The courtyard's noise swelled to a pitch that made Luna's wolf flinch.
Shouts layered over howls. Somewhere metal clanged against stone. The air thickened with that charged, brittle feeling that sat on the edge between panic and violence.
Crisis had a taste, she'd learned in the Rogue Lands.
Sharp.
Bitter.
Like lightning chewing on copper.
Here, it flooded her tongue.
At the inner hall doorway, the little girl—Lina—still lay motionless on the stone. Her mother had collapsed beside her, sobbing into hands streaked with ash.
Around them, a loose ring of wolves had formed, their expressions twisted in a mix of fear, helplessness, and—on some faces—hard, ugly detachment.
One of the elders' acolytes stepped forward, lips pressed into a thin line of pious grief.
"The Goddess has taken her," he announced, voice shaking only slightly. "We must not—"
"Shut up," someone snarled.
Rhea.
She'd cut through the crowd on instinct, shoving bodies aside with a snarl, dropping to one knee beside mother and pup.
Her scarred hands hovered, not quite touching Lina.
"What happened?" she demanded, eyes flicking to the mother's face.
"It—she—" the woman stammered, words tumbling over each other. "She just *stopped.* She was walking, then she—her eyes—"
Her voice broke.
Rhea looked up, scanning the courtyard, jaw clenched so hard a muscle twitched in her cheek.
"This is the third," she said, loud enough for the elders, for Orion, for *everyone* to hear.
Her gaze found the Alpha.
"We are not losing pups to a *draft,*" she snapped. "Don't tell me this is just 'testing our faith' again."
Maera's mouth opened, drawing breath for another smooth deflection.
A fresh crack raced down the wall behind her like a dark lightning bolt.
Stone dust rained from the balcony.
The acolyte flinched.
Maera shut her mouth with an audible click.
Torches flickered, their flames jumping sideways, suddenly whipped by a gust that hadn't been there a heartbeat before.
Wind.
It slid across the courtyard floor, coiling around Luna's ankles like an impatient dog.
*Now,* it whispered.
Not in words.
In pressure.
In the way it tugged at her, pushing her gently out of the safety of the wall's shadow.
Her heart slammed once against her ribs.
She'd promised herself she wouldn't rush blindly.
This wasn't blind.
Lina's still chest.
The mother's broken sobs.
The pack's eyes snapping toward the smallest, easiest thing to blame.
She could see it forming in the glances, in the whispers curling like smoke.
The weak child.
The weak mother.
The "softness" that had "invited" the curse.
If someone didn't step in now, with something other than platitudes and blame, this moment would harden into another scar in Moonshadow's story—another excuse to carve out compassion in the name of survival.
Luna pushed away from the wall.
Every part of her screamed.
The girl who had once crept along these same stones, hoping desperately to go unseen, tugged at her, begging her to blend back into the dark.
The woman she'd become stepped forward anyway.
The first few strides were the hardest.
Once she'd left the deepest shadow, it was easier to keep going than to stop.
The nearest wolves stiffened as she emerged, instinctively shifting their weight, hackles half-rising.
They didn't recognize her at first.
Why would they?
She walked differently now.
Straighter.
Her gaze didn't slide away; it cut, then held.
Her clothes were travel-worn, not Moonshadow-issue, layered for practicality, not for status.
The air around her hummed.
Power rose, not because she forced it, but because it *always* did now when she stepped toward something that hurt.
Torches on the nearest wall flared as she passed, flames leaping higher, bending toward her like flowers toward sun.
Luna's eyes—pale green shot through with silver—caught that light and held it.
She crossed half the courtyard before anyone said her name.
It wasn't one of the elders.
Not Orion.
Not Selene.
A pup's voice, thin and astonished, broke the air.
"Luna?"
A little boy, no older than Lina, stared at her from behind his mother's leg, eyes huge.
He'd been barely walking when she left.
How did he—
Then Luna recognized the shape of his ears, the set of his jaw.
Tomas.
He'd followed her around the kitchens once, sticky fingers grabbing at her skirts, asking endless questions. She'd cleaned his faces more times than she could count.
He tugged at his mother's sleeve now, pointing, voice pitching higher.
"Mama, it's Luna. The *storm* Luna."
