The night air cracked with frost, though no winter had been forecast. The trees along the edge of the Silver Moon Pack shivered—not from the wind, but from the weight of something ancient stirring beneath the soil.
Maria felt it in her bones.
She stood alone in the ritual glade behind the pack house, staring into the ember-lined circle of salt she’d drawn with her own hands. The scent of sage and blood hung thick in the air. Her palms still bore the cuts from the Luna Tribunal. Some wounds never healed the way they were meant to.
“Show me what I must see,” she whispered into the stillness.
The smoke rose in patterns.
And the earth answered.
Flashes tore through her vision—rituals done in secret, children painted in ash, chants echoing in a dead language. A symbol drawn in blood: a sc
