The first time Luna coughed blood, it was into her own hand.
A small thing.
A smear of red against her palm, startling and bright in the gray light of dawn.
She stood in the washroom alcove just off her and Orion's chamber, bare feet chilled by stone, steam from the basin rising around her. She had woken feeling... heavy. Not exhausted—she knew that kind of weight well—but *thick*, as if her blood had turned one shade closer to sludge.
She had splashed her face.
Bent over the basin.
Coughed once.
The sound was deeper than a simple clearing of the throat.
Wet.
She had straightened, wiped at her mouth more from habit than concern, and then glanced down.
Red.
Not a torrent.
Not a flood.
Just a fan of tiny droplets along the heel of her hand.
For a瞬, her mind refused to make the connection.
This happens to other wolves, she thought stupidly. After a bad fight. After a lung-puncture. After poison.
It does not happen to me in my own washroom on a quiet morning.
Heat crawled up her neck.
Her second heartbeat stuttered, then thudded harder.
Behind her sternum, where the Moonstone fused with the star-Seed and her own mortal heart, something *thrummed*—a deep, answering pulse that was not pain yet, but carried the threat of it.
"Luna?"
Orion's voice drifted from the main chamber, sleep-rough.
She closed her fingers quickly, hiding the stain, and turned.
"I am here," she called, trying to sound casual.
He appeared in the archway, hair a half-tamed mess, eyes narrowed against the light.
He took one look at her face.
Straightened fully.
"What happened?" he asked, every line of his body sharpening.
She cursed herself inwardly.
She had been Queen long enough to master masking her emotions before councils and frightened pups.
Around Orion, her control slipped too easily.
"Nothing," she said too fast. "I... swallowed wrong."
He frowned.
The bond hummed with his skepticism.
His gaze dropped to her closed hand.
"Show me," he said quietly.
The command in his tone was gentle.
Unyielding.
She met his eyes.
Saw the fear already blooming there, the ghost of all the times he had nearly lost her.
Lying would be a slower cruelty.
She opened her hand.
His breath hissed.
"Luna," he whispered.
He crossed the space between them in two long strides, taking her wrist, turning her hand this way and that as if the angle would change what he saw.
"It is not much," she said quickly. "A small cough. It could be—"
"A sign," he cut in, voice tight. "Of something. You do not cough blood and call it 'nothing.'"
His fingers were warm around her spine as he touched her chest, just above the mark.
"Does it hurt?" he demanded.
She almost said no.
Instead, she closed her eyes.
Listened.
Her mark pulsed.
Not the steady hum she had grown used to.
A low, insistent *ache*, radiating out in fine threads along her ribs, up into her throat.
"Not... exactly," she said slowly. "It feels... strained. Like I ran hard in thin air. Or like I have been holding a note too long."
As she said it, the ache sharpened, flaring briefly into a hot, stabbing sensation that made her wince.
Orion's thumb pressed harder.
His own chest rose and fell faster.
"Elia," he said. "Now."
She caught his wrist.
"Wait," she said. "It could—"
He shook his head, gold eyes flashing.
"No more waiting," he said. "No more telling yourself it will pass because others have it worse. You did that once. You almost *died* of it."
Memories slammed into her.
The Moonstone sickness, before Orion had taken some of it into himself.
The fever.
The tremors.
The way her own power had turned against her body, trying to burn its way out.
She exhaled.
"You are right," she said quietly.
She saw the flicker of surprise—and dark satisfaction—at her easy agreement.
"I will tell her," she added. "You, my overprotective Alpha, will not barreling into the healer's hut half-dressed and startle sick pups."
Despite himself, his mouth twitched.
"Fine," he said grudgingly. "But I am not leaving your side."
"That is not how fetching works," she said, but she did not push when he followed her out of the chamber and down the hall.
If she was honest, she did not want him to.
The walk to Elia's workroom stole more breath than it should have.
The den was waking around them—voices, footsteps, the clatter of morning chores.
Luna felt each sound like a weight.
Her second heartbeat pounded, too loud in her ears.
Her skin prickled hot and cold in waves.
By the time they reached Elia's door, a fine sheen of sweat dampened her forehead.
