Page 156 of The Moonborn's Curse

Her keys froze halfway into the lock. Her breath caught in her throat.

The voice was real.

He was real.

And standing just a step behind her.

Chapter 57

Hagan

Hagan crouched in the mud of the streambed, though mud was too generous a term.

What remained of the once-lush waterway was a cracked stretch of bone-dry earth, veins of parched clay webbing outward like scars across the land. He reached down, curled calloused fingers around a handful of brittle soil, and crushed it.

It turned to dust instantly, crumbling through his grip like ash.

His jaw clenched.

Then, slowly, he stood.

Two years, three months, and six days.

That was how he measured time now. Not by seasons. Not by moons. Not by years of training or the rise and fall of border patrol rotations.

Before Seren left. After Seren left.

He was taller now—though he'd already towered before—but broader too, shoulders heavier with the weight of command, arms roped with muscle born of relentless training. His face had grown sharper, all planes and shadow. The softness of youth had burned away, leaving something carved and watchful behind.

The wild, curling hair that once fell in unruly tangles was gone—now kept short against his skull, more soldier than son. Even his movements, once reckless with the arrogance of power, were quieter now. Controlled. Coiled.

The wolf in him had never moved so cleanly—so fast.

He didn't stumble through shifts anymore. He slid. One breath, one blink—and he was beast. No warrior in the Vargrheim matched him anymore. Not even Draken. And while Dain and Veyr kept pace, it was only barely. Hagan didn't slow down for anyone. He couldn't afford to.

Behind him, Veyr crouched silently at the tree line, grim and unmoving, his eyes the colour of clear skies and caution. He didn't speak. He still rarely did. But his presence was a constant, and it said everything: I'm with you. No matter what.

Hagan glanced once more at the cracked streambed, the sun-bleached stones where fish once danced in the current.

This was wrong.

All of it.

They both felt it.

This land was dying.

At first, it was small things.

The bees vanished from the southern orchards.

The wolves who ran the hunting trails returned with half-empty hauls. The forest had grown eerily quiet—birdsong petered out; the rustle of prey almost non-existent. Herds that once passed predictably through their borders began to shift, veering wide around Vargrheim as if guided by instinct or warning. Some vanished entirely, their migration patterns broken or altered, as though the land itself no longer called to them.

Then the river by the outpost dried to a sun-baked wound, its bed cracked like shattered pottery.

And through it all, the tribe had waited—silent, watchful, slowly unravelling.

And the miscarriages...

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