The word rippled out—picked up, repeated, warped.
"Luna?"
"Storm Luna?"
"The omega—?"
"—the runt?"
"—the one Orion—"
Murmurs swelled, cresting over the courtyard.
Heads turned.
Bodies shifted.
Attention, which had been scattered between Lina, the cracks, the balcony, swung like a great, slow beast and fixed on her.
Luna kept walking.
Her heart raced so hard she could feel it in her fingertips.
Her mouth was dry.
She did not let her stride falter.
By the time she reached the circle around Lina and her mother, the noise had dropped to a thick, almost tangible hush.
Only the crackle of torches and the ragged sound of breathing filled it.
Rhea rose halfway to her feet as Luna approached, instinctive challenge flaring in her stance.
Then her nostrils flared.
Recognition widened her eyes.
"By the Goddess," she breathed. "You're… back."
"Seemed impolite to let you all die without saying hello," Luna said, voice steady in a way that surprised even her.
Rhea huffed a shocked laugh that ended in a choked sound.
Behind Luna, Elia slipped out of the shadows and took up a position at her shoulder—not in front, not behind.
Beside.
"Picked up a stray at the border," Elia announced to no one in particular, voice dry. "Figured she might be useful."
A few wolves snorted, the startled sound like coughing.
Orion had gone still near the center of the yard.
Luna could feel the weight of his gaze on her back between her shoulder blades, hot and disbelieving.
She didn't turn to meet it.
Not yet.
Her first step was not to him.
It was to the child.
She knelt beside Lina, the cold of the stone biting through her trouser knees.
Up close, the girl's stillness was worse.
Her small chest rose and fell, but shallowly, each inhale barely a sip.
Her eyes stared straight ahead, pupils slightly blown, irises a dull brown-ringed grey—not alive, not fully gone.
Shadow clung at the corners of her mouth, her nostrils, like soot.
Her mother stiffened as Luna's hand reached toward her daughter.
"Don't," she whispered, voice hoarse with fear. "You'll… you'll make it worse. They said don't touch, once they go like this—"
"'They' are cowards who don't know what to do," Elia cut in sharply from above. "Let her try."
The woman's eyes jerked up.
Recognition hit there too.
"Luna?" she whispered. "Little Luna? The… the kitchen girl?"
"Not so little anymore," Luna said gently. "May I?" She nodded toward Lina's hand.
The mother hesitated.
Every muscle in her seemed pulled taut between refusal and desperate hope.
Then, with a small sob, she drew in a breath and nodded.
"Please," she whispered. "Please."
Luna's heart squeezed.
She took Lina's small, cold hand between both of hers.
Shadow-bit burned her skin faintly where their contact bridged.
She ignored it.
Closed her eyes.
Spread her awareness along the narrow arm, up into the girl's body.
It felt like pushing her hands into slushy snow and hitting pockets of ice.
Her healer-thread flared bright, eager, terrified.
*Easy,* she murmured inward. *Gentle. We're not ripping. We're warming. Asking.*
She'd ripped with Kade, dragged soul and shadow apart with storm.
That had almost shredded her.
This was different.
A child's soul.
Soft.
New.
She couldn't yank at it the same way.
She reached instead for the warmth she'd found in herself when she'd laid hands on the wounded fox in the Rogue Lands—the part of her that soothed instead of scorched.
It slid down her arms now in a golden thrum, tingling her fingers.
The shadow in Lina's veins twitched.
It didn't surge toward her, not like it had with Kade.
It had already settled, seeping into the girl's small body like cold in wet fur.
"Lina," Luna whispered, not aloud, but into that space where she felt soul and shadow meet.
The name carried on the warmth, a thread of sound weaving through the grey.
"Little moon," she added, half on instinct. "Come back."
A flicker.
So faint she almost missed it.
Like the tremor of a leaf in no wind.
Encouraged, she pushed a fraction more warmth into that tangled space.
Not enough to burn.
Enough to irritate.
The shadow recoiled slightly, fluttering at its edges.
"Come on," she coaxed. "We're not leaving you here in this cold hall. There's still mischief to make. Food to steal. Wolves to annoy."
Her own childhood, denied those things, poured into her words.
