The metal pulsed faintly in my hand, and as I pressed it to the rock, something inside me clicked.
A whisper moved through my mind—not in words, but in truth.
I wasn't just someone who had been bitten, changed, and thrown into a world of teeth and blood.
I was chosen.
I pressed the blade against the stone and began to carve.
Ravyn.
Not the spelling I'd grown up with. Not the name my mother had whispered over lullabies. But something reborn. Sharpened. Forged.
The final stroke echoed through the night like thunder.
I stepped back, breathing hard.
The stone pulsed once.
Then silence.
The dagger in my hand went still. The energy faded. The mark on my shoulder flared—just once—and then cooled, as if settling into place.
Behind me, Lucian appeared.
He looked at the stone. Then at me.
"It suits you," he said simply.
I stared at the name. "I don't know if I feel different."
"You will," he said. "The more you use it, the more it becomes you. It's not just a name—it's a spell. One that binds you to what you're becoming."
I touched the letters, still warm beneath my fingertips. Ravyn.
Maybe I wasn't that lost girl anymore.
Maybe I was something more.
But as the night deepened and the trees rustled with secrets, I felt it again—that pull. That warning.
Choosing my name was only the first step.
The war was coming.
And the world wasn't ready for what I was about to become.