Episode 5: The Monster Beneath the Throne

Mara ran.

She barely escaped the underground chamber before the castle's foundations began to tremble.

Ronan met her in the corridor, blood running down his face.

"What did you awaken?"

"I didn't awaken anything! It was already down there."

He seized her shoulders.

"What did it say?"

Mara stared at him.

"It called itself the First Wolf's father."

Ronan released her.

According to the oldest legends, the First Wolf had no father. He had simply appeared beneath the moon at the beginning of the world.

But Mara now understood that the legends were incomplete.

Something had created the First Wolf.

And something had been imprisoned beneath the royal throne for thousands of years.

They returned to the library and searched through forbidden records. After hours of reading, they found a warning written by the first royal historian:

The creature beneath the throne is called the Hollow King. It feeds upon fear, and it created the first wolf to harvest the souls of the living. The mother destroyed her own son to imprison it. If the First Wolf returns, the Hollow King will awaken.

Mara felt sick.

Her son was not the original evil.

He was the lock holding it shut.

And she had brought him back into the world.

Suddenly, the castle doors slammed open.

The surviving elders marched into the hall, followed by hundreds of armed wolves.

Varek stood at their head.

"Give us the child, Mara. This is your final chance."

Ronan drew his sword.

"You will have to kill me first."

Varek smiled.

"That can be arranged."

The warriors attacked.

Ronan fought fiercely, but the elders had brought silver chains designed to suppress an Alpha's wolf. Within minutes, he was dragged to the floor.

Mara fled with her son through a hidden passage beneath the chapel.

They emerged in the forest as the first snow began to fall.

For hours, she carried the baby through the darkness, listening to the sounds of battle echoing from the distant castle.

Finally, she stopped beside a frozen river.

"Tell me the truth," she whispered to her son. "What happens if you regain your full power?"

The child looked at her with eyes far older than his face.

"The Hollow King will come for me."

"And if I stop you?"

"Then he will remain imprisoned."

Mara's voice trembled.

"Will you destroy the world if he escapes?"

The baby looked away.

"I don't know."

It was the first honest answer he had given her.

Then he reached for her hand.

"But I know what you did last time."

Mara closed her eyes.

"I killed you."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because you loved everyone else more than you loved me."

Before Mara could respond, a howl echoed across the river.

A massive white wolf emerged from the trees.

Its ice-blue eyes were fixed on the child.

Mara raised a branch, desperately trying to protect her son.

But the wolf lowered its head.

Then it transformed.

Standing before her was a wounded young man with silver hair and familiar eyes.

Ronan.

He had escaped the elders.

And he carried a bloodstained letter.

"The Hollow King has taken the castle," he gasped. "And Varek has opened the royal crypt."

Mara looked down at her son.

The baby was smiling.

"He is not trying to escape, Mother," he whispered.

"He is trying to get inside me."

Episode 6: The Alpha's Final Sacrifice... Coming soon