She would *not* see this little girl lose them too.
Around her, the courtyard held its breath.
She could feel eyes on her—curious, skeptical, hostile, hopeful.
She did not look up.
Did not let herself meet Selene's narrowed gaze, or Maera's pursed disapproval, or Orion's raw astonishment.
Lina's fingers twitched.
Very small.
Very real.
Her mother choked on a sob.
"Did you see—?" she gasped.
"Shh," Luna murmured, still focused inward. "She's listening."
The shadow wriggled again, more urgently now.
It hated the warmth.
Hated the soft insistence.
It liked the quiet of frozen souls.
Luna pressed more of herself into that narrow connection.
She felt it take from her: not storm-power, not lightning, but something more basic.
Care.
It hurt, in a different way than the curse-bite.
An ache under her ribs, a hollowing.
Like pouring water from a too-small cup and seeing how far it could stretch.
"Lina," she said, voice firming. "Wake up."
The girl's chest hitched.
Once.
Twice.
Then, with a shudder that ran from her toes to her crown, she *gasped.*
Air rushed into small lungs.
Her back arched.
Her eyes blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Color flooded back into her irises, chasing the dull grey out.
She focused on Luna's face first—pale, too-bright green eyes inches from her own.
Then on her mother's, hovering just beyond.
"Mama?" she croaked.
Her voice was small.
Thin.
Alive.
Her mother broke, collapsing over her, sobs tearing out of her like something physically ripped free.
The ring of wolves around them shuddered as if a single breath had passed through all their chests.
A sound rippled out—disbelieving exhale, low whines, murmurs.
Rhea swore softly under her breath.
"By the moon," she said. "She… *brought her back.*"
Lina's mother clutched at Luna's sleeve with one hand, the other fisted in her daughter's tunic.
"Thank you," she sobbed. "Goddess, thank you, thank you—"
"Thank Her, not me," Luna said, panting slightly, lightheaded.
Her hands trembled where they still cradled Lina's.
Up close, she could feel the remnants of shadow buried deeper in the girl—a faint, cold residue in her bones.
Not gone.
But pushed back.
Walled off.
"It's not… completely out," Luna said softly, more to herself than to anyone else. "But it's not eating her, either."
"Semantics," Elia muttered dryly. "She's breathing and looking at her mother. That's miracle enough for one evening."
Luna let herself smile—brief, fierce—down at the little girl.
Lina blinked up at her, still dazed.
"Who… are you?" she whispered.
Luna's chest twisted.
"An omega who got tired of being quiet," she said.
The courtyard exhaled again.
This time, the sound carried different notes: awe, fear, resentment, wonder.
"Luna." Orion's voice, low and rough, cut through it all.
She felt his eyes on her like a physical weight.
Slowly, deliberately, she rose from her crouch.
Her knees protested.
Her head swam.
She turned.
They faced each other across the courtyard for the first time since he'd torn her life in half.
Firelight painted strange shadows across his face, catching in the new lines at his eyes, in the tension of his jaw.
His gaze traveled over her—boots, travel-worn clothes, the faint shimmering field of power that still crackled faintly around her fingers.
His nostrils flared, scent dragging over the new notes in her: storm, wild, grove, rogue, Goddess.
He looked stunned.
And something else.
Wrecked.
She held his eyes.
Did not lower hers.
Did not bow.
"Alpha," she said, neutral.
A murmur shivered through the watching wolves at the tone.
It wasn't deferent.
It wasn't mocking.
It acknowledged his rank.
It did *not* offer him her throat.
He took a step toward her.
Then another.
Selene, who had remained just behind his shoulder, moved with him automatically, then stopped when she realized he was not stopping three steps away, not pausing to let her interpose herself.
He kept coming until he stood a few paces from her.
Close enough that if she reached out, she could have touched the scar along his left forearm, the one he'd earned in a border fight when they'd both been barely more than pups.
She did not reach.
Up close, the silver in his irises was clearer.
Not full.
Threaded.
Fraying.
The curse had its fingers in him, but he'd held onto enough of himself to stand here, to command, to *feel*.
"Luna," he said again.
Her name sounded different in his mouth now.
Not like a problem to be managed.
Like something pulled from a deep ache.
