They found her scent first.
Luna didn't see them. She *felt* them—long before a face or a blade broke through the trees.
It was early afternoon. The sky sat low and sullen, a flat lid of grey cloud that smothered the light and made the world feel closer, heavier. The air held that damp chill that seeped into joints and refused to leave.
She was following a narrow deer path along the side of a shallow ravine, her pack light on her shoulders, Elia's knife at her belt. The ground was soft underfoot, the soil dark and rich from recent rain.
She'd just knelt to examine a set of fresh hoofprints when the wind shifted.
At first, it brought familiar things: wet earth, the spoor of old rabbit droppings, the faint tang of fungus.
Then another scent slid under those.
Sweat. Old blood. Smoke that had soaked into clothes and never fully left. The sharp, sour bite of too many bodies living too close with not enough water to wash.
Wolf.
Not Moonshadow.
Rogue.
More than one.
Every hair on the back of her neck prickled.
She went very, very still.
Her wolf lifted her head inside her, ears straining. The ember in Luna's chest gave a small, warning pulse, like a muscle twitch before a cramp.
She lifted her nose, inhaled silently.
Yes.
At least three distinct scents. Maybe four. Hard to tell, muddled together.
Close.
"Move," she mouthed, no sound leaving her lips.
Backing up would take her toward a narrow choke in the ravine—bad if she had to run. The path ahead curved and climbed toward thicker trees.
She made her choice.
She slipped forward.
Not running. Not yet. Each step was careful, her boots finding the quietest patches of ground—moss, bare dirt, root. Her heart pounded in her throat.
Voices carried on the wind a moment later.
"…told you I smelled something new," a male drawled. "Fresh. Soft."
A laugh answered, high and sharp. "Soft doesn't last out here. Either it grows teeth or it rots."
Another voice, rougher: "Teeth can be broken."
They were close. Too close.
Luna swallowed, throat dry.
*Four,* she decided. She could hear the rhythm of them now—the crunch of boots, the occasional snap of twig, the careless weight of bodies who didn't fear being heard.
She did not bother hoping they would miss her.
Her scent trail led straight along this path, her human-footed prints soft but visible if one knew what to look for. Even without her emerging sense for the land, she would have bitten her own tongue in contempt at the thought that they might simply wander past.
"Hurry," she breathed to herself.
The path curved.
Ahead, the ground sloped sharply upward to a line of thicker pines. Their roots knotted the soil, gripping it, creating handholds and footholds. If she could reach those, climb, perhaps she could vanish into shadow and needles.
Behind, branches snapped louder.
"Here," someone called. "Tracks. Light. Small. She can't be big."
Another laugh. "Just how I like 'em."
She picked up her pace.
Her lungs started to burn almost immediately; she hadn't fully recovered from the strain of fighting the fire and the constant, gnawing hunger that dogged her days. Pain flared dully along the ribs the deer had bruised.
The path steepened.
She broke into a run.
Boots slipping once, twice, she caught herself on a low branch, the rough bark biting her palm. Her breath came in harsh pants, visible in the cold air.
"Got eyes!" a voice whooped from behind. "There!"
"I see her," another snarled.
The temptation to look back was almost unbearable.
She didn't.
She knew what would be there: wolves in human form, hard-eyed and lean, mouths already curled in predatory smiles. Outcasts like her, only without any goddess mark in their blood to temper their choices.
The tree line was ten paces ahead.
Seven.
Five.
She flung herself into the shadow of the first pine, grabbed two thick roots, and hauled her way up the steep slope, feet scrabbling for purchase. Earth crumbled under her boots, small clods tumbling back down.
"Don't let her get high!" someone shouted.
Boots pounded below.
The ember in her chest flared, catching her panic like breath on coals.
She reached for it without thinking, teeth gritted, and shoved it downward.
"Hold," she hissed through clenched teeth. "Hold *me.*"
The power surged into her arms and legs, filling her muscles with a hot tightness. For a heartbeat, her hands felt fused to the roots, her feet to the slope.
The soil under her boots firmed, just enough that it didn't shear away under her weight.
She scrambled higher.
Someone lunged at her from below.
