The laws that shaped the twins were never written.
They were not carved into stone or spoken aloud in ceremony. They lived in looks held a second too long, in silences that followed Sammy's mistakes, in expectations pressed onto young shoulders without asking if they could bear them.
The twins were taken to the lower training grounds before the sun fully rose.
Mist clung low to the earth, coiling around ancient stone pillars scarred by centuries of claws, blood, and failed heirs. Other pups trained nearby, but never close. Their drills were quieter. Softer. Safer.
Sammy and Sunny were never given safe.
Kaelion stood at the center of the grounds, arms crossed, unmoving as the stone beneath his feet. He wore no armor, no insignia, only command. His presence alone bent the air.
"Again."
Sunny adjusted instantly. He shifted his stance, slowed his breathing, centered himself the way Elyra had taught him. His wolf answered without resistance, power flowing cleanly, smoothly, like water guided by its banks.
He moved with precision.
Control.
Sammy mirrored him.
And failed.
Power surged too fast, emotion bleeding into motion before he could catch it. The ground cracked faintly beneath his heel. The mist recoiled, thinning around him as if afraid.
"Stop."
Kaelion's voice cut through the air like steel.
Sammy froze, chest heaving. He hadn't meant to push that hard. He never did.
"Control is not weakness," Kaelion said, voice hard, measured. "It is survival."
Sammy nodded, eyes fixed on the ground. Sunny glanced at him, worry flashing across his face before he forced it away.
They resumed.
They always did.
Every lesson ended the same way. Sunny learning to guide his strength like a steady river. Sammy fighting to keep his from tearing the banks apart.
By midday, Sammy's hands trembled—not from exhaustion of the body, but of restraint. Holding back hurt. It felt like pulling against his own bones, like choking something that refused to stay buried.
That night, he dreamed of blood.
Not his own.
He was too young in the memory to understand it fully, but it had burned itself into him all the same.
Kaelion returning at dawn.
The gates opening slowly. The sentries silent, Torven—the Elder of Combat—now rotated to train the other wolves while Kaelion walked through alone with the twins. No warriors. No banners. His armor cracked. His hands red.
Blood dripping from his knuckles onto the stone.
Sammy remembered hiding behind Elyra's skirts, peering out with wide eyes. The way the pack had gone silent. The way even the elders had stepped back.
Kaelion had looked down at his hands, almost curious.
"They will not threaten our borders again," he had said.
No one asked how many had died.
No one needed to.
Sammy woke with his heart racing, Calamity stirring uneasily inside him.
This is what they fear, the wolf whispered.
Not you. What you can become.
Training only intensified.
When Kaelion was absent, Elyra took his place by the river. Where Kaelion was iron, Elyra was gravity. The water itself stilled near her, moonlight glimmering faintly around her even beneath the sun.
"Power answers emotion," she told Sammy gently. "Not command. Not force."
"I try," he said through clenched teeth.
"I know."
She placed her hand over his chest. His breathing slowed beneath her touch. For a brief moment, the noise inside him quieted.
Sunny watched from the riverbank, relief softening his face.
But even he was changing.
Younger wolves drifted toward him without thinking. When tempers flared, his presence cooled them. When fear rose, it settled.
Sunny noticed.
And it terrified him.
"I don't want them choosing me," he admitted one evening, voice low so only Sammy could hear. "Not like this."
"They're not choosing you," Sammy said, forcing a smile. "They're just calmer around you."
Sunny didn't respond.
Because he felt it too.
The pack began to speak carefully. Elders lingered longer during training. Whispers followed Sammy's mistakes and Sunny's effortless success.
Comparison became inevitable.
Unspoken, but sharp.
The breaking moment came quietly.
No crowd. No ceremony.
Just the twins and Kaelion.
Sunny moved defensively, anticipating Sammy's strength.
Sammy saw it.
And something inside him fractured.
Not rage.
Shame.
His strike landed harder than intended. Sunny stumbled, barely catching himself before hitting the ground. The earth shuddered beneath them.
Kaelion was there instantly, gripping Sammy's shoulders.
"Enough," he said, voice low and dangerous. "You stop now."
Power clawed at Sammy's ribs, desperate for release.
"I didn't mean—" Sammy choked.
"I know," Kaelion said. "But intention does not undo damage."
That night, the elders convened again.
Sammy listened from the shadows, heart hammering as words slipped through stone and air.
"He is unstable."
"He is young."
"He is dangerous."
"The other balances him."
"The other could lead."
Sammy backed away before he could hear more.
Calamity trembled inside him.
Not in fury.
In grief.
They are already choosing.
High above, unseen and unacknowledged, the Moon Goddess watched.
She saw the pattern tightening. The weight placed too early on fragile souls. She felt the echo of her own hand in the prophecy she had allowed to be spoken.
Regret brushed her like frost.
Not yet, she whispered to fate.
Not yet.
Far beyond the pack's borders, an old man stood at the forest's edge. Blind eyes lifted toward the land he could not see.
"They are becoming exactly what they were made to be," Eldric murmured.
"And it will cost them everything."