The Silver Mark

Chapter Three — The Woman in the Moonlight

Elara's POV

“Who are you?”

The question left my mouth barely above a whisper, yet in the strange silence of the forest, it seemed to travel much farther than it should have. The woman didn't answer immediately. She simply stood before me beneath the silver light of the moon, her pale hair moving gently. There was something about her that unsettled me, but not because she frightened me. It was the opposite. She felt familiar in a way that made absolutely no sense. I had never seen her before, yet some inexplicable part of me seemed to recognize the shape of her face, the sadness in her eyes, even the way she watched me as though she had been waiting for this exact moment.

The woman finally opened her mouth. “You are not ready.”

I frowned. “Ready for what?”

Her expression softened, and for the briefest moment, I thought I saw something painfully close to affection in her eyes. “To remember.”

The words made no sense. I stared at her, trying to understand how someone I had never met could speak as though she knew something about me that I had spent fifteen years trying to understand myself.

“I don't remember you.”

“You were never meant to.”

Something cold travelled down my spine.

Before I could ask what she meant, another howl rolled through the forest. This one was closer, deeper, and far more powerful than the one I had heard before. The woman's entire posture changed. Whatever calm she had been carrying vanished, replaced by something that looked dangerously close to fear. She turned toward the darkness behind me, and I followed her gaze, but there was nothing there except trees, mist, and shadows stretching between the trunks.

“Who is coming?” I asked.

She looked back at me.

“Not who,” she said quietly.

Her eyes fixed on mine.

“What.”

The forest seemed to shudder around us. I took a step backward, but before I could move any farther, the woman reached for me. Her fingers brushed mine, and the instant our skin touched, warmth surged through my entire body.

Images flashed before my eyes.

A woman running through a burning forest.

A silver pendant.

A newborn crying beneath the moon.

Blood staining snow.

A wolf standing between flames and a woman whose face I couldn't see clearly enough to recognize.

Then everything disappeared.

I gasped.

The woman was gone.

The forest was gone.

And I woke.

I sat upright so quickly that the room spun around me. For several seconds, I couldn't understand where I was. My bedroom slowly emerged from the darkness—the familiar curtains, the wooden wardrobe, the books stacked beside my bed. My breathing came too quickly, and sweat clung to the back of my neck despite the cold night air coming through the slightly open window.

Vesper was awake.

Elara.

I pressed a hand against my chest. “I saw her again.”

I know.

“No, you don't.” I pushed the blanket away and stood, still unsteady. “She touched me.”

Vesper remained quiet for a moment.

What did you see?

I looked toward the window. The moon was still visible above the trees, although it seemed much less threatening now.

“I don't know.”

That was the truth. I remembered flashes rather than a complete vision, fragments that made no sense when placed together. Fire. Blood. A baby. The pendant. A wolf. And that woman. The images had felt too vivid to be a normal dream, yet they were too impossible to be memories.

Most disturbing of all was the feeling that the dream hadn't been a dream at all.

It had felt like something I had forgotten.

I reached beneath my shirt.

The pendant was cold.

Completely ordinary.

I turned it over in my hand, searching for something I hadn't noticed before. There was nothing except the faint scratch across the back that had always been there. I had owned it for years, worn it through school, training, arguments, illnesses, birthdays, and every other insignificant day of my life. I knew every little imperfection on its surface.

Or at least I thought I did.

My fingers moved toward the mark beneath my collarbone.

The skin was warm.

I removed the bandage.

The crescent had changed.

The three lines crossing it were darker now, their edges almost silver beneath my skin. I stared at it for several seconds before carefully touching one of the lines.

Nothing happened.

I exhaled.

“Maybe I'm losing my mind.”

You're dramatic.

I looked toward the empty space beside my bed.

“You just watched me hallucinate an entire forest.”

Technically, I was there.

“Exactly.”

Which means it wasn't a hallucination.

I hated when she made sense.

I replaced the bandage and sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the floor. The worst part wasn't the woman, the mark, or even the pendant. It was the strange certainty that something had changed. I could feel it somewhere deep inside me, beneath the familiar presence of Vesper and the ordinary rhythm of my body, as though a door I had never known existed had suddenly been pushed open.

Do you think it has something to do with your Gift?

I went still.

That word alone was enough to make my stomach tighten.

Gifts were not unusual in our world, but they were rare enough that people remembered the families who possessed them. Most wolves never developed anything beyond the abilities associated with their natural rank. The few who manifested something different were tested, trained, and watched carefully.

I had never shown any sign of possessing one.

Not until tonight.

“I don't know,” I whispered.

You healed that cut last week.

I frowned.

“That was different.”

Was it?

I didn't answer.

The academy healer had called the incident a natural closing of the wound. I had wanted to believe her. Now I wasn't sure.

I didn't sleep again that night.

By morning, exhaustion had settled behind my eyes like a weight. The academy looked exactly as it always did, which somehow made everything feel stranger. Students crossed the courtyard in groups, laughing about lessons and training. The scent of breakfast drifted from the dining hall, mixing with the cold morning air and the faint earthy smell of the forest beyond the grounds.

