Rain tapped the cabin roof like a steady drum. Selene woke to the sound, still caught between dream and memory. For a moment she thought she was back in the glade under the stones. Damp moss clung to her skin, and her fingers ached as if she’d been clawing the earth. She sat up slowly. Her cloak lay crumpled on the floor, wet and streaked with pine needles. She had no memory of walking back through the forest. Her wolf must have carried her here on instinct, but her mind was still at the stones.

Rowan’s voice echoed in her skull: I reject you, Selene of Silverfen. The words struck over and over, bruising her from within. She pressed a hand to her chest as if she could hold herself together.

Outside the window the pines swayed under the rain. Beyond them the mountain’s dark shape loomed like a wall. Thunder rumbled. Down the slope the pack’s settlement flickered with lights, half-hidden by mist. Even from this distance she felt their whispers, their curiosity, their pity.

“I should just leave,” she murmured. Her own voice startled her. “Run now and never look back.”

Her wolf stirred inside her, low and restless. Not yet.

She rose and moved around the cabin on autopilot, lighting the small hearth, hanging her cloak to dry. Every object in the single room seemed to carry a memory of Rowan — the carved wooden wolf he had once left on her shelf, the silver cup he had drunk from, the patch of floor where he had knelt after a battle. She turned her face away. “Why can’t I smash it all?” she whispered.

A knock at the door froze her.

She tensed. No one came here uninvited. Her wolf lifted its head, hackles rising. She stepped silently to the door and cracked it open.

A girl stood on the stoop, no more than seventeen, braid soaked from the rain. Selene knew her from the healer’s apprentices. “Mira? What are you doing here?”

Mira’s eyes darted around the clearing. She shoved a damp envelope into Selene’s hands. “They told me to give you this. I didn’t see who it was.” Her voice shook. “They said it’s for you alone.”

“Who?” Selene demanded, but the girl was already backing away. “Mira, wait—”

“I can’t. They’ll know.” Mira turned and vanished into the trees.

Selene shut the door and bolted it. Her hands trembled as she held the envelope to the light. No seal. No name. Just a faint scent she couldn’t place — wolf, but not any from Silverfen. She tore it open.

Inside lay a single sheet of parchment, the writing jagged as if scratched in haste:

> You’re not safe. Leave before the next moonrise. He didn’t choose this. He’s bound. And you—

The message broke off in a spatter of ink. In the bottom corner, a sigil had been drawn: a circle with three claw marks slashing through it. Her stomach turned cold. She had seen that mark once before on the border woods, carved into a dead elk’s hide. An outlaw clan, rumoured to deal in blood magic.

She read the note again and again until the words blurred. He didn’t choose this. Her wolf’s ears pricked at the phrase. Bound. Was that what she had felt on the dais — the invisible chain pulling at him, the way his eyes had flickered?

Thunder cracked overhead. She shoved the note into the fire, but the flames burned green for a moment before swallowing it. The smell of sage and iron filled the cabin. She coughed and pushed the window open.

Below in the settlement the pack’s bells began to toll, slow and heavy. Her heart lurched. Those bells meant only one thing: a summons to the Alpha’s Hall. Rowan was calling his wolves.

A sudden dizzy spell took her. A strange warmth spread in her abdomen, her wolf reacting oddly. This is my chance. I could slip away now. Take this strange new ache inside me and run.

Her wolf’s answer came sharp as a claw: Truth first. Then run.

She dressed quickly in dark clothes, tying her hair back. Her fingers brushed the sprig of moonwort still in her cloak pocket. It should have withered by now but it pulsed faintly, silver veins alive under her touch. She tucked it into her belt.

The bells tolled again. She squared her shoulders. “Fine,” she whispered. “One last look. One last answer. Then I’m gone.”

She slipped out into the rain. The path down the slope was slick, the air sharp with ozone. Wolves passed her in the shadows, eyes glowing. Some stared but none spoke. She caught fragments of whispered fear:

> “Did you see the chains?”

“They say he’s cursed.”

“Blood-magic…”

The mountain loomed closer with each step, its face streaked with waterfalls from the storm. The world felt different, thinner, as if some veil had been torn.

By the time she reached the outskirts of the Hall the crowd had gathered. Torches flickered along the stone steps, their flames bending in the wind. The great doors of black oak stood open, spilling gold light onto the wet stones. Selene pressed herself against a pillar, hidden among the ferns, and peered inside.

Rowan stood at the dais, but not like she remembered. Chains of silver coiled around his wrists and neck, runes glowing where the metal touched his skin. He was on his knees, head bowed. Three figures in dark cloaks stood behind him, their faces hidden. One of them raised a curved blade inscribed with the outlaw sigil.

Selene’s breath caught. The note’s words echoed: He didn’t choose this. He’s bound. Her wolf slammed against her ribs, desperate to intervene. She was not just looking at betrayal; she was looking at a ritual of power theft — blood magic older than the pack itself.

She whispered to herself, “If I’m going to run, it’s now or never…”

One of the cloaked figures turned as if sensing her, and beneath the hood she glimpsed a flash of amber eyes she knew far too well.

Selene’s heart stopped. Of all the faces she might have expected under that hood, this one was the last. Her nails bit into her palms as the realization struck like lightning.

The blade came down. Rowan roared.

Selene burst from the ferns.