A hand brushed the sole of her boot, fingers snagging cloth but missing flesh. She tore free, heart slamming into her ribs.
She rolled over the lip of the slope and into the cover of the trees, breath ripping at her throat.
The pine shadows swallowed her.
For two heartbeats, she lay there, chest heaving, listening.
Boots skidded on the incline.
Curses.
A grunt as someone slipped and caught themselves.
"Spread out," the rough voice growled. "She's small, but she's fast. Circle."
Luna's pulse thundered.
They weren't giving up.
Of course they weren't.
She pushed herself to her knees, eyes darting.
The pines stood close here, their trunks straight and tall, bark dark with damp. The ground was a tangle of roots and old needles. To her left, the slope climbed higher into denser growth. To her right, it fell away briefly before rising again in a low ridge.
Running straight would leave a clear enough trail for any wolf nose.
She needed to *blur.*
She moved left, keeping low, using trunks as cover, making her path as crooked as she could. She let her fingers drag along bark, feeling for that faint hum of life—the sap beneath, the roots below.
"Help me," she mouthed, not daring a full whisper.
The ember answered, a quick pulse, eager despite her exhaustion.
She pulled it up, into her arms.
Not to throw, not yet.
To feel.
The air around her shifted, the faintest change in temperature and density.
Branches ahead swayed a little more than the weak breeze warranted.
A warning.
She veered right instead, slipping between two narrow trunks.
A whistle split the air.
Something hard and heavy slammed into the tree where her head had just been, burying itself in the bark with a thunk.
An axe.
Her lungs seized.
"Almost had her," the high-voiced rogue sang. "Quit playing and bring her down, Darrin. I'm getting bored."
Darrin.
She remembered him now—the broken-nosed rogue from the camp she'd spied on. So they *had* seen signs of her.
She darted deeper into the trees.
"LITTLE GIRL!" Darrin bellowed, his voice booming between the trunks. "You sure know how to make an entrance. Come on out. We'll make it easy for you."
Laughter from the others answered.
Easy.
Right.
Bile rose in her throat.
Her wolf curled its lip.
She couldn't outrun them forever. They knew this land better. They weren't half-starved and half-drained from bending elements.
If she wanted to live, she'd have to *fight.*
The realization landed like a stone dropped into her gut.
She slowed, just enough to think through the pounding of her heart.
What did she have?
Not a pack.
Not a well-fed, trained warrior's body.
She had trees.
Slope.
Roots.
Moist, heavy air.
An ember in her chest that had called ice from water and wind from stillness and had pushed fire back when it threatened to eat the forest.
She stopped behind a thick pine, pressed her back to its rough bark, and closed her eyes for half a heartbeat.
"Feel," she ordered herself. "Not fear. *Feel.*"
She sent her awareness down through her heels into the soil.
The ground here still held the memory of the last rain. Damp laced its deeper layers. Roots spread like a web beneath, anchoring, holding.
Above, the branches crisscrossed, heavy with needles that could hide or hinder.
She listened.
Footsteps.
Coming from three directions now.
Front.
Right.
Left.
They were trying to corral her.
She dug her fingers into the bark behind her.
"Fine," she whispered to the pine. "Let's dance."
The ember rose when she called, that familiar burn up her spine, into her shoulders, down her arms.
She drew in a breath that tasted of sap and distant smoke.
When she exhaled, she let the power flow out with it—not all of it, just enough—to the trees around her.
"Bend," she thought at them. "When I ask. Block. Tangle."
The rough sense of their slow, patient attention brushed her mind.
They had no reason to care about one small wolf-girl's fight.
But the coal in her chest bore the faintest echo of that silver sea and the great eye of the moon. Old things knew old marks.
The pine hummed.
Agreed.
She moved.
Deliberately, now.
She snapped a small branch as she went and tossed it left, into thicker underbrush, making extra noise.
"Left!" someone shouted, taking the bait. "She's going left!"
She slid right instead, keeping to the thicker trunks, shoulders brushing bark, boots quiet.
"Fan out," Darrin growled. Closer now. "She's tricksy."
She could hear his grin in the word.
Another whistle.
She ducked.
A thrown stone grazed her shoulder, sending a shock of pain down her arm.