Nobody knew that something impossible had happened to me.

Nobody knew that I had dreamed of a woman who might not even exist.

And I preferred it that way.

I made it through the first two classes without incident. During combat theory, I copied notes while barely listening to the instructor explain defensive formations. My thoughts kept drifting back to the dream, returning to the same questions until I wanted to tear the page in front of me apart.

Who was she?

Why did she know about me?

What did she mean by remembering?

And why had she looked at me like she was afraid of something?

By lunch, my head was throbbing.

I escaped to the oak tree again.

The old tree stood at the far edge of the courtyard, its broad branches stretching over the grass and its roots breaking through the soil around its base. It had become something of a sanctuary for me over the years, a place where I could disappear without technically leaving school. The surrounding courtyard remained busy, but beneath the oak, the noise softened into a distant hum of conversation, footsteps, and occasional laughter.

I sat against the trunk and closed my eyes.

For the first time since waking, I allowed myself to breathe.

Then I heard footsteps.

I didn't need to open my eyes.

“You're hiding again,” Alaric said.

I opened one eye. “I'm sitting.”

“Under a tree.”

“Yes.”

“Alone.”

“Yes.”

He dropped down beside me, his shoulder brushing mine for a moment before he settled against the trunk.

“You're terrible at explaining yourself,” he said.

“And you're terrible at minding your own business.”

He smiled. “That's probably why we're friends.”

“That's a very generous interpretation.”

His laugh was quiet, and I hated how easily it made me smile.

For a while, neither of us said anything. The noise of the courtyard drifted around us, softened by the leaves overhead. I appreciated the silence more than I wanted to admit.

Eventually, he looked at me.

“You look tired.”

“Thank you.”

“That wasn't a compliment.”

“I know.”

His smile faded slightly. “Nightmares?”

I hesitated.

Then nodded.

He didn't ask for details. Instead, he picked up a fallen leaf and turned it between his fingers, giving me the choice to speak. I didn't. There were some things that sounded ridiculous even inside my own head.

Eventually, he looked at me again.

“You know you can trust me.”

The words should have comforted me.

Instead, they made something twist painfully inside my chest.

I looked away. “I know.”

He didn't push.

That was why I liked him.

He knew when to stop.

The afternoon passed quietly until our final practical lesson. The training grounds were busy with students from several years, and the air carried the earthy scent of trampled grass and the sharper smell of sweat from the combat fields. I stood with the other students near the shifting area while the instructor demonstrated how to maintain control when partially shifted.

We had barely begun when one of the younger students lost control. His shift faltered halfway through, leaving claws extended along his fingers and his senses overwhelmed. Another student moved too quickly and accidentally caught his forearm with a claw.

Blood appeared immediately.

The instructor rushed over, calling for the medical kit.

It wasn't a life-threatening injury, but the cut was deeper than it initially appeared, and the boy's face had gone pale as blood ran down his arm.

I watched from several feet away.

Something about the sight made my stomach twist.

Not disgust.

Something else.

A strange pressure began building behind my eyes.

Elara?

Vesper sounded uncertain.

“I don't know.”

Without thinking, I moved closer.

“Are you okay?”

The boy nodded, embarrassed. “Fine.”

I crouched beside him.

The wound was deeper than it had looked from a distance. Blood had already begun dripping onto the grass, and something inside me reacted before I could think about it. My hand moved toward his arm.

I stopped.

I shouldn't.

I didn't know what had happened the night before. I didn't know what the woman had meant. I didn't know what the strange warmth inside me was.

But the boy was hurting.

That was enough.

My fingers hovered above his arm.

Then I touched him.

Warmth rushed through my palm.

The boy's breathing stopped.

So did mine.

For one impossible second, the edges of the wound seemed to shimmer beneath my fingertips. The blood slowed, and the torn skin began drawing together.

Not completely.

But enough.

I jerked my hand away.

The sudden movement made me dizzy.

“Elara?” the instructor asked.

I looked up.

He was staring at me.

“I—I thought he needed help.”

The teacher glanced at the boy's arm.

The cut was still there, but considerably less severe than it had been moments before.

“Did you do something?”

“No.”

The answer came too quickly.

I stood before anyone could ask another question.

The world tilted.

Vesper's voice became distant.

Elara, sit down.

“I'm fine.”

You're not.

I barely made it to the edge of the training field before my knees weakened. I caught myself against the stone wall, breathing hard as the afternoon sunlight suddenly seemed far too bright.

Something warm trickled from my nose.

I touched it.

Blood.

My own.

I stared at the red smear across my fingers.

For a moment, I simply stood there, unable to understand how something as impossible as that could have happened through my own hands.

Then I remembered the woman's voice.

You have awakened.

I looked down at my trembling fingers.

For the first time, I wondered whether she hadn't been talking about the mark.

Maybe she had been talking about me.

And if that was true, I had absolutely no idea what I had just awakened.