Screams, explosions of blood, thunders of magic. The two humans drew compact crossbows and began firing at anything that moved. The Sangor scratched their arms and spilled blood on the ground; the blood coagulated and grew, taking the form of black serpents. The serpents solidified into spears as hard as metal and soon liquefied again, returning to the form of liquid serpents. They ran among the Sangor conjurers, protecting them from attacks and striking like spears when the opportunity presented itself.
"Formation! Protect the brothers!" shouted the Naruun leader. After giving the order, he roared. And his roar was followed by his bear brother. The roars unified little by little. The bear ceased to be solid, taking on a translucent form, as if it were a spirit without flesh.
The spirit of the bear approached its bond. And they became one. Man of flesh, enveloped by an astral projection of his Anirû. The fusion was an advanced stage that only some Naruun mastered. One of the humans entered his reach while fleeing from the patroller and his wolf. A descending paw strike. And the body was flattened against the sacred ground. The power of the blow caused a slight earth tremor.
The fusion of Naruun and Anirû—known as the Harmony of Spirits—represented the highest expression of the bond. Achieved only by the most spiritually attuned pairs after decades of deepening their connection, it allowed for a complete merging of human and animal consciousness into a single, unified being that possessed the strengths of both.
The physical manifestation varied depending on the Anirû species, but typically resulted in the human partner becoming enveloped in a semi-transparent energy form of their animal companion.
In this state, the bonded pair could access abilities beyond either's natural capacity—enhanced strength, speed, and sensory perception, as well as a form of intuitive combat awareness that made them nearly unstoppable in battle. However, the Harmony could only be maintained for short periods, as the intensity of the merged consciousness eventually overwhelmed even the most experienced practitioners.
Ithor hesitated. He tried to contain the disaster. He placed himself between Nora and a burly patroller who was fighting with a bluish wolf. He still believed—wanted to believe—that Nora was not a threat.
"They just need help!" he shouted, with his back to the woman.
But Faaron smelled it. And saw the dagger that cut through the air toward Ithor's neck. The wolf launched itself against Nora with a savage growl. They rolled across the mosscovered ground. Nora raised the dagger. The howl that followed cut through the night like a blade: sharp, desperate, definitive.
"NO!" Ithor ran to the wolf's body, holding it in his arms. "Faaron... please, no..."
The blade lodged in his eye gleamed with poison. The wolf trembled but no longer responded.
In that moment of crisis, the Lady of Shadows made a calculated decision. Through Nora, she had intended to manipulate Ithor over a longer period, using him to access the forest's deepest secrets. But with the patrol's arrival, that plan became untenable.
Instead, she pivoted to a secondary objective—creating a Broken Bond. The specific poison on the dagger was designed not just to kill Faaron, but to do so in a way that would leave a permanent spiritual wound in Ithor's soul—a wound that could later be exploited.
As the poison spread through Faaron's system, it did more than attack his physical body.
It created a metaphysical disruption at the point where his spirit connected with Ithor's, ensuring that even in death, the bond would not cleanly sever but remain as a painful, jagged tear in Ithor's spiritual fabric. This was no mere cruelty but a specific preparation—the Lady of Shadows was creating a tool she would need in the future.
The Naruun, enraged, subdued the mercenaries one by one. One of the Sangor expelled another gush of blood trying to conjure something more, but was decapitated by a spear-wielding tamer mounted on a deer swift as wind. Nora tried to flee but was knocked down by one of the patrollers with owl eyes, who followed her even in the densest shadows. The humans fell under blows of iron and claw.
When everything ended, only injured bodies and panting breaths remained.
Ithor, on his knees, still held Faaron's body. He felt the emptiness of the broken bond. As if a piece of his soul had been torn out without anesthesia. The silence was absolute inside his mind—a vacuum where once there had been communion.
The breaking of a Naruun-Anirû bond was considered one of the most traumatic experiences possible. Unlike natural death, which allowed for a gradual transition and spiritual closure, a violent severing created a sudden psychic wound that never fully healed. The Naruun experienced it as an amputation of part of their consciousness—a constant, phantom pain where once there had been wholeness.
Physically, bond-breaking typically manifested in symptoms similar to severe shock—rapid heartbeat, cold sweats, trembling, and in some cases, temporary loss of sensory function as the brain struggled to process the sudden absence of the shared perceptions. Many Naruun reported synesthetic disturbances in the aftermath—colors lacking vibrancy, sounds seeming muffled or distant, food tasting like ash.
Psychologically, the effects were even more profound. Depression, disorientation, and a pervasive sense of incompleteness were universal. Many bond-broken Naruun described feeling as though they were constantly searching for something just beyond their reach, or listening for a voice that had fallen silent. Dreams became haunted by the lost Anirû, often featuring scenarios where the bond was restored briefly, only to break again upon waking.
Most devastating was the spiritual dimension of the loss. The Naruun believed that the bond created a unique spiritual entity—neither fully human nor fully animal, but a third consciousness born from their union. When violently severed, this third consciousness did not simply disappear but remained as a fractured, unreachable presence—close enough to sense but impossible to rejoin.
"Betrayed by the bond..." murmured the patrol leader, looking at him with heavy eyes.
"You broke our oaths."
