ARIA VALEN POV
The scar on my shoulder woke me before the moon did. It was a dull itch, like dry skin remembered, and when I dragged my hand over it the pain slid under my skin like a small animal. I bit back the sound that wanted to leave my throat and sat up. The dorm was quiet, the hallway outside hummed with the distant breath of sleeping students. Even so, the world inside me felt loud, wilder than the stones and torchlight around the academy.
I told myself to sleep, I told myself to breathe, neither worked. So I dressed in dark clothes, a thin cloak, and slipped out into the night. The campus at this hour felt honest, the wards we trained under hummed low, like the belly of a sleeping beast, I could move without being stared at, I could let the wolf step closer, even if only a little.
The clearing behind Combat Hall was a place I found when I needed to be alone. It had a ring of stones carved with old runes, no one came here often, tonight it was empty except for silver grass and a full moon haloed by thin clouds. I walked to the center and dropped to my knees, my breath froze white in the cold, my hands found the rune-etched stones and I closed my eyes.
The wolf stirred.
It wasn't the animal I'd been taught to expect. It was older at its core, huge in my mind, not in form. It nipped at my thoughts like a clever child. Claim, it said, not entirely in words, not yet, but come, feel the moon.
I let the words sink in without arguing. The wolf had its own hunger, It had its own memory of fire and exile. It never spoke for me, not exactly, It spoke around me, through me, and sometimes through the scar that had once been a brand.
I rose slowly and began the shift.
The first breath was the hardest. My bones loosened and tightened like a key fitting a lock, my vision sharpened until the blades of grass were fine as knitting thread. Sounds layered themselves, leaves trading whispers, insects beating small drums, the distant pulse of the wards, my skin cooled as fur traced the shape of my arms. The world slipped to a different weight, I was not human and not only human, I was a memory moving forward.
I ran.
My paws, my feet, hit the earth in time with the moon. The clearing opened to the forest beyond, and I moved into the trees as if I had never been away. The wolf in me tasted the air and found other things besides pine and damp, there was residue of human life, candles from a late-night council meeting, the faint odor of a warm tea cup and then there was something darker, a hint of iron and a shadow that did not belong.
A figure slid between trunks like a shadow that had learned how to breathe. I slowed, hackles raising. It was not an academy guard. It moved like someone who hid too well. For a heartbeat my wolf wanted to rush, to signal and take it down. Instead I held the shift at the edge and watched.
"Aria."
The name shouldn't have sounded like it did, soft and sure, but it did. That voice came from the dark, a small light bloomed and I saw his face, Elias, up to his usual trouble of being where he should not be when he had no business. He held a lantern in one hand and something else in the other, his gauntlet, the rune light dimmed, he wore no armor, his eyes were not surprised, they were steady, like someone who had seen worse and kept walking.
"You shouldn't be here," I managed, voice thick with fur and moon.
"You should know better than to shift here," he said. His tone had no accusation, just a fact. He set the lantern down and stepped into the open, the light painted long shadows across his face. "But I'm glad you did."
My wolf hummed a low note of suspicion. Guard him, it warned, or let him close.
Elias stopped a few paces away, hands lifted to show he held no threat. "I followed you," he said simply. "I heard you leave, I didn't want you to be alone." His words were clumsy and honest, I felt my throat tighten at the kindness of it.
I should have pushed him away, I should have made him leave, Instead I let myself breathe. The moon made him look softer, less sharpened by duty, his jaw was uncommitted, his wolf scent moved around me like a friendly draft.
"You could be hurt," he added. "Anyone could see."
"We're under wards," I said. Truth, the runes kept most eyes away. "It's safe enough."
"Safe doesn't mean quiet," he said. "There's been movement, the kind I don't like, you're powerful now, Ava, Aria, however you want me to say it, that draws attention."
He used my alias as if it belonged to me. Innately, I loved how he could say both names and make them equal.
The wolf inside my chest gave a sharp, amused sound. Watch him, it said, he will not flinch when the moon gets loud.
Elias crouched and planted his palms on the soil, close enough to touch my muzzle if I wanted him to, the wolf leaned forward as if to taste his courage, he closed his own eyes for a moment, and when he opened them they were clearer, like rain-washed glass.
"I know parts of you," he said. "Not all, not the worst, but I know enough to keep coming back, you don't have to hide the whole thing from me."
My shoulder prickled. The scar seared, a bright memory, I thought of Kael and how his rejection had been a serrated knife, I thought of Celene's smirk and the council's cold decision. The world outside this clearing wanted definitions, I wanted something softer.
"Why are you here, Elias?" I asked, though we both knew.
He smiled that small, honest smile he used when he wanted me to stop fighting him. "Because you left a place at my table, and I don't like empty seats." He lifted his hand, and finally, gently, he reached, his fingers hovered above my fur. He did not touch it like some claim, he was touched like someone who wanted permission.
I bowed my head and let him place his palm on the side of my face, his warmth bled through fur and hide and human skin. The wolf pressed into him like it had found a home it hadn't known it missed.
"You should never have been cast out," Elias said quietly. "Not like that, not by him."
Heat rose in my chest. Isaiah may have been another life, Kael's name clung to me like old smoke.
"He's not the only one with blood to answer for," I murmured.
Elias didn't push, he remained there, at my side, steady. "We'll find who holds the needle, we'll pull it out."
The wolf spoke again, but this time fewer words. Keep him close, let him learn the sound of your rest, It was not gentle, but it wasn't cruel either, It was matter-of-fact. The wolf wanted an ally, It recognized Elias and liked him.
I let out a low breath that sounded like a laugh. "You talk like my pack is a math problem."
He grinned. "Better than a puzzle." His eyes shone. "And I'm not just offering words, I can track, I can learn runes, I can stand in a ring and take blows, or give them."
I weighed those words like stones. I had been alone for so long that the company felt dangerous, yet when I thought of the night I had been dragged out beyond the ridge, of the cold and the crawl back to life, it was not strength alone I wanted, It was something smaller and truer, a hand that would not let go.
"Okay," I said finally, my voice shook. "But if you tell anyone, if you speak of this to the council, I will leave, I'll change my name again and go."
He nodded slowly, solemn as a pledge. "I won't."
He waited as if he had sworn to the moon itself, I lowered my head and rested my forehead against his open palm. The wolf hummed, satisfied, the world felt less sharp.
When I shifted back into skin and bone, he didn't flinch, he simply wrapped his cloak around me without a question, like the kind of friend who understood outer armor matters less than the fact you had any.
"You'll get cold," he said simply. Warmth seeped through the cloth, the scar on my shoulder ached in the cool air, but the ache was less raw now, softened by small human touch.
Back in the dorm, we walked in silence with the moon following. The academy slept around us, walls, wards, secrets, but for the first time since I had returned, I felt seen by someone and still whole. Elias's presence was not a bandage, It was an offering.
Outside my window, the moon was a bright coin, turning the world silver. My wolf settled like an old animal at the foot of my bed, purring in my mind, not yet claimed, not yet bound but not alone.
I closed my eyes and fell into a softer sleep, with the echo of his words lingering: I won't tell them.