Orion saw.
His jaw clenched.
Elia, who needed neither Moonstone nor bond to sense trouble, opened the door before they could knock.
Her sharp eyes swept over Luna.
Down to the way she pressed a hand to her chest.
Over to Orion's tense stance.
"Inside," Elia said, no greeting wasted.
The workroom smelled of herbs and resin, steel and stone.
Luna lowered herself onto the low cot against one wall without being asked.
Elia held out a hand.
"Let me see," she said.
Luna extended her palm.
The smear of blood had already begun to darken, but Elia knew old stains from new.
Her mouth tightened.
"Cough," she ordered.
Luna obeyed.
Wetness scraped her throat.
This time, when she covered her mouth, she did not close her fist.
Tiny red flecks spattered her skin.
Elia's expression did not change.
She took Luna's wrist.
Fingers to pulse.
Other hand flat on Luna's chest, just above the mark.
The touch was firm.
Probing.
Luna flinched when Elia pressed just so.
Pain lanced through her sternum, radiating out in vicious spokes.
She sucked in a breath between her teeth.
"Hmm," Elia said.
"I do not like that sound," Orion growled.
"Good," Elia said briskly. "You should not."
She withdrew her hand.
Picked up a small, polished shard of obsidian from the table and held it up until Luna's reflection stared back.
Her mark glowed faintly.
Its usual soft, cool light had a harsh edge to it now, like frost gone brittle.
"Look," Elia said.
Luna frowned.
"What am I—"
"Elia," Orion snapped, impatience crackling. "What do you see?"
The healer turned the shard slightly.
In the reflection, around Luna's mark, fine hairline fractures spidered outward, luminous.
They were not visible on her actual skin when she touched it.
Only in the mirror.
A chill crawled along her scalp.
"What is that?" she whispered.
"Stress lines," Elia said. "In the way the Moonstone sits with your body. The stone is not cracking. *You* are. Microscopic fissures where there should be clean joins."
Orion swore softly.
"We share the Moonstone's burden now," he said, hand unconsciously mirroring Elia's, pressing over his own chest. "I took half into myself. I have felt... nothing like this."
"You are not the one also carrying a star-Seed," Elia said dryly. "And a goddess' latest experiment in divine inheritance. Your body was fortified to hold the stone. Luna's was... reworked, mid-course, to fit more into the same space."
"You mean I am... overloaded," Luna said, trying to keep her voice even.
Elia met her gaze.
"I mean," she said, "that you have been drawing more from the Moonstone than you realize. Healing with it. Channeling visions. Holding this new network of packs and powers in your chest like a second den. The stone gives. The body pays."
Guilt pricked.
"I did not..." Luna started. "I have not been calling storms or fighting gods. I have been... mediating. Listening."
"And every time you listen *that* way," Elia said, tapping her chest again, more gently, "you increase the flow. You are still learning what is yours to carry and what is not. In the meantime, your veins are singing slightly off-key. Hence the blood."
Orion's hand tightened on the edge of the cot.
"Fix it," he said.
Elia raised a brow.
"This is not a broken bone I can set," she said. "This is a confluence of mortal flesh and ancient artifact and divine meddling. The 'fix' will not be... simple."
He ground his teeth.
"What can we do?" Luna asked.
Elia's gaze softened, just a fraction.
"First," she said, "you stop pretending you are just a slightly stronger wolf who can ignore her own limits. You are carrying something your body was not designed to bear indefinitely. We must teach it new patterns. You will rest more. You will use the *normal* ways of sensing when you can. Eyes. Ears. Nose. Delegates."
Luna opened her mouth to protest.
Coughed instead.
This time the taste of copper was stronger.
"The more you act as a conduit," Elia went on, "the more you must also be a reservoir. You cannot pour constantly. You must sit. Let things settle. Or you will... crack."
The image of the broken Moon in Luna's dreams flared.
The fracture.
The dripping light.
Her mark throbbed.
"Is this Her?" Luna asked hoarsely. "Is this... connected to the crack?"
Elia hesitated.
"I am not a goddess," she said. "Nor a seer. But power rarely breaks neatly. The Moon frays above. The Moonstone strains below. You are the link. It would be... strange if you were unaffected."
