Chapter 88: The Expert’s Knowledge
Elder Iris POV
When the old book closed on its own, I jumped back from my reading table. The pages in my book seemed to be trying to get out as my tea cup shook against its saucer. In the seventy years I’ve studied old magic, this had never happened.
"No, no, no," I whispered as I shook my hands and reached for the book. "Not now. "Not after all these years of peace."
When I touched the leather cover, it was as cold as the winter air outside. It was the same awful cold I’d felt when my grandmother told me stories about being a young wolf. I hoped the stories were just lies.
The words in the book were hard to read, so I had to force it open again. The text was written in the old wolf language, words that most of our pack had forgotten. But I remembered. I had to remember.
"Void Walkers," I read aloud, my voice cracking. "Creatures that live between worlds, feeding on the bonds that connect all living things."
My heart started beating faster. This couldn’t be happening. The Void Walkers were meant to be gone forever, banished to the empty spaces between realities by the First Wolves thousands of years ago.
A howl echoed through the night - not a regular wolf howl, but something hollow and wrong. It sounded like it came from the bottom of a deep well. I shuffled to my window and peered through the curtains.
Nothing looked different outside. The pack grounds were quiet, with warm lights glowing in house windows. But something felt terribly wrong. The air itself seemed thinner, like it was being stretched.