There was no long judgment. The elders heard the reports, looked at the wolf's body and the maps found with the invaders. The verdict was unanimous: exile. Ithor would no longer have the right to create a new bond. He was no longer Naruun.
The exile ceremony was conducted at dawn three days later, at the eastern edge of the forest. The entire Silverclaw Pack gathered in a solemn circle, their faces painted with ash in the traditional symbol of severance. Ithor stood in the center, stripped of all Naruun insignia and dressed in plain traveling clothes. Faaron's body had been prepared according to ritual and lay on a bed of sacred leaves beside him.
Elder Thorne stepped forward, his bear Anirû standing solemnly at his side. "Ithor, son of Kaelan and Lyra, you have violated the sacred trust between the Naruun and the forest. You have led outsiders to our most protected places, revealed secrets entrusted to you by the ancestors, and through these actions, caused the death of your bonded brother."
He dipped his fingers in a bowl of mixed ash and sap, then drew a jagged line across Ithor's forehead—the Mark of Severance that would identify him to all Naruun as na exile.
"By the unanimous decision of the Council of Elders, you are cast out from the Naruun people. You may never again form a bond with an Anirû. You may never again walk the sacred paths of this forest. Your name will not be spoken in our circles, your deeds will not be recorded in our histories. You are Naruun no more."
One by one, the members of his former Pack turned their backs to him—the ultimate gesture of rejection in Naruun culture. Parents who had once proudly watched him form his bond with Faaron now refused to meet his gaze. Friends who had hunted and trained alongside him stared at the ground as they turned away. Even the youngest children, who barely understood the proceedings, were made to participate in the ritual rejection.
The final part of the ceremony was the most painful. Ithor was required to place his hands on Faaron's body one last time, while the elders performed the Ritual of Final Separation—a ceremony normally reserved for peaceful partings when an Anirû died naturally after a full life. The ritual was meant to release any lingering spiritual connections and allow both souls to move forward separately.
But in Ithor's case, the ritual felt hollow and wrong. The bond had been violently torn, not gently released, and the spiritual wound was too fresh and jagged to be smoothed by ritual words. As the elders chanted the ancient phrases, Ithor felt no sense of closure or peace—only a deepening of the void within him.
At the forest border, Ithor knelt. He touched the sacred ground one last time.
"One day, I will honor your sacrifice, Faaron..." he whispered. "And, when I am worthy... I will return home."
Months passed. Ithor wandered through inhospitable lands. He slept under rain in moaning swamps, crossed deserts where nights froze bones and days burned skin. He walked through plains where magic seemed suspended in the air, like a forgotten promise. No one trusted a tamer without a companion. And he did not seek anyone's trust.
The physical and psychological effects of the broken bond manifested in increasingly severe ways as Ithor traveled. He lost weight rapidly, his body unable to properly process food without the stabilizing influence of the bond. Sleep became a torment, filled with vivid dreams of Faaron that left him more exhausted upon waking than when he had lain down. His senses, once enhanced by the wolf's perceptions, now seemed dull and unreliable.
Most concerning were the auditory hallucinations that began approximately two months into his exile. At first, they were subtle—the faint echo of a wolf's panting when he pushed himself to physical exhaustion, the ghost of a familiar growl when danger approached. But gradually, these phantom sounds became more distinct and frequent, as if Faaron's consciousness were trying to reach him from beyond death.
Naruun healers had a term for this phenomenon—"echo bonding"—and considered it a dangerous sign that the exile was failing to properly process the severance. Without proper guidance through specific spiritual rituals, echo bonding could lead to complete psychological breakdown as the exile's mind attempted to reconstruct the lost connection with increasingly vivid hallucinations.
But Ithor had no access to Naruun healers or their rituals. Instead, he developed his own coping mechanisms. He began speaking aloud to Faaron when alone, acknowledging the hallucinations rather than fighting them. He carried a small pouch of fur saved from his companion, touching it when the void within him became too overwhelming. And most importantly, he channeled his grief into purpose—a determination to somehow make meaning from his loss.
He became a messenger, mercenary, guide to dangerous borders—but never, at any moment, allowed a new bond to flourish. He felt, in his gut, that doing so would be a betrayal. As if part of his soul was still trapped in a place he could no longer reach. As if Faaron was waiting, in silence, at some point beyond time.
During his work in border villages, he heard stories about illegal hunters and groups of mercenaries who violated the natural sanctuaries of the Naruun forest and also of the Zhyren. They were organized looters, armed with suppression runes, magical theft gifts, and poisoned crossbows. Some captured sacred creatures for sale. Others hunted natural elements like the living fire of the Zhyren—selling it as a relic.
Ithor did not hesitate.
If he could not protect the forest from within, he would do so from outside. He began intercepting suspicious shipments. He ambushed hunters on hidden trails, erased tracks with enchanted leaves, and created traps with roots taught by his Naruun childhood. In some confrontations, he fought alone against entire groups—using only his cunning, speed, and the instincts that still remained.
And, gradually, he gained respect.
Other wanderers and exiled tamers recognized him. Some feared him. Others followed him. A whisper was created among the illegal routes: the Wolf Without a Pack had made the edge of the forests his territory. And no one crossed his trails with impunity.
But still... the emptiness remained.