She bit back a cry.
Blood warmed the cloth at her sleeve.
"Got you scented," a new voice said, somewhere ahead. A female, low and amused. "You can't hide that. Why are you running, little moon? We're your kind."
Little moon.
Had they seen her beneath the thin crescent these past nights? Or was it just a name thrown at any stray female who caught light?
Either way, it scraped her raw.
"I'm not *your* kind," she muttered.
She stepped out from behind her tree and into a small, shallow depression carpeted in needles.
A breath later, three rogues broke from the lines of trunks almost together, ringing the clearing.
Darrin, broken nose and scarred chin, stood straight ahead. To his right, the thin, tattooed man she didn't know flicked a knife from hand to hand, eyes bright and too wide. To his left, the cropped-haired woman from the camp stirred the air with the motion of her head tilt, her gaze sharp and calculating.
Kellan, the nervous young one, hovered at the edge of the trees, half-hidden, eyes darting between Luna and his packmates.
Luna's heart hammered so loud she was sure they could hear it.
She forced herself to stand straighter.
Ribs ached with the motion.
She tucked her arms close, hands empty but *not* harmless.
"Evening," Darrin said, grinning. "Nice moves, rabbit. Thought you were going to make this no fun at all."
Her eyes flicked over them quickly.
Dirty. Hardened. Half-wild.
They wore whatever clothing they'd scavenged: mismatched leathers, torn shirts, boots patched with twine. Scars marked them all over—flesh, yes, but something older in their eyes. Wolves who had chosen this, or who had adapted too well to the choice being made for them.
"Move on," Luna said, pleased that her voice didn't crack. "I'm not yours. You don't need me."
The tattooed man laughed.
"Need," he said, rolling the word. "Now that's funny. You think this is about need?"
The woman tilted her head. "You alone?" she asked. "No pack sniffing your tail?"
"No," Luna said.
"Lying," Darrin snorted. "Smell her. Smell that. She's got a pack-scent on her still. Old, but there. Wolves who'd come looking if the right bones got broken."
Luna flinched.
Moonshadow's scent.
They were right. It lingered, faint but present, under the smoke and dirt and Rogue Lands.
"It doesn't matter where I came from," she said. "It matters that I'm not *with* them anymore."
"So no one misses you," the tattooed man smiled. "Even better."
The woman's eyes narrowed, flicking to Luna's too-thin arms, the way she favored her left side, the way she held herself like someone accustomed to disappearing.
"She's not a fighter," the woman said. "Look at her."
"She ran like one," Darrin countered. "And she keeps slipping hands where *they* want to go." His gaze dropped, briefly, to the dirt near Luna's feet. "Saw that trick on the slope, little girl. Ground doesn't just *do* that."
Luna's pulse spiked.
They'd seen.
Of course they had.
Rogues survived by noticing.
The woman's gaze sharpened. "Elemental?" she asked, interest sparking. "We haven't seen your kind in… well. Ever."
The way she said it made Luna's skin crawl.
"We could use that," the tattooed man mused. "Imagine what we could take if the walls crumbled for us."
Darrin took a half-step forward, weight easy, like a wolf approaching a cornered rabbit.
"Here's our offer," he said. "You come with us. You do your little ground tricks and water tricks and whatever else that shiny smell on you says you can. We eat better. We don't gut you."
He smiled.
It wasn't kind.
Luna's hands curled into fists.
Her wolf snarled silently.
"I'm not a pet," she said. "And I'm not your tool."
The air thickened.
The woman sighed, a small gust through her teeth. "Didn't think so," she said. "They never do."
Darrin's grin widened. "Break her legs," he told the tattooed man conversationally. "We'll see how proud she is when she's crawling."
The man's knife flashed.
"Wait," Kellan blurted from the trees.
All eyes flicked to him.
His face had gone paler under the dirt.
"She's just— She's small," he said, voice cracking. "We don't have to—"
"We don't have to do anything, pup," Darrin cut in, voice suddenly sharp. "Except survive. That's the only 'have to' out here. You want to be back at some Alpha's heel, go kneel at a border and see if they take you."
Kellan's jaw clenched.
He said nothing more.
