The forest had no sympathy.
It did not care that Luna had been rejected. It did not care that her paws ached from walking or that her stomach growled louder than her thoughts. The trees offered no comfort, the wind no lullaby.
Only survival.
Only thorns.
She had walked for three days past the borders of Moonshadow territory, winding deeper into unclaimed land. Her breath became a steady rhythm—inhale, scan; exhale, step. She no longer feared the sounds in the brush. She feared not hearing them. The first rule she'd learned was silence could mean something worse than a predator.
It could mean watching.
She had bruises on both knees, scrapes on her shoulders, and a fresh cut beneath her jaw where a low-hanging branch had kissed her too hard. Her dress, once threadbare, now clung in tatters to her body.
But her eyes remained clear.
Unyielding.
She was still moving. Still breathing.
Still herself.
By dusk on the fourth day, she'd found a stream that carved its way through a sunless valley. The banks were muddy, rich with tracks. Deer. Fox. Something bigger too.
She crouched, sniffed the air. No wolf.
Good.
She drank from her cupped hands, cool water soothing the fire in her throat. A clump of wild strawberries grew nearby. She picked them slowly, chewing with intention, committing their location to memory.
She'd found no firewood that night—everything was damp—but she built a shelter of overlapping branches and moss, angled against the wind. It wasn't pretty. It wasn't even warm.
But it was shelter.
And it was hers.
As she lay there curled against herself, the moonlight peeking between the pines, she finally allowed her thoughts to wander.
To the pack.
To Orion.
Her chest ached, a tight coil she couldn't unwind.
She didn't miss him.
But the rejection—public, cold, final—lingered like frost in her marrow. Every time she blinked, she saw the flicker of disbelief in his eyes. Not anger. Not even hatred.
Just refusal.
I reject you, Luna.
She pressed her face into the crook of her arm, biting down a sob.
The pack had treated her like nothing.
But she had believed in the bond.
And still, the Moon Goddess had chosen her.
The pain wasn't just in the rejection.
It was in realizing she had hoped.
The days bled into one another.
She rose at dawn. Foraged. Hunted—if it could be called that. Her first attempts at snares had been clumsy. Her knots failed, her traps collapsed. She spent an entire morning chasing a rabbit only for it to slip through a hole in the roots.
She hadn't eaten meat in three days when she finally caught one.
It squealed.
She froze.
Then snapped its neck cleanly.
Her hands trembled.
But she didn't cry.
That night, she cooked it over hot stones near the river, smoke curling skyward. She ate slowly, chewing each bite like it was a prayer. Not of gratitude.
Of endurance.
She would not apologize to the world for surviving.
On the eighth night, rain fell in sheets.
She tried to cover herself with bark and bramble, but her shelter collapsed under the weight of wet leaves. Drenched, cold, and shivering, she huddled beneath a fallen tree, her knees pulled to her chest.
She cursed the Moon Goddess.
Not aloud.
Just in her heart.
Why choose her, only to let her be broken?
Why give her a bond meant for protection, only to have it torn away?
She felt the old ache behind her ribs again, like a scar trying to speak.
She pressed her palm to her chest.
And for the first time—
She felt something answer.
It was subtle.
A warmth beneath her skin. A shimmer behind her eyes. She sat up slowly, heart racing. The rain blurred the world around her, but her senses sharpened in an unnatural way.
She smelled fire, though none burned nearby.
She heard whispers, though no one spoke.
And the wind—
The wind moved for her.
It parted the branches, slowed the rainfall around her shelter, as if shielding her with invisible hands. The cold fled from her skin. Her breath steadied.
It lasted less than a minute.
But it was real.
Power.
Not from rage.
Not from pain.
But from resilience.
The Moon Goddess hadn't abandoned her.
She was just waiting.
At dawn, Luna stood beside the stream, staring at her reflection.
Same face. Same eyes. Same girl.
But something had changed.
Her limbs felt stronger. Her instincts, sharper. The forest no longer felt like a trial—it felt like training.
And her blood, once fragile and doubted, now pulsed with something wild and ancient.
She wasn't weak.
She wasn't lost.
She was becoming.
Back in Moonshadow territory, a whisper traveled faster than the wind.
A rogue had been spotted along the southern ridge—young, female, matching Luna's description.
But she didn't look starved.
She didn't look broken.
She had stood on a cliff's edge, face turned to the wind, eyes glowing silver as the storm gathered.
And then she was gone again—vanishing into the wild like a shadow under moonlight.
Selene snarled when she heard.
"She's just trying to be seen. Stir up sympathy. I told you she wouldn't die easily."
Orion said nothing.
But he remembered the firelight in Luna's eyes the night she'd walked away.
The way she hadn't begged.
The way she had grown taller, somehow, in her grief.
He pressed a hand to his chest that night, alone in his den.
The bond hadn't snapped.
It had evolved.
She was still out there.
And she was rising.