Behind him, Selene spoke, too quickly.
"The runt returns," she drawled, loud enough for the nearby wolves to hear. "Right when the wind howls loudest. How… dramatic."
Her eyes narrowed, lips curving in that familiar, cutting half-smile.
"Did the Rogue Lands finally spit you back out, little Luna?" she purred. "Or did you get tired of being alone?"
Luna turned her head slowly.
Met Selene's gaze.
For a heartbeat, they simply *looked* at each other.
The last time they'd faced off, Luna had been on her knees, snow soaking through her leggings, cheeks burning from slaps and taunts.
Selene had loomed, flawless, untouchable, her cruelty an unchallenged truth.
Now, under the torches' yellow flicker, the fine lines at the corners of Selene's eyes were sharper.
The perfect smoothness around her mouth marred by tiny grooves carved from years of scheming frowns.
The confidence was still there.
So was the rot beneath it.
Luna let her gaze travel slowly up and down Selene—cloak, braid, clenched jaw, hand possessively tight on Orion's forearm.
Then she smiled.
Not sweet.
Not submissive.
A small, edged thing.
"I went looking for a place the moon could see me," she said evenly. "Turns out it was never these walls. It was always the sky."
A ripple passed through the courtyard.
Some wolves smirked, quickly hiding it.
Others sucked in sharp breaths.
Selene's eyes flashed.
"I see your tongue still runs ahead of your station," she said, voice silken and dangerous. "Stormtricks and parlor games do not make you a wolf of worth, little one."
"Parlor game," Elia muttered under her breath. "She calls pulling a pup out of shadow a *parlor game.* I'd like to see her magic us up a stew without burning it."
Luna didn't look at Elia, but gratitude for the older woman's muttering steadied her.
"Maybe not," Luna said aloud, still holding Selene's gaze. "But I'm not the one whose 'worth' has left the pack bleeding at its own gate."
A low "ooh" hissed through a cluster of younger wolves.
Rhea's mouth twitched.
Rebel snorted softly, then quickly covered it with a cough.
Selene's mask cracked.
For an instant, raw fury showed through—the same feral anger Luna had known in private, now perilously close to public.
She opened her mouth, eyes sparking.
Before she could spit whatever venom she'd prepared, a sound ripped through the courtyard.
A deep, resonant *BOOM* from the western wall.
The earth trembled.
Wolves staggered.
A section of the parapet sagged dangerously as stone dust puffed out in a thick cloud.
Shouts rose: "West wall!" "Bloodfangs!" "The crack—Goddess, *move!*"
Chaos swelled again, louder, rawer.
Rhea was already moving, grabbing the nearest half-capable wolf by the collar and dragging him toward the west gate.
"On your feet!" she barked. "If you can stand, you can snarl. Let's go!"
Rebel sprinted in the opposite direction, shouting orders to shore up the eastern flank.
Selene's attention snapped toward the new crisis, fury momentarily overridden by opportunity.
"See?" she hissed to Orion. "This is what I've been saying. We can't waste time on miracles and rants from runts. We need bodies at the walls."
Her hand tightened on his arm.
"Send her back where she came from," she urged, dropping her voice so only those closest could hear. "She'll only divide them. They barely respect you now; bring back the rejected mate and they'll—"
Orion moved.
Not away from Luna.
Between her and Selene.
His hand caught Selene's wrist again, firmer this time.
"Enough," he said.
The word carried an Alpha's weight.
It rolled across the courtyard, cutting through the jumble of noise, snagging on ears attuned to command.
Selene's brows shot up.
"Orion—" she began.
He didn't look at her.
His gaze stayed locked on Luna.
"You healed the pup," he said, voice rough and too even, as if he were forcing every word past something thick in his throat. "Can you do that again? For others. For more."
Luna held his stare.
"I can pull some back," she said. "Not all. Not without breaking myself. And I can't touch the curse in the walls alone."
Murmurs rose again.
*Curse.*
Spoken aloud.
By *her.*
By someone who had clearly *fought* it.
Maera stiffened on the balcony, scandalized.
Kerran's eyes closed briefly, as if in resignation.
Selene's lips thinned.
