Cassia walked through the forest barefoot, the earth giving way beneath her feet like it had known her weight for centuries. The trees no longer whispered—they listened. The wind bent around her body. The animals didn't flee.
Something inside her had shifted—and the world knew it.
She no longer felt cold.
No longer felt small.
She had been cracked open and reborn in silence and starlight, and though her body still felt foreign to her—her fingers too long, her skin too sensitive, her bones too sharp—she was not afraid.
She had burned, and the fire had not killed her.
It had crowned her.
⸻
She found him by the river.
Elias lay half-conscious on the bank, blood smeared down his side. His chest rose and fell slowly, his breaths shallow and uneven. A deep gash clawed across his ribs. Clumps of soil clung to his skin where he had crawled for shelter.
Cassia rushed to him without thinking. She dropped to her knees and touched his face.
His eyes opened—slowly, painfully.
Gold flickered behind them, but the light was dim. "Cassia," he rasped, his voice barely more than a breath. "You shouldn't be here."
She pressed her palm to his wound. The skin beneath her fingers was too warm, and the blood pulsing from his side told her what she feared: it was deep. Deeper than a normal cut. A Pack wound. A punishment meant to tear, not kill—but it hadn't finished the job.
"You're hurt," she said, brushing the sweat from his brow.
"I deserved it."
"No."
"I broke the Law."
"You followed the truth," she whispered. "And I think… I think the Law is what's broken."
His head lolled toward her. He stared up at her face like he didn't recognize her.
Maybe he didn't.
She had changed.
Since the clearing, her reflection had stopped following her. Her voice echoed even in silence. When she stepped, the grass bent—not from pressure, but from reverence.
"Look at you," Elias murmured. "You've become…"
"Different?" she offered.
He nodded. "Wilder. Older."
"You make it sound like a curse."
"No," he said. "A reckoning."
⸻
Cassia leaned closer, resting her forehead against his. The river whispered beside them, a soft hush that might have been a lullaby.
"What did you mean, that I was born before the moon?" she asked.
He coughed, and blood touched the corner of his mouth.
"There was a time before wolves howled. Before the moon ruled them. Before the first Pack."
Cassia stayed quiet, letting him speak through the pain.
"The Seers believe… before the moon rose into the sky, there were other forces. Not beasts. Not humans. Something in between. Something made of shadow and light. They say those beings—your kind—walked freely through fire, vanished into mist, bent time with song. You weren't ruled by the moon… You were her sisters. Her rivals."
"That's not possible," Cassia whispered. "I'm just a girl."
"You were. But your blood was never asleep. Only buried."
He coughed again, the sound sharp, wet. "When you kissed me… it woke something. In both of us."
She closed her eyes. Her tears didn't fall.
The forest wouldn't allow it.
⸻
"I'll heal you," she said.
He smiled faintly. "You don't know how."
But she already had her hands pressed to his chest. Not in desperation—but with certainty.
Something inside her thrummed. Not just power—but memory. Not hers—hers. The woman from her dreams. The figure cloaked in smoke and starlight. The first daughter of the sky.
Cassia opened her mouth.
And sang.
The sound was barely a sound. A hum in the air, like the sky vibrating. The trees bent slightly. The river slowed.
Elias gasped.
His body arched beneath her touch as the wound on his ribs began to knit itself together—muscle lacing back over bone, skin sealing like nothing had ever happened.
When she stopped singing, she was breathless. Dizzy. But Elias was whole.
He sat up, eyes wide.
"What did you do?" he asked, touching his side in disbelief.
"I remembered," she said simply.
He stared at her—not with fear. With awe.
"You're not one of us."
"I never was."
"But you're not against us, are you?"
Cassia looked away.
"No," she said. "But I think… I think the moon is."
⸻
That night, the clouds broke—and the moon finally rose.
But it was not the same moon.
It hung low, red-veined and trembling, as if wounded. Its light spilled across the trees like sorrow.
The Pack howled—not with fury, but confusion. Their connection was fraying.
And in the center of Crooked Ash, where the ancient stones of the first Pack temple still stood half-buried in moss, a symbol began to burn.
A mark long lost.
Not a wolf.
Not the moon.
But a woman, crowned in flame.
And every elder who saw it fell to their knees—because they knew:
She had returned.