Darrin looked back at Luna.
"Last chance," he said, almost cheerful. "Walk or crawl?"
She could feel the ember in her chest now like a drumbeat.
This close, with fear driving her, it wanted to leap.
It remembered fire and ice and the feel of water yielding.
It remembered a tree's fall turning.
Her hands trembled with the urge to reach for it.
But she couldn't afford another uncontrolled flare. Not with four wolves and knives and hunger in front of her.
She needed focus.
She took a slow breath, eyes darting to the ground, to the trunks around them.
Needles.
Damp earth.
Roots.
She could work with that.
"I'll stand," she said quietly.
Darrin's grin flashed.
"Wrong answer," he said.
The tattooed man lunged.
He was fast.
Too fast for her exhausted human body to simply dodge.
She moved anyway.
Her hand slapped down to the soil at her feet.
The ember poured into her palm like molten light, burning and cold at once.
"Down," she thought, hard, flinging that energy outward in a tight, controlled burst.
The ground between her and the lunging rogue liquefied.
For three paces, the firm needle-laid soil became sucking, clinging mud.
His foot hit it at a sprint.
He sank up to the ankle.
Momentum hurled his upper body forward while his trapped leg yanked him back.
He pitched face-first into the muck with a graceless, startled yelp.
His knife flew from his hand, spinning end over end.
Luna ducked.
It whistled past her ear and thunked into a tree behind her.
She didn't have time to gloat.
Darrin was already moving, closing the distance in three long strides, knife drawn.
The woman slid sideways, flanking.
Kellan stayed in the shadows, hands fisted, eyes wide.
Luna yanked her hand from the ground, severing the flow before the mud swallowed her own boots. The effort left her dizzy; her vision swam.
She forced herself to straighten, raising both hands toward the space between Darrin and the woman.
"Back," she hissed at the ember. "*Up.*"
She pulled.
Air flooded her arms.
A small cyclone of pressure spun around her wrists, a tight, contained force.
She snapped her hands outward.
The air went with them.
A sharp gust blasted from her palms, hitting Darrin full in the chest.
Caught mid-stride, he stumbled, boots skidding on the suddenly loose needles.
His shoulder slammed into the woman, knocking them both sideways.
The knife in his hand slashed high and wild, missing her throat by inches.
They went down in a tangle of limbs and curses.
The tattooed man, still dragging himself from the sucking mud, spat and swore.
Kellan flinched as the gust brushed him too, hair blowing back from his face.
The world tilted.
Luna's knees buckled.
She caught herself on the nearest tree, fingers clawing at bark, chest heaving.
Driving the air like that felt like it had pulled the breath from her *bones.*
She blinked spots from her eyes.
"Enough playing," Darrin snarled, pushing off the ground. His lip was split, blood painting his teeth. His eyes glittered. "She's worth more dead than I thought."
He shifted.
Bones cracked, clothes tearing.
His body flowed from human to wolf shape in a rush—a big, broad-shouldered beast, fur mottled dark, scarred muzzle peeling back in a snarl.
The woman followed, her shift smoother, trimmer, a lean brindled wolf with pale eyes.
The tattooed man, cursing, shifted halfway, stuck in a hybrid form—hands still usable, muzzle lengthened, teeth bared.
Kellan did not move.
He watched, chest rising and falling too fast.
Luna's own wolf pushed, demanding to be let out.
Their odds were bad enough as it was; on two legs, she was fragile and clumsy compared to them.
But she needed her hands.
Needed *fingers.*
Needed to touch earth and air and water with skin that could *ask.*
"Not yet," she hissed inward, forcing the shift back down.
Her wolf snarled, furious.
*Trust me,* she begged it.
The wolves circled.
The woman hung back, smart enough to wait, to watch where Luna's hands went. Darrin stalked directly in front of her, head low, shoulders rolling. The tattooed man flanked on the other side, claws flexing, human cunning still sharp behind animal eyes.
"Box her," Darrin growled. "Drive her into the hill."
Luna's back brushed bark.
Stone jutted behind the trees here, a low, moss-slick rise.
No easy retreat.
Her breath came in shallow pulls.
