1046: Story 1046: The Wolf and the Witch 1046: Story 1046: The Wolf and the Witch In the frostbitten hollows of the northern woods, where no sun dared linger, two legends endured long past the fall of mankind—the Witch of Frostmoor and the Wolf of Ashfang Vale.
Each bound by ancient blood curses, each feared in their own right.
Neither had crossed paths… until the dead began to walk.
Elira, the witch, was born of ice and silence.
Her breath could freeze bone.
Her touch brought nightmares.
Cast out by villagers and hunted by zealots, she made her home in the ruins of a chapel half-swallowed by snow.
Her only company were the ghosts of those she’d cursed—howling, weeping things that crawled between frozen pews.
The undead dared not enter her domain.
Their flesh cracked in her cold.
Their minds—what little remained—shattered under her stare.
But one did.
And it was not a man.
The Wolf.
He came not on feet, but on flame.
Black fur.
Scorched eyes.
A beast once human, now twisted by rage and the bite of an elder creature.
Unlike the others, he did not rot.
He did not hunger.
He remembered.
His name was Kael.
Once a hunter.
Once a man.
Now, cursed to burn under the full moon and tear through flesh and forest alike.
He’d heard tales of a witch who could undo death.
He didn’t seek mercy.
He sought an end.
Elira sensed him before he stepped into the chapel.
The frost peeled away from stone.
The ghosts hissed and vanished into shadows.
Her candles snuffed themselves, unwilling to burn in his presence.
“You stink of rot and rage,” she whispered.
Kael growled in return.
“You’re the last of your kind.”
She raised a hand.
“And you’re the first of yours.”
They circled each other like gods trapped in broken shells—fire and frost, curse and curse.
“I want to die,” Kael said.
Elira narrowed her eyes.
“Then bleed for it.”
She struck first—shards of black ice spinning like blades.
He answered with fire, roaring from his mouth, his claws sparking embers as they scraped stone.
They clashed through the ruins, the chapel groaning under the weight of old magic and fury.
Ghosts screamed.
Icicles shattered.
The moon turned crimson.
Neither gained ground.
Both were exhausted.
Both were alone.
In the silence after the storm, Elira stood over Kael, both bleeding, both shaking.
“You want to die?” she asked.
He nodded.
She bent down, placed a frozen hand to his chest—and saw the truth.
Not just rage.
Remorse.
She closed her eyes.
“There is no undoing what made us,” she said.
“But maybe… we can bury it.”
That night, the fire and frost did not fight.
They fused.
And for the first time in a century, the undead that roamed the edges of Frostmoor turned away.
For something worse had risen.
A witch and a wolf, bound by sorrow, walking hand in hand into a world that had forgotten what true monsters were.