Orion cursed again.
"If this is the price of what She asked you to do," he snarled, "perhaps the Moon should pay it Herself."
A familiar cool warmth brushed Luna's mind.
*I am paying,* the Goddess murmured, Her voice faint, like moonlight on thin ice. *In ways you cannot see. But your wolf is not wrong to be angry.*
"Then why did You not warn me?" Luna demanded inwardly. "Why let it get this far before blood?"
*Because I misjudged,* the Moon said calmly. *I have worn My own strain for so long I underestimated what this would feel like in a smaller vessel. For that, I apologize.*
The admission took Luna aback.
She could not recall another time the Goddess had used that word so plainly.
Aloud, she said, "She is... sorry."
Elia snorted.
"That and some willow bark might make a poultice," she said. "But I would prefer something more concrete."
*So would I,* the Moon said grimly. *I am... considering.*
"While She thinks," Elia said, unaware of the divine commentary, "we will act. I will mix you something to strengthen your blood and ease the strain on your lungs. You will take it. You will not argue. You will cancel any non-essential council trips. You will let others speak for you when they can. If a vision comes, you will write it down, then hand it to Kerran or Rhia or whoever you trust and walk away for a while."
It sounded like being told to cut off a limb.
"I cannot simply—" Luna began.
Elia's eyes flashed.
"You can," she said sharply. "You do not *want* to. There is a difference. You are not the only one with eyes. With minds. With courage. Trust them. Or the next time you cough, it will not be a few drops."
Orion shot Luna a look that said, If you argue with her, I will join the healer's side.
Luna sagged back against the wall.
"All right," she said quietly. "I will try. That is the most honest word I can give you."
Elia's shoulders relaxed a fraction.
"Trying is where all miracles begin," she said, echoing the Moon's earlier chiding in a different tone.
She turned away to her shelves.
Began pulling jars.
Grinding.
Measuring.
As mortar and pestle worked, Luna studied her own hands.
They looked the same.
Strong.
Scarred.
She remembered when they had been small and thin and always bruised from other pups' jabs.
She remembered whispering to the Moon, *Make me strong,* without any idea what that strength would cost.
Now, strength tasted like metal in her mouth.
By the time Elia thrust a cup into her hands, the ache in her chest had dulled from sharp to steady.
She drank the brew without grimacing.
It was bitter.
Herb and iron and something cool that slid down her throat like melted snow.
"Twice a day," Elia said. "Until I say otherwise. And if you cough like that again, you tell me."
Luna nodded.
She tried to stand.
The room swayed, a slow, tilting motion, as if the world had become a ship and she was slightly off-balance.
Orion's hand caught her elbow.
"Easy," he murmured.
"I am fine," she said automatically.
He arched a brow.
She scowled at herself.
"I am... not entirely fine," she amended. "But I am not collapsing. I can walk."
He did not let go.
"Then we will walk together," he said.
The days that followed were an exercise in humility.
The sickness did not slam into her all at once.
It crept.
Some mornings she woke feeling almost normal, only to find herself breathless after climbing the watchtower stairs.
Other days, she rose already aching, every movement weighted, her mark throbbing in a slow, syncopated beat out of time with her wolf heart.
At first, she thought she could hide it.
Masks were second nature.
But Moonshadow watched her more closely than they had when she was a runt they wanted to ignore or a reluctant Alpha they wanted to test.
Now, every falter drew worried eyes.
In a council meeting, as she leaned over a map, a sharp spike of pain lanced her chest.
Her vision blurred white at the edges.
She clenched her jaw.
The pack's voices buzzed, distant.
Orion's hand touched the small of her back.
She straightened.
Forced air into her lungs.
"Luna?" Rhea's voice, unusually gentle, cut through the fog.
She knew that tone.
It was the one Rhea used with pups who scraped their knees and tried very hard not to cry.
"I am all right," Luna said.
Her voice came out thin.
Lies used to cost her nothing, physically.
Now even they seemed to snag in her chest.
"We can take a break," Kerran offered, eyeing the slight tremor in her fingers as she placed a token on the map.
The room's attention pressed against her skin.
