There was no time to breathe in Moon Deer Valley.
Wounded wolves arrived every single day.
Hunter’s traps. Rogue bites. Rivers poisoned with silver powder runoff. All of it required a healer’s touch.
I started at the very bottom. I learned how to scrub infected wounds until my hands bled. I learned how to read the dark, creeping veins of silver poison beneath the skin. Finally, I learned how to carefully mix my own blood into the medicine.
Isabelle never praised me. Not once.
But after I brought three pups back from the brink of death in a single night, she handed me a bone knife.
"From now on, use this to draw your blood," she said, her voice gruff. "Steel wastes your power."
The blade was surprisingly light. The hilt was etched with the same crescent and antler crest my mother use
