Earlier that night, before I ran beneath the moon, I didn’t follow Kael.
He walked away still laughing with Selene, his arm looped around her waist like a prize. I could hear his voice through the thin stone wall—low, playful, whispering about the Moonspire hot springs and the “honeymoon suite” the council gifted them.
The sound turned my stomach.
I stayed on the floor where I’d fallen earlier, knees pressed into cold marble, palms trembling against the soot that clung to the hearth. The smell of burnt cedar filled my lungs until it felt like breathing ash.
I pushed myself upright. My knees popped, my pride scraped raw. I crossed the room, moving without thought, and shut the door behind me. The latch clicked—small, final.
In the mirror above the basin, a stranger stared back. Her braid had come undone, streaks of silver spilling across her shoulders. Eyes rimmed red. Lips split from biting back screams.
I studied her like a ghost.
There was no funeral tonight, yet I was mourning—
Not for Kael.
Not for the hollow thing we called a bond.
I was mourning the girl who once believed that love could out-howl power.
Outside the door, footsteps paused. His scent hit first—iron and pine. Then his voice, casual, like nothing had cracked between us.
“Pack my things,” he said. “Council retreat in Duskfall Valley. We leave at dawn.”
No glance. No warmth.
Then he was gone, his laughter echoing down the corridor.
I stared at the door a moment longer, then wiped my hands on a crooked towel. My body moved on instinct—obedience so old it felt inherited.
His chamber was a storm of chaos: cloaks draped over chairs, armor half-polished, travel cases gaping. I began to fold his shirts anyway—white linen, black ceremonial tunics. I aligned his blades, polished the hilts until my reflection gleamed on steel.
When I reached for a shelf, my elbow brushed a stack of scrolls. Something slipped free and hit the floor with a dull thud.
A velvet envelope. The seal of the Lunar Council pressed in wax.
I knelt, heart already tightening, and slid the parchment free.
“The Bloodmoon Sojourn — Official Invitation.
Alpha Kael Blackthorn & Luna Selene Blackthorn, accompanied by heirs Liran and Nash.
Five-day voyage across the Starsea. Cabins prepared under the Goddess’s blessing.”
My name was nowhere.
Not even a courtesy mention.
Not even as “former.”
The Bloodmoon Sojourn—our dream trip. The one he once promised me on the night of our marking: “We’ll see the Starsea together.”
He remembered the dream. He just replaced the dreamer.
I folded the invitation carefully, as though rough hands might make it bleed. Then I placed it back, lined his boots, wiped the dust from his chestplate. The motions were mechanical, the ritual of someone performing her own autopsy.
A knock startled me. The door swung open without waiting for my answer.
Liran sauntered in, a tankard of ale dangling from his fingers. “Hey, Mother. Pack mine too, will you? Selene said we need our formal capes.” He smirked. “Don’t forget Nash’s gloves. The salt air ruins his hands.”
He didn’t wait for a reply.
I folded their capes. The scent of youth and arrogance clung to the fabric.
When the room finally emptied, I sat on the edge of the bed, invitation lying beside me like evidence. My hands shook, but my mind was eerily calm.
I let it drift back—
To another moon.
Another version of him.
The Kael I first met.
---
I was barely seventeen, daughter of the Silvermoon Alpha, too proud, too curious for my own safety. Kael had come as a guest envoy—taller than the other boys, his laugh bright, his eyes full of mischief. He watched me like I was something wild he didn’t dare touch.
That night at the feast, he slipped away from the crowd and found me in the gardens.
“Aria,” he said, voice soft under the stars, “you smell like rain before it falls.”
I remember laughing, shy, half-offended. “You don’t even know me.”
He reached for my hand. “Not yet. But I will. I swear on the Moon.”
We met again after that—secretly, beneath the silver birches. He spoke of unity between packs, of ending the blood feuds. He said he didn’t care about lineage or laws, only about us.
“I’ll take care of you,” he promised. “You’ll never have to fight again. I’ll carry your battles.”
I was young enough to believe that was love.
When my father discovered our meetings, he summoned me to the council chamber. I still remember the way the torches hissed, how his gaze burned colder than winter steel.
“You disgrace your blood,” he said. “A Silvermoon heir does not mate beneath her line.”
“I love him,” I told him, voice shaking but sure.
“You love a shadow,” he answered. “And shadows devour the foolish.”
When I refused to end it, he rose, towering, the full weight of his title in every syllable.
“You walk to him, you walk out of this pack. You cross my border, you cross from my blood. You will not come back.”
“I’ll make my own family,” I said.
“Then die with them.”
I left that night anyway. Ran through the frost until Kael’s scent guided me to his arms. He swore we’d build a new beginning, that love was stronger than law.
For a while, it was. For a while, he was the boy who touched my face like prayer.
But years turned promises into chains, and now that boy laughs with another Luna under my moon.
---
The memory faded. The room returned—colder, smaller, full of ghosts.
I looked again at the invitation. My fingers no longer trembled.
He had erased me from his life.
I would erase my obedience from his.
I stood, opened the window, and let the night air rush in. Far away, the horizon glimmered faintly—the direction of the Silvermoon mountains. My birthright. My exile. My only refuge left.
I smiled, bitter and soft.
Then I crossed the room to the old communication orb resting on the shelf. Its surface was dull, dust-coated. I hadn’t touched it in decades. The last time I did, my father’s voice had thundered through it, disowning me.
I placed both hands on the crystal. Whispered the incantation. The runes flared weakly, protesting the years of silence, then caught the thread of energy and hummed alive.
It rang once.
Twice.
A third time.
Then a voice—rougher now, older, but unmistakable.
“Who calls?”
My throat closed. For a heartbeat, I almost severed the spell. But then the words tumbled out, fragile as breath.
“Father,” I whispered. “It’s me. Aria.”
Silence.
I thought the connection had broken. Then I heard it—a sharp inhale, like the world itself gasping.
“Aria,” he said at last, and the sound of my name in his voice undid me. “After all these years…”
Tears blurred the crystal until it shimmered like moonlight through water. I couldn’t speak. The only sound was my breathing, ragged and small.
Finally, I found my voice. “I have nowhere else to go.”
A long pause. Then his reply, steady, unflinching.
“Then come home.”
The orb dimmed, the light fading back to gray.
I held it against my chest until it cooled, my tears drying to salt on my skin. Outside, the wind shifted east, carrying the scent of snow and cedar—the scent of Silvermoon territory.
Tomorrow, I would follow it.
Tonight, I would rest among ruins and remember the girl who once thought love could rewrite bloodlines.
Tomorrow, the woman would return to claim her name.
