Time seemed to slow in the golden light, the chaos of Marrow's approaching forces distant and muffled against the enormity of the moment pressing down on Luna's chest. Five men — a wolf, a bear, a serpent, a raven, a tiger, though none of those words felt adequate anymore for what stood in front of her — watched her with a vulnerability she had never once seen from any of them in either of her two lives.
"I died once," Luna said, and her voice, though quiet, carried clearly through the strange, golden stillness. "Betrayed slowly, by small cruelties that built for ten years until they became something none of us could survive. I came back with every intention of severing this bond entirely, of walking away and never looking back, because I genuinely believed that was the only version of sa