"We don't even *know* that this is the runt," she snapped. "Magic tricks and a familiar face—any rogue could walk in here and—"
"Elia?" Orion's voice cut across hers, still not looking away from Luna. "Is this Luna?"
Elia snorted, folding her arms.
"I've only been wiping her nose and tripping over her since she was barely taller than a porridge pot," she said. "If this is an imposter, the Goddess has started copying our flaws just to amuse Herself."
A nervous ripple of laughter flickered through the crowd.
Orion's nostrils flared again, dragging in her scent once more, as if confirming with instinct what his mind struggled to accept.
"Luna," he said, her name again, softer. "Why are you here?"
She could have said: *Because the Goddess sent me.*
Because the wind carried the pack's screams.
Because the land around your borders begged.
Because I was tired of running from shadows.
All of those were true.
None of them would land in the way these wolves needed to hear.
She let herself feel the weight of the courtyard—the blood, the fear, the hushed awe from pups, the wild hope from a few, the simmering resentment from others.
Then she spoke in a voice that carried without shouting, clear and level.
"Because your walls are cracking," she said. "Because your pups are slipping into shadow while your elders blame them for it. Because rogues circle like crows. Because the land itself is choking on what you brought into it."
Her words struck like small stones, each finding its target.
Selene's eyes narrowed to slits.
Maera stiffened.
Rhea's chin lifted.
Rebel's jaw clenched.
"But mostly," Luna went on, and now her voice shook, not with fear, but with something fiercer, "because if this curse spills past *your* borders, it will poison everything it touches. Rogues. Other packs. Rivers. Groves. The Moonstone. The wild that finally started to trust me."
She lifted her chin.
"I won't let that happen," she said. "Not when I can stop it. Not when it started here."
Silence fell like a dropped shroud.
Even the distant crash from the west wall seemed muffled for a heartbeat.
Orion swallowed, Adam's apple bobbing.
"Started here?" he echoed, hoarse.
Luna held his gaze.
He knew.
On some level, in the bone-deep place he shoved his feelings, he had to know that the curse's first tendrils had crept in the moment he'd stood on this very ground and told the Goddess "no" to Her chosen bond.
She wasn't going to spare him that truth.
But she also wasn't here to punish him alone.
She took a slow breath.
Let her power rise—not as a wild surge, but as a deliberate unveiling.
The wind, which had been tugging at her cloak and hair, swelled.
It circled her in a visible spiral, catching sparks from the nearest torches. Those tiny embers raced around her in a loose halo, bright against the encroaching dark.
The flames themselves responded, leaning toward her, stretching, flaring.
Heat warmed her cheeks.
Her hair lifted, black strands rippling as if underwater.
Lightning flickered and danced softly over her skin, fine as spider silk, visible now to every eye.
The little moon in her chest—the Goddess' touch—beat hard, its glow a pressure she could almost feel pushing against her ribs.
She did not call down a storm.
She didn't need to.
Her presence here, in this courtyard, in this body, with these gifts, was storm enough.
Gasps rippled through the wolves.
A pup squealed, clapping small hands over his mouth.
"Moon," someone whispered reverently.
"Witch," someone else hissed, half-afraid.
Selene's face had gone very still.
For the first time since Luna had known her, something like *uncertainty* cracked her mask.
Orion stared as if he'd been struck.
His eyes reflected the dancing lightning on her skin, silver on silver.
"Goddess," he breathed, the word not blasphemy, not rote prayer.
Awe.
Luna lifted her right hand, palm up.
A little ember of lightning bloomed there—a small, contained sphere of pale white-blue, crackling softly, bright enough to stain her fingers in stark light.
With her left hand, she reached back without looking.
Elia's rough, familiar hand slid into it without hesitation.
Their fingers laced.
Grounding.
She lifted their joined hands a fraction.
"I am not your Alpha," she said, her voice carrying over the crackle and the wind-whisper. "I am not your elder. I am not your mate." Her eyes flicked briefly—unavoidably—to Orion, then back to the wider pack. "I am the runt you cast out who learned how to listen to the storm instead of your insults."
She lowered her hands.
The winds calmed slightly, enough for everyone to hear her next words clearly.
"I won't beg you to trust me," she said. "You've already proven you can't recognize worth when it stands in front of you."