She swallowed hard, forcing her focus into a narrow, bright line.
The ground under their paws was still softened from her earlier nudge, damp from days of rain. Roots lay thick only inches below, a net holding the soil.
She couldn't liquefy everything—she'd trap herself.
But she could make *pockets*.
She dropped to one knee, slapping both palms flat to the earth in front of her.
The ember screamed through her, furious and eager, answering the call with a surge that left her gasping.
She directed it, not in a wave, not in a wide push.
In thin, precise lines.
Like fingers reaching down, hooking under certain points.
"Give," she thought at the soil. "Here, and here. Just *there.*"
The land listened.
In three small circles—the size of her outstretched hands—the ground softened, turned treacherous.
Darrin lunged.
He hit the first pocket with his front right paw.
It plunged ankle-deep.
He staggered.
The woman adjusted, avoiding the second circle by pure chance, but the tattooed hybrid caught the third, his altered foot sinking, knee twisting as he tried to wrench free.
He yelped.
"Now," Luna whispered to the air.
She yanked what was left of the ember up, up, up, into her chest, into her arms, into her throat.
She didn't have enough left for a clean wind-blast.
But sound?
She had sound.
She sucked in a breath deep enough to hurt.
Then she *screamed*.
Not words.
A raw, ripping howl that tore from her gut and through her human throat, laced with every ounce of power she had left.
It hit the wolves like a physical blow.
The air around her vibrated with it, rippling outward, jarring bone and eardrum.
Darrin yelped, head snapping back, ears flattening. The woman flinched, paws stumbling.
The tattooed man clapped hybrid hands to his head, eyes squeezing shut.
Even Kellan, half-hidden at the trees' edge, recoiled, hands flying to his ears.
The sound slammed into the trees, shuddered through the ground, rattled leaves.
For a heartbeat, everything *stunned.*
The ember guttered, emptying.
Luna swayed, the world spinning around the edges, blackness creeping in.
*Move,* something feral inside her hissed. *NOW.*
She obeyed without thinking.
She threw herself sideways, rolling under a low branch, scraping her back on bark.
Darrin's snapping jaws closed on empty air where her shoulder had been.
He stumbled, one paw still half-caught in the sucking mud-pocket.
The woman shook her head hard, regaining herself, eyes narrowing.
"She's more trouble than she's worth," she snarled, voice garbled by wolf's jaw. "Kill her and be done."
Luna's vision blurred.
Her limbs felt like sandbags.
She scrabbled blindly until her fingers closed on something solid.
Her knife's hilt.
Thrown earlier, lost near the tree.
She dragged it free.
It felt pitifully small against wolves' teeth and rogue brutality.
But it was steel.
It was Elia's.
It was hers.
She pushed herself to her feet, using the tree for support, knife held low but steady.
Darrin ripped his paw free, mud flying.
His growl rolled through the clearing.
"You'll wish you'd come quiet," he grated, voice a half-human rasp around wolf's teeth. "I'll—"
"Enough," Kellan shouted.
The single word cracked through the space like a whip.
The other rogues froze, more in surprise than obedience.
Kellan stepped fully into view at last.
His hands shook at his sides. His eyes were too wide, too bright. But his jaw was set in a way that had nothing of pup left in it.
"She's *Moonshadow,*" he said, glaring at Darrin. "Smell it. Under the dirt. Under the fear. That crest is all over her."
Darrin snorted. "So? She just said they don't want her."
Kellan's throat worked.
"Moonshadow's… cursed," he blurted, as if the word hurt to say. "Half their border patrol is dead. They say wolves go out and don't come back. Warriors see things. Hear whispers." His voice dropped. "Eyes go… empty."
He glanced once at Luna, something like recognition flickering in his gaze. Fear. Hope. Both.
"If they live, they're going to be desperate," he continued, looking back to Darrin. "We don't want to be the ones who killed one of theirs if they come stumbling out looking for answers."
Darrin sneered. "You scared of some high-crest Alphas now, pup? Thought you were done licking boots."
Kellan's hands balled into fists.
"I'm scared of *whatever's eating them,*" he shot back. "I was on their border last week. The air felt wrong. The trees… stopped humming. I'm not stupid."
