Mist drifted low across the glade, carrying the scent of wet pine and moonwort. Selene knelt by the warding circle she had carved into the earth, palms pressed flat, eyes closed. Power hummed faintly under her skin like silver fire. When she exhaled, the glow from the runes brightened, answering her pulse.

Three weeks had passed since the night of the intruder. Since then she had trained until her body ached, rising with the dawn, running the perimeter, practicing the slow draw and release of her wolf without shifting fully. Her movements had grown sharper, her senses quicker. Yet the cabin felt emptier each morning.

Sometimes the air shivered with her child’s presence. A breath of wind that moved against the current, a sparkle of frost when she wasn’t cold, a flicker of someone else’s memory , a hand on a silver chain, a room she had never seen. She would blink and it would be gone. The Wild Bond, she thought, though she didn’t yet have a name for it.

Today the glade was silent but for the whisper of water from the creek. Selene rose, sweat on her temples, brushing dirt from her palms. She tightened the wards Eira had taught her, muttering the soft tune under her breath. Alone again, she wondered how much longer the healer would stay gone.

A raven’s croak broke the quiet. Selene looked up. A black shape wheeled once above the trees and disappeared to the west. Her wolf twitched inside her, uneasy.

She turned back toward the cabin and stopped.

A figure was moving through the mist between the pines. Not the intruder. Not Kael. This one walked with a limp, cloak heavy with rain, a satchel of herbs dragging at one shoulder.

“Eira…” Selene breathed.

The healer stepped into the clearing. She looked smaller than Selene remembered, hair damp and loose, eyes shadowed with exhaustion. Her hands trembled as she set the satchel down. “You’ve grown stronger,” she said simply. Her voice was rough from travel.

Selene didn’t move at first. Part of her wolf still bristled, waiting for a trick. “You were gone a long time.”

“A healer’s duty doesn’t end when storms rise.” Eira’s gaze swept the glade, taking in the new wards, the circles traced in salt. “You’ve been working.”

Selene nodded once. “I had to.”

Inside the cabin, Eira moved with deliberate slowness, hanging her cloak, unpacking bundles of roots and dried blossoms. Selene watched from the corner, arms crossed. The fire popped softly in the hearth.

“I brought new things from the northern groves,” Eira said. “Crow’s-root for fever, silvercap for control. We’ll need them.”

Selene’s brows knit. “Need them for what?”

Eira didn’t answer immediately. She poured herself a cup of water, hands still trembling. When she spoke, her tone was careful. “Tell me about the mist. The eyes.”

Selene described the intruder, the mark he carved into the door, the whispers outside at night. Eira’s jaw tightened. She touched the mark still faintly glowing in the wood, her lips pressing into a thin line. “The Goddess’s loyalists,” she murmured. “They’ve found you sooner than I thought.”

Selene’s wolf rose in a low growl. “You knew they’d come.”

“I suspected.” Eira met her eyes, something flickering there , guilt, maybe fear. “That’s why you must learn more than breathing with the forest.”

The next days blurred into a harsher rhythm. Eira pushed Selene harder than before: long hours of meditation in the rain until her skin tingled, channeling the wolf’s claws without letting them pierce flesh, drawing power from moonlight and earth at once.

At dusk they scoured the woods for herbs. Eira named each plant as she plucked it, her voice low: “Bloodfern, for binding wounds. Dreamleaf, for visions. Moon’s marrow — rare, dangerous, don’t touch the sap.” Selene memorised every leaf, every scent.

Back at the cabin they ground and boiled the harvest into potions. Steam curled blue from the cauldron, carrying the smell of iron and mint. Selene’s fingers stained green and brown. Sometimes the liquid sparked silver when she stirred it, and Eira would glance at her belly, eyes unreadable.

One evening, as they worked, Eira’s hand hovered over a bundle of roots. “The First Howl,” she said suddenly. “Have you heard the legend?”

Selene shook her head.

“It’s older than Silverfen. Older than the Goddess. They say a young Alpha who shifts too early under the full Moon may never return. But if one survives the First Howl… the chains of forced bonds will break for all wolves.” Her gaze flicked to Selene’s stomach. “A blessing, if guided. A curse, if not.”

Selene’s breath caught. “Why tell me this now?”

“Because the Moon has been watching you. And her loyalists know what you carry.”

The words left a chill in the air. Selene felt the warmth in her belly pulse again, deeper, sharper, almost like a drum. The lantern light flickered though no wind moved.

A flutter of wings broke the silence. A raven dropped through the open window and landed on the table. Its leg bore a scrap of parchment sealed with wax. The bird’s eyes glowed faintly silver before it blinked.

Eira’s face went pale. She broke the seal and read, lips moving silently. Then she set the paper down. “It’s begun,” she said.

Selene snatched it up. The writing was short, jagged: The sickness has reached Silverfen. Children falling first.

Her stomach clenched. She remembered the torches of the Moon Summit, the faces that had turned away from her. She remembered Rowan’s eyes.

“What sickness?” she demanded.

“A plague,” Eira said softly. “The kind that eats power as well as flesh. It starts with the young. It spreads through the bonds.”

Selene’s wolf paced inside her, restless. “You think it’s them ,the loyalists?”

“I think,” Eira said, “that the Goddess never stopped fearing what you carry.”

Silence stretched. The raven shifted, claws tapping on the wood. Selene traced the wax seal again. A crescent with three claw-marks through it the same sigil carved into her door.

Her pulse thundered. She looked up at Eira. “You knew this was coming.”

Eira’s eyes met hers, dark and tired. “I warned you to ward the cabin. Now we have to decide how far you’re willing to go.”

Outside the mist thickened, pressing white against the windowpane. The wards hummed faintly. Somewhere far off a howl rose , not wolf, not human ,and the raven lifted its wings, unsettled.

Selene’s hand drifted to her belly. The warmth there beat like a second heart. She didn’t yet know how she would face Silverfen again, but she felt destiny coiling tighter, closer.

Eira closed her eyes briefly, as if listening to something only she could hear. “They’re moving faster than I thought,” she whispered. “If the plague spreads, the young Alphas may not come back from their shifts.”

Selene’s jaw tightened. “Then teach me everything. Now.”

The healer’s gaze was sharp and unreadable. “Be careful what you ask for,” she said.

The raven let out a long, low croak — almost like a warning.

Selene looked at the parchment again. The ink shimmered faintly silver. The same sigil pulsed under her fingers. And for the first time, she felt not just fear but a surge of purpose.