A few wolves flinched.
She didn't soften it.
"I'm not here to reclaim a place you never gave," she went on. "I'm here to stop this pack from falling apart so violently that it takes everything else with it."
Her gaze swept them all—the balcony, the courtyard, the shadowed arches.
"Help me," she said simply, "or get out of my way."
The last word cracked the air like a whip.
For a long heartbeat, nothing moved.
Then the courtyard shifted, tectonic, hearts and loyalties realigning—or refusing.
Rhea slapped a fist to her chest, eyes fierce.
"You want rogues held back and walls patched from the *outside,* storm-girl?" she called. "I'm there. We've been missing someone who knows which way the wind is blowing."
Rebel hesitated, tension written in every line of him.
Then he nodded once, sharp.
"I don't like being told what to do by pups," he said. "But I like losing wolves less. If you can keep more from walking into those cracks, I'll hold the lines you point at."
A murmur of agreement rose from some of the warriors clustered near him.
On the balcony, Maera looked ready to faint with indignation.
Kerran only stared, hollow gaze flicking from Luna to Orion and back, as if finally seeing two halves of an equation he'd tried to solve with old math.
Selene's lip curled.
"This is madness," she spat. "You stand there, drenched in foreign magic, insulting the pack that raised you, and expect us to fall at your feet? You're one wolf. You'll burn out and leave a bigger mess, and *we* will pay."
Luna met her eyes.
"You've been making a mess for years," she said quietly. "I'm just here to stop it from spreading."
Selene's nostrils flared.
Her hand twitched, as if itching to strike.
Orion moved again, not away from Luna, not toward Selene.
Between them again.
His shoulders were squared, but his hands were open at his sides, empty.
He looked at Luna, throat working.
"You came back," he said, as if that were the biggest miracle of all. "After everything we did. After what I did."
Luna's heart squeezed.
Old wounds flared.
New power hummed.
"Yes," she said simply. "Not for you."
The words hit him like a physical blow.
He flinched.
Did not look away.
"For them," she added, nodding toward Lina, toward the pups, toward the thin, scarred wolves lining the yard. "For the land. For the Goddess who didn't give up on you even when you told Her 'no.'"
He swallowed.
Closed his eyes for a heartbeat.
When he opened them, the silver in them glowed stronger.
Not curse-silver.
Moon-silver.
For the first time since she'd stepped into the courtyard, some of the ancient arrogance had fallen from his face.
What was left looked… raw.
Scared.
Determined.
"Then let us… try again," he said, voice barely above a whisper—and yet heard by every wolf there.
"Not as mates," Luna said, the words quick, sharp, before he—or anyone—could twist them into something else. "Not yet. Maybe not ever. As… allies. Until this curse is broken or we are."
The quiet in the courtyard deepened.
Selene's eyes widened, a flicker of real panic flashing there.
If Luna and Orion stood even partially on the same side, her own foothold slipped.
"Ally?" Orion echoed, like he was tasting a new word.
Luna nodded once.
Wind lifted her hair again, tugging in assent.
"First," she said, glancing toward the west wall where another crash sounded, "we keep your walls from falling tonight."
She looked back at him, at the pack.
"After that," she added, "we start pulling your souls out of the cracks you helped dig."
It wasn't a promise of forgiveness.
It wasn't a vow of love.
It was a line.
A starting point.
The crisis outside howled, pressing for attention.
Inside, firelight flickered over a courtyard where, for the first time in a long time, something other than fear filled the air.
Storm.
Possibility.
Change.
Luna turned, power coiling in her muscles, in her bones, in the very wind.
"West wall," she said.
Rhea and Rebel were already moving.
Elia squeezed her hand once, then let go, letting Luna go where the pack—and the curse—burned hottest.
Selene watched her go, eyes narrowed, lips drawn back from her teeth in a silent snarl.
Orion watched too, something like hope and terror braided in his gaze.
Every torch around them burned brighter as Luna strode toward the failing flank of the pack she had once crawled through like a ghost.
This time, she didn't creep.
She walked in firelight, lightning humming at her fingertips, the Goddess' touch in her chest, making her presence known to every wolf who had ever doubted her—and to the darkness that had mistaken this pack for an easy meal.