Chapter 4
I pressed two trembling fingers to the center of the mark.
A sickening jolt went through me. It wasn't the hollow echo of a tomb. It was a vacuum. A relentless, voracious pull, dragging at the deepest reserves of my vitality. My inner wolf whimpered—a weak, shuddering sound that sent bile rising into the back of my throat. She wasn't resting. She was starving. Every breath I took felt like drawing water from an empty well, the spiritual moisture being drawn out through a conduit I could neither see nor close.
*Logan?*
The name scraped across the back of my mind, desperate and foolish.
There was no answer. Only the cold, persistent suction of that dark thread, leaching the heat from my veins drop by drop.
"Luna?"
A soft knock rattled the oak door.
I whipped a dark silk robe around my shoulders, hastily pulling the lapels high to conceal my neck. "Come."
Elder Raymond stepped into the chamber, carrying an iron tray. Upon it sat a steaming ceramic cup filled with a dark, bitter-smelling decoction. His gray hair was combed back smoothly, his face lined with the solemn gravity of an old councilor carrying the burden of an orphaned pack.
"The sentries reported your light was still burning," Raymond said softly, setting the tray upon the nightstand. His gaze lingered for a fraction of a second on the hem of my collar before rising to my face. "You have not slept more than two hours a night since the eclipse, Clara. The body cannot mend the spirit if you starve it of rest."
"My wolf is deteriorating, Raymond," I said, my voice raw. I didn't sit. I stood by the window, staring out into the misty pine valleys that dipped toward the river. "The bond isn't fading. It feels... corrupted. As if something is actively tearing at the root."
Raymond’s expression softened with practiced paternal sorrow. He sighed, shaking his head.
"The anchor ritual was an ordeal beyond living memory," he murmured, his voice smooth and soothing like oiled silk. "You took upon yourself the psychic reverberation of a celestial purge. Logan’s soul did not merely pass; it dissolved under the divine weight to cleanse our bloodline. What you feel is the spiritual backlash—the phantom rot of the curse he burned away. It will take moons for the residue to clear your system."
He reached out, gesturing toward the steaming cup.
"Drink the willow-bark and valerian infusion. It is steeped with winter-bloom to quiet the inner wolf. Sleep, Clara. The pack needs you whole. If you waste away to a ghost, who will stand between our people and the beasts across the river?"
I looked at the dark liquid. A strange, sour note hung beneath the scent of herbs—faintly metallic, almost cloying.
*To quiet the inner wolf.*
For three days, I had drunk it dutifully every evening. And for three days, my wolf had grown weaker, slipping deeper into a sluggish, paralyzed stupor while the dragging ache in my neck tightened its coils.
"Leave it," I said quietly. "I will drink it once I finish reviewing the patrol logs."
Raymond hesitated, his rheumy eyes narrowing by a fraction of a millimeter. For an instant, the gentle elder vanished, replaced by something taut and calculating. Then the mask slipped back into place with seamless perfection.
"Do not linger too long in the dark, child," he said, bowing his head respectfully. "Grief is a fertile soil for madness."
He turned and slipped out of the room, closing the heavy latch with barely a click.
The moment his footsteps faded down the gallery, I walked over to the nightstand, picked up the ceramic mug, and tipped its entire contents into the soil of the potted fern beside the hearth.
The leaves shriveled almost instantly, turning a limp, curdled gray at the tips.
A cold bead of sweat slid between my shoulder blades.
My wolf stirred, lifting her battered head from the floor of my mind, letting out a faint, warning growl.
***
The boundary stones of the northern ridge were forty miles from the manor, carved into the jagged slate where the pine forests gave way to the treacherous granite drop-offs of the Whispering Gorge.
By noon the following day, the fog was so dense I could barely see ten paces ahead.
I had ridden out under the pretense of inspecting the northern lookout towers. In truth, I had to leave the manor. The walls of our ancestral home felt like a crypt closing in on me. Every tapestry, every carved pillar, every pair of eyes watching me with whispered sympathy felt like an iron weight pressing down on my lungs.
More than that, I needed to run.
I tied my mare to a low-hanging larch branch at the edge of the tree line and unbuckled my heavy tactical cloak, leaving it draped over the saddle. The sub-zero wind cut through my leather tunic, but the cold was a relief—a sharp, stinging counterpoint to the sickening, hot pulse spreading down my chest.
I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and called upon my wolf.
The shift was agony.
Usually, the transition between skin and fur was a fluid, electric rush of sinew and bone aligning in sacred harmony. Today, it felt as though my joints were being pried apart with rusted chisels. My bones cracked, realigning under a blanket of suffocating lead.
When my four paws hit the snow, I stumbled, barely catching myself before pitching into a drift.
I was smaller. My coat, once a thick, silver-tipped white that gleamed like fresh hoarfrost, looked dull, faded around the flanks to the color of wet river slate. And deep within my chest, the dragging tether pulled harder, as if the act of shifting had opened the valve wider.
*A living mouth.*
Valen’s words echoed through the silence of the pines, sharp as an arrow tip.
*I know that true fated bonds do not leave an ash-mark that smells of rotten cedar and celestial sulfur.*
*Lies,* I told myself, baring my fangs at the empty air. *A butcher’s poison, meant to shatter my resolve so he can conquer our lands without losing an enforcer.*
I threw my head back, drawing the mountain air deep into my nostrils to clear the madness from my thoughts. I caught the scent of pine resin, the sharp tang of wet granite, the ozone of the churning river a mile below.
And then—underneath it all—a scent that made the hair along my spine stand on end.
Winter frost. Crushed juniper. And pure, predatory dominance that rolled through the mist like thunder before a summer storm.
*Valen.*
My wolf snarled, instinct snapping my weary muscles into an immediate defensive stance.
He was alone.
There was no pack scent accompanying him. No vanguard of slate-gray Frostfang warriors flanking through the brush. Just a single, solitary presence, moving through the dense timber with an impossible, eerie silence for a beast of his immense power.
He was inside Silverpine territory. He had crossed the river.
I didn't think. The rage that had been boiling beneath my skin since the ritual detonated into a white-hot flare of instinct. I lunged through the snow, my paws digging deep into the frozen crust, tearing up clumps of pine needles and dirt as I vaulted over fallen logs, tracking the scent directly toward the edge of the Whispering Gorge.