She had a choice.
Feign strength and push through.
Or name the crack before it spread.
Every instinct screamed to prove she was not weak.
Every memory of Selene—of how that wolf had turned her own hidden rot outward, lashing at others rather than admit fragility—rose in warning.
Luna exhaled.
"I am... not at my best," she said aloud, surprising herself with the admission. "Elia is helping me manage it. But she is right: I need to lean more on you. On this council. I keep forgetting that this is the point."
A murmur.
Concern.
Not judgment.
Rhea's brows lifted.
"Well," she said. "Finally. I have been waiting for you to stop trying to be Queen of Everything before your veins explode."
A few strained chuckles circled the table.
The tension eased a fraction.
"Go," Kerran said. "Rest. We can go over hunt quotas without you. We have your notes."
"And your annoying conscience lodged in our ears," Rhea added.
Luna managed a smile.
She wanted to protest.
The map called to her.
So did a pile of correspondences waiting in her chamber.
But Elia's warning, and the image of hairline fractures in her mark's reflection, held.
"Very well," she said. "Do not redraw any borders while I am gone."
"No promises," Rhea said.
As Luna left the council hall, Orion fell into step beside her.
"You are handling this better than I thought you would," he said honestly.
"What, the not-dying part?" she asked dryly.
"The not-pretending-part," he clarified. "You used to eat your own arm before letting anyone see you struggle."
She shrugged, wincing when the motion pulled at her ribs.
"I have learned a few things," she said. "One of them: when I pretend, others pay. I will not do that again."
He slipped an arm around her waist as they climbed the gentle slope toward their chamber.
"Good," he said. "Because you are not the only one with a star-shaped hole in their chest. I would like to keep you around while I figure out how to wear mine."
She glanced at him.
"How are *you?*" she asked, guilt pricking. "You took some of this into yourself. I have been so busy not collapsing gracefully that—"
"I am... stable," he said. "Tired, more often. Occasionally a flicker of something... foreign. But nothing like what you feel. It is like... standing next to a waterfall instead of under it. Loud. Wet. Manageable."
She snorted softly.
"Trust you to measure divine sickness in terms of rivers," she said.
They reached their door.
She paused, hand on the latch.
"I am afraid," she said quietly. "Not of dying, exactly. Of... becoming something brittle. Of this... sickness making me... sharp. Short with pups. Harsh with you. Distant from the pack."
He studied her face.
"We will watch for that," he said. "Me. Elia. Rhea. The entire nosy, meddling pack you helped build. We will not let you drift without tugging."
She swallowed past a lump.
"Thank you," she murmured.
He bent.
Kissed her mark, careful and firm.
For an instant, pain flared.
Then, strangely, it eased.
Heat spread from that point down through her veins, not burning.
Warming.
Through the bond, she felt his own Moonstone-sickness stir, reach, wrap around hers like a brace.
"We share this," he reminded her quietly. "Not just in some grand, sacrificial gesture the Goddess applauded. In the small ways. In every breath. You are not carrying this alone."
She leaned into him, just for a瞬, letting her forehead rest against his.
The Moon watched them.
Luna could feel Her, stretched thin, Her own fractures aching.
The Goddess' voice came softer now, filtered through fatigue.
*You are changing, little wolf,* She said. *Not only in the ways this sickness forces. In the ways you choose in response. That is... good. Painful. Necessary.*
"I am not sure I like Your definition of necessary," Luna muttered inwardly.
*Neither do I,* the Moon replied. *But here we are.*
The sickness did not relent.
There were good days.
Days when Luna almost forgot, when she could spar lightly with pups, walk the border twice, attend two councils, and only feel a warm ache by nightfall.
Then there were bad ones.
Nights where she woke choking, chest tight, Moonstone pulsing so hard it felt like it would punch through bone.
Times when visions slammed into her with the force of a physical blow, leaving her gasping, black spots dancing at the edge of her sight.
On one of those nights, she woke Orion with a ragged cry.
Her entire body shook.
Cold sweat drenched her.
She could not seem to catch her breath.
The room flickered between reality and a terrible image of herself standing on a plain of broken glass, light leaking from her own cracked skin.
