Sage Pov:
Sage was lying in the dark when she heard the scratching.
It came from near the wardrobe, a soft scuffling sound. She sat up immediately, her heart racing. After what she'd seen in the village, after Elena's desperate plea, she was on edge. Everything felt dangerous. Everything felt like it could break her further.
The scratching happened again.
"Who's there?" she called out.
A small shape emerged from the shadows. A wolf cub. Small and trembling, with patchy gray fur and eyes that glowed soft brown in the darkness. He was the size of a large dog but moved like he was half-starved. When he saw her, he stopped and whimpered.
"I'm sorry," the cub said, and the fact that he could speak made her breath catch. "I didn't mean to scare you. I just... I needed..."
He couldn't finish the sentence. His whole body was shaking.
Sage's nursing instincts kicked in. She could see the fear, the grief, the desperate need in this animal. She moved slowly off the bed, giving him space.
"It's okay," she said gently. "You're safe. What's your name?"
"Lycan," the cub said softly. He sat down, his small body still trembling. "I live in the castle. I heard the servants talking about you. About the human Luna who might save everyone. I wanted to see if you were really here."
He looked so small. So utterly lost.
"I'm Sage," she said. She knelt down slowly, keeping her movements gentle. "How old are you, Lycan?"
"Eight," he said. "My parents died two months ago. The curse took them."
Sage's heart shattered.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered.
"Everyone is sad all the time," Lycan continued, his voice barely audible. "Nobody really looks at me anymore. They're too busy being sad or scared. But the servants said you might help. That you might be kind. Are you kind?"
The question was so simple. So devastatingly simple. A small orphaned child asking a stranger if she was kind.
"Yes," Sage said. "I'm kind."
She reached out slowly and Lycan didn't resist. She gently ran her hand over his patchy fur. He moved closer, pressing against her legs. Sage sat down on the floor and let him climb into her lap.
He was so small. So fragile. His fur was coarse and his body was thin underneath. He smelled like sadness and fear and something wild. She held him carefully, like he might break if she squeezed too hard.
"Can you stay with me?" Lycan asked. "For a little bit? Just so I'm not alone?"
"I'm not going anywhere," Sage said.
She sat on the cold stone floor with this orphaned wolf cub in her arms and felt something inside her crack completely. This was a person. Not a theoretical kingdom. Not statistics about dying children. This was Lycan, eight years old, whose parents had been taken by a curse he didn't cause and couldn't fight.
"Tell me about your parents," Sage said.
Lycan talked for a while. About his mother who made the best bread in the village. About his father who taught him to hunt. About family dinners where everyone was happy. About the day they started getting sick. About watching them fade day by day until they were gone.
He cried while telling the story. Silent tears that soaked into Sage's clothes.
She didn't try to make it better. She just held him and listened and let him grieve.
After a while, he was quiet. "Elder Morrigan told everyone that you're the only one who can save us," he said. "She said you have to become the Luna. That it's the only way."
"I know," Sage said.
"Are you going to do it?" Lycan asked. His voice was so small, so hopeful and terrified at the same time.
Sage couldn't answer. If she said no, she was choosing to let this child suffer. If she said yes, she was choosing to erase herself. Both answers were devastating.
"I'm trying to find a way," she said finally. "I promise I'm trying to find a way to save everyone without losing myself."
Lycan was quiet. Then he said, "I don't think there is another way. I heard Elder Morrigan talking to the Alpha King. She said the prophecy was absolute. That you're the only Luna who can break the curse."
"Then why are you here, Lycan?" Sage asked gently. "Why did you come to see me?"
"Because I was lonely," he said. "And the servants said you were kind. And I wanted to know that even if you became the Luna and lost yourself, that maybe the part of you that was kind would still be kind to us. To me."
Sage held him closer.
"I could never stop being kind to you," she said. "No matter what happens, no matter how much I change, I promise I would always be kind to you."
It was a promise she might not be able to keep. If the bond consumed her, if her personality was completely erased, she wouldn't be Sage anymore. There would be no "she" to be kind. But she said it anyway because this child needed to hear it.
Lycan shifted and pressed his small body against her chest. His breathing started to slow. Within minutes, he was asleep, his small form going limp in her arms.
Sage sat holding him in the dark, and something inside her changed completely.
She'd come to this kingdom telling herself she was a victim. A nurse who was forced into an impossible situation. Someone trapped by a prophecy she didn't believe in and a curse she didn't understand. She'd been thinking about herself, her freedom, her loss.
But holding Lycan asleep in her arms, she realized she wasn't a victim anymore.
She was a person who had to choose. And that choice was going to destroy her either way.
If she refused, children like Lycan would suffer and die. Their grief would be her fault. Their lost futures would be her responsibility.
If she accepted, she would lose herself. But maybe that was the point. Maybe her survival wasn't as important as theirs.
She looked at Lycan's small face, peaceful in sleep. At his patchy fur. At the way his small body was trusting her completely even though she was a stranger.
And Sage realized something terrifying.
She was starting to care about these people. Not out of obligation. Not out of guilt. But because they were real. Because they were suffering. Because Lycan was eight years old and orphaned and kind enough to ask if a stranger was kind.
How could she live with herself if she chose her freedom over his survival?
How could she face him knowing she'd chosen to let him become feral and lost to the curse?
The weight of that realization settled on her like a physical thing. She wasn't trapped anymore. She was choosing this. Not because she had to. But because somewhere between waking up in this castle and holding this small orphaned child, she had stopped being selfish.
She had started being someone who could sacrifice.
Sage held Lycan's sleeping form and cried silently. Not angry tears. Not desperate tears. Tears of someone who had just realized what she was going to do.
Tomorrow was the second day. Tomorrow she would tell Kael she accepted the bond.
She would give him what he needed. She would save his people. And she would watch herself disappear in the process.
But tonight, she would hold this child and be the kind person he believed she was.