The Seven-Day Severance

Chapter 3 The Fake Savior

By late afternoon, Joric was sitting up in the Great Hall. His breathing had cleared, and the gray color around his mouth was gone.

Pack members crowded around his chair. News of the recovery had traveled quickly because the warrior brought in that morning had been expected to die.

Elara stood beside his chair accepting everyone's thanks.

From the doorway, I heard her describe a folk remedy her grandmother had supposedly taught her. She pressed a hand to her throat whenever her audience began to drift.

Her voice shook in the right places. By the end of the story, she had turned opening a cabinet and pouring out a vial into an act of inspiration from the Goddess.

I recognized the sweet-metal scent on Joric's bandages. Elara had opened my emergency cabinet and used one vial of Starlight Salve.

Brewing it had taken a month and two full moons. Three doses had existed that morning. Now there were two.

The salve required moonpetals gathered before dawn and a blood seal at the final stage. Elara could use it, but she could not replace what she had taken.

Caleb kept a hand at the small of Elara's back. When he noticed me, he lifted his chin toward Joric as if the healed warrior settled every question between us.

I turned away before he could summon me.

That evening, Caleb held a feast for Joric's recovery. A guard came to my chamber with an order to attend.

I took the last seat at the head table. Beside Caleb, Elara pushed food around her plate and leaned on his shoulder. Halfway through the meal, she braced both hands on the table and stood.

She had spent the feast accepting praise, yet she arranged her face as if the healing had drained her. Caleb moved her cup closer before she spoke.

"My Alpha, my pack. The Goddess guided me today," she said. "But my gift is still weak. I want to serve you better."

Her attention traveled down the table to me.

"Serena, your grandmother left you the Moonstone Crystal. It strengthens a healer's magic. For the good of the pack, would you lend it to me?"

The Moonstone had passed through the women of my family for generations. Elara spoke of it as if she were asking to borrow a mortar.

My grandmother had placed it in my hands on her deathbed. It carried the magic of every healer in our maternal line and answered only to their blood.

"This is not a request," Caleb said before I could answer. "The pack comes first. Give Elara the stone."

He did not ask what the Moonstone cost me or whether Elara could control it. His order was for the room as much as it was for me.

Around us, wolves waited to see whether I would refuse their newly crowned Luna.

I stood and took the crystal from the pouch at my belt. It was the size of a dove's egg, warm against my palm, with a steady light at its center.

The nearest candles bent toward it. Elara's tired pose vanished, and both of her hands tightened on the edge of the table.

Elara reached across Caleb for it.

I opened my hand. The Moonstone struck the floor and rolled beneath the table until it touched Caleb's boot.

Chairs scraped. Elara's hand remained stretched toward me.

Several wolves gasped. Caleb looked down at the crystal, then at me, while Elara stepped around his chair as if she might dive after it.

"If Elara is your healer, let her use her own skill," I said. "She has already helped herself to my Starlight Salve. She will get nothing else from me."

"A healer does not become one by wearing a crown or borrowing someone else's power. Let her show you what she can make."

I left Caleb to retrieve the crystal from under his chair.

In my chamber, I spread the journal and scrolls across the floor. I mixed a drop of my blood into the ink, then marked the corner of every formula with my sigil.

I worked page by page, waiting for each mark to take before moving to the next. The cramped room smelled of blood, ink, and the herbs stored in my satchel.

Each page took the shape of a small, glowing wolf's head. No one could copy or erase it without my consent.

When the last sigil dried, pain tugged through my wrist. The silver wolf in the mate mark had faded to a thin outline.

Five days.