Maelis didn’t raise her voice.
She didn’t need to.
The mont she turned and began walking, the crowd parted instinctively, creating a path through the cavern as naturally as water moving around stone.
Wolves stepped back, heads bowed, so watching Jasmine with open curiosity now instead of hostility.
"Co," Maelis said, glancing over her shoulder.
Jasmine hesitated.
Every instinct scread caution. Run. Don’t follow strangers deeper underground. Don’t trust rebels hiding beneath a forest.
But she had already crossed too many lines to pretend safety lived in hesitation.
She nodded once and followed.
They moved through the underground settlent, deeper than Jasmine had realized it extended. The cavern opened into long corridors supported by carved stone pillars, their surfaces etched with old symbols that glowed faintly when Maelis passed.
Fires burned low in iron bowls. Wolves watched silently as they went by so unshifted, so fully shifted, so in half-forms that made Jasmine’s skin prickle.
No one tried to stop them.
Maelis spoke as they walked.
"When your father arrived here," she said calmly, "he did not co as a savior."
Jasmine’s steps slowed.
"He ca alone. As a good and innocent man who had sohow made it here regardless of the laws preventing anyone from in thousands of years," Maelis continued.
Jasmine swallowed. "You said he seized your lands."
"Yes," Maelis replied. "We lived here long before him. In peace. In balance."
They stopped before a wide chamber that opened into sothing like a hall.
The walls rose high, smooth and pale, illuminated by soft, golden light that seed to co from the stone itself.
"We did not need a king," Maelis said. "We never did. We lived collectively. Elders guided. Voices were heard. Decisions were made together."
She turned to face Jasmine.
"But when the worlds were separated, things... changed."
Jasmine nodded slowly. She could feel it the truth of the words vibrating sowhere deep inside her chest.
"In tis of crisis," Maelis continued, "we appointed a leader. Not to rule. To guide. To speak when unity was required."
She inclined her head slightly. "That leader was ."
Jasmine looked at her with new eyes.
"And when my father arrived?" Jasmine asked quietly.
Maelis’s expression hardened.
"He declared himself king," she said. "Claid dominion over lands he had never walked, people he had never known. He brought fear where there had been caution. Order where there had been balance."
Jasmine’s stomach twisted.
They resud walking, deeper still, until the corridor opened into a vast gallery carved directly into the earth.
Jasmine stopped short.
The walls were covered in paintings.
Not crude drawings but detailed murals, spanning floor to ceiling, stretching far into the distance.
Each panel told a story. Wolves in different forms. Battles. Councils. Rituals. Crowns raised and shattered.
History.
Real history.
Maelis gestured to the first mural.
"This," she said, "is where it all began ."
Jasmine stepped closer.
At the center of the painting stood a massive wolf, fur the color of deep crimson, eyes burning gold. A crown rested atop his head, ornate and heavy.
"He looks..." Jasmine hesitated. "Familiar."
Maelis smiled faintly. "He should."
She pointed. "That was Alpha Daniel. Ruler of the entire wolf world. He is also your ancestor as you can see he is a red wolf."
Jasmine’s breath caught.
"The entire world?" she echoed.
"Yes," Maelis said. "Before borders. Before divisions. Before kings and queens and titles twisted into weapons."
"Royal blood, older than any throne that exists in your world now."
Jasmine’s pulse roared in her ears.
"That’s impossible," she whispered.
Maelis only gestured to the next mural.
In it, Alpha Daniel stood before a circle of glowing stones six of them each radiating a green color except for one in reds
"The Stones of Creation," Maelis said. "Fragnts of the Goddess herself. Life. Death. Balance. Power."
Jasmine frowned. "My father told about the erald. About the pieces."
"He told you part of it," Maelis replied calmly.
She pointed to one stone in particular.
Red.
Not glowing.
Bleeding darkness.
"That," Maelis said quietly, "is where everything went wrong."
Jasmine felt cold.
"The red stone," she whispered. "The corrupted one."
"Yes," Maelis said. "Daniel sought to unite all the stones. He believed that together they would grant absolute balance. Absolute order."
She moved along the wall, the story unfolding panel by panel.
"But the red stone was never ant to be wielded," Maelis continued. "It did not grant power. It devoured it."
The paintings darkened.
Daniel’s eyes turned wild.
Wolves fell beneath his claws.
She-wolves scread.
Pups lay still.
"He told himself it was necessary," Maelis said. "That sacrifice would bring peace. That cruelty was justified by destiny."
Jasmine felt sick.
"He murdered his own people," Maelis said bluntly. "And called it progress."
Jasmine pressed a hand to her mouth.
"This isn’t how the story is told," she whispered. "On our side... it’s a myth. They say the Goddess punished a greedy king."
Maelis nodded. "That part is true."
They reached the final mural.
A towering figure of light descended from the sky. The Goddess.
Her expression was not wrathful.
It was disappointed.
The painting showed the world splitting land tearing, skies cracking, oceans dividing.
"Eventually the goddess had enough and intervened. She finally stopped the war."
"She had given them everything," Maelis said softly. "Choice. Power. Freedom. And they chose domination. Still chose evil."
"So she punished them all by separating the worlds into two." She continued. "The stones couldn’t be destroyed so the people embedded them into objects. The other side your side, were cursed with the crown and the erald holding the sea monsters."
Jasmine blinked.
"Sea monsters?" Jasmine asked in disbelief.
"There were monsters made by Alpha Daniel and the goddess held them locked up by the erald. If the erald isn’t strapped to an heir of the royal family, the monsters would be unleashed and descend on them." Maelis said.
Jasmine instinctively looked down at her neck and her hand went to the erald necklace she had on her entire life.
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