The Gold-Sun And Silver-Moon Curse

I know I could be many things... timid, pathetic, ugly, worthless, broken... but wolfless is not one of them. I need you to understand that before anything else. Before the whispers that trail me through the palace corridors. Before the pity in the elders' eyes. Before tonight. Every morning for the past seven hundred and thirty one days, I have woken up to the same impossible evidence. Claw marks. Deep, ragged gouges torn through my bedsheets like something feral tried to claw its way out from underneath my skin while I slept. It started the night I turned sixteen. "Astraea, stop hiding under those sheets. You look like a corpse." Maren's voice cut through the morning haze as she pushed open my chamber door, carrying a basin of steaming water and a stack of fresh linens. She was small, silver haired, and the only person in Duskhollow Palace who still looked at me without flinching. "I'm not hiding," I lied, pulling the shredded fabric tighter around my shoulders. "You are," she said flatly, crossing the room. She yanked the ruined sheets from my grip and held them up to the pale morning light. Four parallel tears. Again. "These are worse than yesterday." "I know." "Did you feel anything this time? During the night?" I hesitated. "The dreams again." Maren paused, the torn linen clutched in her hands. "The same ones?" "Always the same," I whispered. "Running through the Ashenveil. The fog is so thick I can barely see my own hands. Something is chasing me... or I'm chasing it. I can never tell. My legs are burning, my lungs are screaming, and then I wake up exhausted like my body has been fighting all night." "And the sheets?" "Shredded. Every single time." I pressed my palms against my eyes. "What is happening to me, Maren?" She folded the ruined linen with careful, deliberate hands and set it aside. She never answered that question directly. She never told me what she thought the dreams meant. She just moved on, like acknowledging the truth out loud would make it real. "Happy birthday, by the way," she muttered. "Eighteen." "Don't say it like it's a celebration." "It is a celebration. You are a woman of the Noctari bloodline now." "A woman with no wolf," I shot back, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed. My bare feet hit the freezing stone floor, and I winced. "And a ceremony tonight that is going to humiliate me in front of the entire territory." Maren set the basin down slowly and turned to face me. "The Mate Bond Ceremony is an honor, Astraea. The Moon Goddess will call to your soul." "It's a death sentence." My voice cracked. "The Alpha Prince of the Aurelian Pack is coming tonight. Caelum Draven. Do you know what the Aurelians do to wolves without a second form? They call us hollow. They say we have no soul. And I am supposed to stand in front of him looking like this..." I gestured at my gaunt frame, my ashen skin, the bruise like discoloration that stained my arms and neck like spilled ink. "And pray the Moon Goddess doesn't laugh?" "The Moon Goddess does not laugh at her daughters." "She forgot I existed." Maren sighed, the sound heavy with years of watching me crumble. "You are harder on yourself than anyone in this palace, and that is saying something." She crossed the room in two sharp steps and gripped my chin, forcing me to meet her eyes. "Listen to me. The bond does not require fur and fangs. It requires truth. Whatever happens tonight, you hold your head high. You are a princess of the Silver Moon." "A princess who can't shift," I whispered. "Do you know what Mira said to me last night?" Maren's jaw clenched. "What did your sister say?" "She said, and I quote, 'If the Alpha Prince bonds with you, he'll reject you before the moonrise. And if he doesn't bond with you, the pack will finally have an excuse to strip your title.' So either way, I lose." Maren's eyes darkened. "Your sister is cruel, but she is not stupid. She knows exactly what she is doing." The silence that followed was heavy enough to crush bone. Maren released my chin and turned away. When she spoke again, her voice was barely audible. "There is something I need to tell you about tonight's ceremony." My stomach dropped. "What?" "The elder council invoked an old law this morning. The Rite of Presentation." I stared at her. "I've never heard of that." "Because it hasn't been used in over two hundred years." Maren's hands were trembling now. "During the ceremony, every eligible wolf must present their second form before the Alpha Prince. It is a demonstration of strength. A proof of worthiness." The room tilted beneath me. "Present their... Maren, I can't shift. You know I can't shift." "I know." "Then what happens if I can't present?" She wouldn't look at me. Her eyes fixed on the far wall, and I saw something I had never seen in Maren's face before. Fear. "If a royal heir fails to present a wolf during the Rite of Presentation, the council has the authority to declare the bloodline void. You would be stripped of your title, Astraea. And exiled from Duskhollow before dawn." The words hit me like a physical blow. "Exiled? Tonight?" "Tonight." "Why?" I choked out. "Why would they do this now? On my birthday?" "Because your sister petitioned the council," Maren said quietly. "Mira wants the crown. She has always wanted the crown. And she knows tonight is the only way to take it from you." I sat there in the ruins of my bed, the weight of everything pressing down on my chest until I thought my ribs would c***k. Eighteen years of being the ugly, broken princess. Two years of claw marks and dreams and waking up feeling like my bones had been rearranged in the dark. And now, in a few hours, I would lose the only thing I had left. "Get in the bath," Maren whispered, her voice breaking. "Please, little star. We will figure this out." "How?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper. "How do we figure out something that is impossible?" Maren opened her mouth to answer, then closed it again. She had no answer. We both knew it. I stood on shaking legs and walked toward the bathing chamber. I stripped off my nightgown and reached for the washcloth on the marble counter. That was when I saw them. Not on the sheets this time. On my arms. Four parallel claw marks, fresh and bleeding, carved deep into my own skin from wrist to elbow. The blood was still wet, still warm, dripping onto the white marble in slow, crimson drops. And I had absolutely no memory of making them.