The woman's ears flicked uneasily.
Luna's own heart lurched.
The curse had spread far enough for rogues at the edge to *feel* it.
Darrin's snarl wavered.
He flicked a glance at Luna, nostrils flaring, really *smelling* this time—not just blood and sweat, but old pack, old stone, old crest.
"Moonshadow's runt," he muttered. "You're right. I remember now. Stories." His lip curled. "Alpha's mistake. Threw away his Goddess' choice and got a bad luck stain for it."
He spat.
"That's *her?*"
Luna's throat tightened.
She lifted her chin a fraction.
"Yes," she said, because hiding from truth had never saved her.
Silence stretched a heartbeat too long.
The woman shifted her weight, unease in the line of her shoulders. "Maybe we don't want that stain on us," she said quietly. "Shadow follows shadow."
Darrin's jaw worked.
His rage and his survival instinct wrestled behind his eyes.
Finally, with a vicious shake of his head, he snarled, "Fine. Fine. Let the curse keep you, little moon. We've got enough ghosts on our heels."
He bared his teeth at Luna one last time. "Run, then," he spat. "Run back to your dying walls, see if they take you. Or keep scratching in the dirt out here. Either way, you're dead—I just don't feel like sharing your stink."
The tattooed hybrid hissed, clearly unwilling to let anger go so easily, but a sharp look from Darrin stilled him.
The woman backed off first, eyes never leaving Luna's knife.
Kellan lingered a heartbeat longer.
Their gazes met.
His were a muddle of conflict—resentment, pity, something like gratitude that she'd bought him a moment to speak his piece.
He jerked his chin once, a rough, awkward nod.
Then he turned and slipped back between the trees, shoulders hunched.
The others followed.
In moments, their scents began to thin.
Luna stood, back to the tree, knife in hand, shaking so hard she thought her bones might rattle apart.
She didn't move until their footsteps had faded, until the wind stopped carrying their sweat and rage to her.
Only then did she let herself slide down the trunk to sit, knees pulled up, knife clattering from nerveless fingers into the needles.
Her entire body ached.
Her ears still rang faintly from her own power-laced scream.
Her throat felt torn raw.
The ember in her chest glowed dimly, a low, pained red, banked almost to ash.
She tipped her head back against the bark and let out a shaky breath that was half-laugh, half-sob.
"I'm… still here," she whispered hoarsely.
Beneath the exhaustion, beneath the tremors, a strange, fierce pride flickered.
She had been hunted by four violent rogues who knew this land better than she did.
She had not simply run.
She had *fought.*
Clumsy.
Desperate.
But with more than teeth and steel.
She had turned earth to mud, wind to a shove, sound to a weapon.
And when a curse's shadow reached into the clearing, it had shifted the shape of the fight.
She picked up her knife with clumsy fingers and sheathed it.
Then, slowly, she leaned forward and pressed her palms to the ground once more.
The soil was cool.
Steady.
It hummed faintly under her, a reassurance.
"I need to be stronger," she murmured to the earth, to the far-off moon, to the coal in her bones.
The ember answered with the softest throb.
Not argument.
Agreement.
The Rogue Lands had shown her what rogues could be—cruel, sharp, surviving by tearing chunks from anything softer than themselves.
They had also, unexpectedly, shown her that her old world's rot had spread far enough that even outcasts flinched at its shadow.
Moonshadow's curse was no longer a tale whispered under blankets.
It was a stink on the wind, a tension in rogue shoulders, a reason for killers to think twice.
And Luna—small, starving, shaking—had just walked away from a pack of hunters who would have broken any ordinary stray.
The next time they came, she knew, they would not turn away so easily.
The next dangers would not always flinch at Moonshadow's name.
Her powers, half-formed and bleeding at the edges, had to sharpen.
She pushed herself painfully to her feet, every motion sending little flares of protest through tired muscles.
She picked a direction *away* from the rogues' retreat and started walking.
One step.
Then another.
The forest watched.
The moon, half hidden behind the dull wash of clouds, peered down in thin, cold light.
Beneath Luna's ribs, the ember banked itself, gathering.
Waiting.
Ready, when she called again, to answer with more than fear.