Chapter Eight — Shadows in the Moonlight
768 Words
Rhea
The sky was red when it happened.
Not the color of fire — deeper, heavier, the color of blood spilled too slowly. The mountains burned, but not with flame. With power.
I watched from the balcony as the light rose out of the Thorn range like a second dawn. Every wolf in the valley felt it — the pulse that cracked through the wards, the echo of something divine and wrong.
And at the center of it, my sister.
“Goddess preserve us,” one of the elders whispered behind me. “The old power stirs again.”
No one said her name. They didn’t have to.
Aria’s scent was still in the air.
I gripped the railing, nails biting into the wood. “Send scouts,” I ordered.
Lorne, ever the cautious Beta, hesitated. “The Thorn range belongs to the cursed pack. If what we felt came from their Alpha—”
“Then we should know,” I cut in. “Before it reaches us.”
He bowed, but his eyes said what he wouldn’t: he was afraid. Not of Kael Thorn. Of me.
Good.
Let them be afraid. Someone has to hold their fear. Someone has to turn it into control.
When they were gone, I stayed there alone, watching the fire on the horizon fade into smoke. The light had felt familiar, even from this distance — sharp, silver, threaded with moonlight.
Aria’s light.
Father always said the moon favored her, that she carried too much of Selene’s blood. I’d always thought he meant it as a warning. But maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe it was a prophecy.
And if so, I was the one left in its shadow.
I turn away from the window, forcing my hands to still. The pack needs strength, not sentiment. Aria’s always been the dreamer. The kind one. The reckless one.
She will destroy us if she isn’t stopped.
The council chamber smells of smoke and rain when I arrive. The elders are already gathered, whispering behind closed doors. Their faces are pale in the torchlight — uncertain, waiting for someone to give their fear a name.
“Speak,” I command.
Elder Mirella rises, her hair the color of ash. “The border flared again. Wards cracked, just for a moment. The scouts say the Thorn Alpha was sighted near the ridges. They say…” She hesitates. “They say your sister was there.”
The silence that follows is heavy, dangerous.
I let it stretch before I answer. “And what do you think they saw?”
Mirella folds her hands. “Whatever it was, it wasn’t natural.”
“Aria wouldn’t consort with a cursed Alpha,” Lorne says, too quickly. “Not intentionally.”
I almost smile. “Intention doesn’t matter. The bond does.”
The word lands like thunder. The elders shift uneasily.
“You believe she’s bound?” Mirella whispers.
“I believe she’s marked,” I correct. “By the same power that made the Thorn line monsters.”
Lorne slams a fist against the table. “Then she must be contained!”
Contain. Like something poisonous. Like something unclean.
I let their panic fill the room before I speak again. “No,” I say quietly. “Containment will only prove her guilt. We’ll do nothing — yet. The people still love her. Let them. Let her return. Let her think she’s safe.”
Mirella frowns. “And when she does?”
I look back toward the mountains, where the last embers of light still stain the clouds. “Then we remind the pack that monsters don’t always look like beasts.”
Later, when the hall is empty, I stand before the old mirror in Father’s study. The moonlight through the window cuts across my face — one half bright, the other shadowed.
Once, I used to trace the scars on my palms, pretending they were the mark of the goddess. Proof that I’d been chosen too.
Now I see them for what they are — callouses. The kind that come from holding too tightly to what should have been mine.
I touch the glass where my reflection meets my eyes. “You’ve always had everything, sister,” I whisper. “The moon’s favor. Father’s love. His throne.”
I smile, slow and cold. “Let’s see what happens when the moon turns her face away.”
Outside, thunder rumbles again over the mountains — faint, but closer.
The fire may have gone out, but the smoke hasn’t settled.
And I intend to make sure it never does.
- Writer