"Luna." Orion's voice cut through, low and urgent. "With me. Breathe."
She tried.
The first attempts were shallow, panicked sips.
He took her hands.
Placed them on his chest.
Pressed his own back against the headboard, drawing her upright with him.
"In," he said.
He inhaled, deep and slow.
She felt his ribs expand under her palms.
"Out."
He exhaled.
She felt the warm rush of air against her face.
She matched him.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
Slowly, her racing heart synced to his rhythm.
The Moonstone's wild throbbing eased back to a bearable thud.
Her mark still burned.
Her ribs still ached.
But the sense of drowning receded.
"I cannot—" She gulped. "If this gets worse—if I cannot lead—"
He shook his head sharply.
"Stop," he said. "Do not run that path in the middle of the night. You are not alone at the top of some crumbling spire. If you must step back, we will adjust. The Council will carry more. The packs will find new ways. You are not the sole pillar holding the sky."
The broken Moon from her dreams flashed in her mind.
"I have seen the cracks," she whispered. "In Her. In me. In our stories. I cannot unsee them. I am afraid if I *do* step back, even for a短time, everything will... splinter faster."
He cupped her face.
Made her look at him.
"Or it will force others to see," he said. "To stop treating you as a plug in every leak. Selene thrived because no one else wanted to look at the rot. You refuse to be her. Do not repeat her foundation in your own way."
His words settled into her like stones clicked into place.
Heavy.
Stabilizing.
She closed her eyes again.
Let herself lean.
Not collapse.
Lean.
The Moon hummed faintly.
Less strained, for the瞬.
*He is right,* She said. *Annoyingly.*
"You choose such irritating wolves to connect me to," Luna muttered.
*I choose wolves who can survive irritation,* the Goddess replied.
Morning came.
Luna rose slower.
Sat longer with her tea.
When Rhea barged into the chamber with news of yet another minor border spat, Luna listened.
Then said, "Take Orion. Take Kerran. Take my name if you must. But I am not coming. Not this time."
Rhea blinked.
Then grinned, sharp and proud.
"Look at you," she said. "Delegating. I am so proud I could scream."
"Please do not," Luna said. "My head hurts."
Rhea softened.
Her gaze flicked to the faint shadows under Luna's eyes.
"Rest," she said. "Or read. Or whatever it is Queens do when they are not bravely throwing themselves at fate. I will threaten idiots on your behalf."
As the door closed, Luna exhaled.
The sickness was a thief.
Of breath.
Of certainty.
Of illusion.
It stripped away some of the armor she had worn so long she had mistaken it for skin.
In its raw light, she saw more clearly:
Where she had overreached.
Where she had assumed only she could act.
Where she had been, in her own way, reluctant to let others rise.
The price of the Moonstone was not just physical.
It was *humbling*.
To know that even with divine fire in her chest, her flesh could only bear so much.
That even with a goddess' eye on her, she could not see or fix everything.
That even as Queen and Nexus and Moon's Heir, she was still, fundamentally, a wolf with bones that could break, lungs that could bleed, a heart that could strain.
It hurt.
It frightened her.
It also, in a small, quiet way, freed her.
If she could not be all things, then she did not have to try.
She could be what she was, in any given瞬.
A leader.
A lover.
A conduit.
A patient.
A wolf standing on a wall, tasting iron and starlight, knowing that power always came with a price—and finally, finally, choosing to pay it in smaller, deliberate coins, instead of letting it be torn from her in some grand, tragic blaze.
Outside, the world moved.
Rogue packs tested borders.
Young Alphas watched the Moon and wondered what her cracks meant.
The Council of Chains wove its first bindings into habit.
Inside, in her own chest, Luna's two heartbeats—wolf and Moonstone—found, if not harmony, then a wary truce.
The sickness did not vanish.
It would not.
But as she learned its contours, its warnings, its pushes and pulls, she began to treat it not only as an enemy, but as a harsh tutor.
Reminding her, with every ache and cough, that even god-touched wolves must rest.
Must share.
Must remember the flesh that carries the fire.
That was the true price of the Moonstone, beyond the blood:
Letting others see her crack.
And trusting that they would not break at the sight.