Chapter 15: The Wolf in Her Skin
958 Words
The sun dipped low behind the mist-veiled trees, casting long shadows across the forest floor. Aelira stood at the edge of a ridge, wind teasing her silver-streaked hair. The stone circle had revealed many secrets, and her heart still beat heavy with questions. But the mark on her wrist pulsed like a heartbeat, drawing her north.
She didn't know why, only that it called to her.
Thalia walked beside her, quieter than usual.
“I feel like I’m being watched,” Thalia whispered suddenly.
Aelira turned, scanning the dense trees. “You feel it too?”
The forest answered with silence.
They moved on, step by cautious step, until a sound stopped them cold.
A whimper.
It was faint, broken and desperate.
Aelira raised her hand, signaling Thalia to stay back. The whimper came again, just past a curtain of brambles. Aelira carefully parted the branches.
There, tangled in vines and streaked with blood, lay a wolf.
Small. Slender. Pale fur matted with dirt and ash. She was trembling, her limbs bent awkwardly beneath her as if she had collapsed from exhaustion.
Aelira’s heart clenched. She crouched down, eyes cautious.
“Are you hurt?”
The wolf whimpered again, her amber eyes wide and glassy with fear. She tried to crawl back, but her back leg gave out.
“She’s terrified,” Aelira murmured.
Thalia stepped forward, her hand glowing faintly. “Let me heal her.”
“No,” Aelira said, almost without thinking.
Something was wrong.
The wolf looked too weak, too perfect. Like she had been left there to be found.
“I’ll try to shift,” Aelira said.
She stepped closer and reached out, channeling the glow from her wrist into her fingertips. As she laid her hand against the wolf’s trembling side, a jolt of energy shot through her.
Her vision blurred.
Another scent. Her scent.
It lingered like a ghost beneath the wolf’s fur, not just her scent as Luna, but hers. Her exact essence.
Her identity.
Aelira pulled back sharply.
“What is it?” Thalia asked, concerned.
“She’s… she’s not what she seems.”
Suddenly, the wolf shifted.
The process was slow and painful, more so than usual. The bones cracked with unnatural slowness, and then, lying where the wolf had been, was a young woman, barely older than Aelira, with long, tangled dark hair and skin the color of snow. Her eyes were amber still, wide and pleading.
She looked fragile. Too fragile.
But Aelira had seen the glint behind her eyes.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” the girl rasped. “Please… don’t leave me.”
Thalia crouched beside her. “What’s your name?”
The girl trembled. “Sera.”
Her voice cracked just enough to sound broken. “I… I escaped from a rogue camp. They kept me chained. I ran when they weren’t looking. I don’t know where I am.”
Aelira didn’t speak.
Her instincts screamed liar. But her scent… it was still her scent.
No rogue could replicate that.
No one should be able to.
“How long were you held?” Thalia asked gently.
Sera lowered her eyes. “Three moons. Maybe more. I didn’t keep track. Please… I can help you. I used to be a healer before I was taken. Just let me stay.”
Her eyes found Aelira’s, and something in them gleamed. A flicker. Too sharp.
Too knowing.
Aelira stepped back.
“You can rest for the night,” she said. “But we leave at dawn.”
---
That night, while the others slept, Aelira sat by the fire, her eyes fixed on the girl. Sera slept soundly, but even in slumber, her posture was calculated, turned just enough toward Aelira to seem harmless, just broken enough to invite pity.
But Aelira saw through it.
When she rose to check the perimeter, she moved silently through the trees, until she found what she was looking for.
A small pouch. Hidden in the hollow of a tree.
Inside it was ash. Bone dust. Crushed herbs. And a strand of Aelira’s own hair, stolen from the night wind.
Aelira's heart dropped.
She knows who I am.
She planned this.
She returned quietly to camp, her mind reeling. She couldn't confront Sera yet, not without proof. Not without knowing how far this magic went.
But one thing was clear.
Sera wasn’t just a rogue.
She was something worse.
---
Far away, Kaelen stood in his study again, scrolls laid out before him. The crescent moon hung outside his window, and yet sleep would not come.
He stared at an old sketch, one he hadn’t looked at in years.
It was Aelira, drawn by his sister when they were children. He had kept it, hidden away, long after the rejection.
“What are you trying to tell me?” he whispered to the page.
Malric entered, face grim.
“We found something,” he said. “A trail. And… a scent.”
Kaelen’s eyes sharpened. “Aelira?”
Malric hesitated. “Yes. But also no.”
Kaelen frowned. “What do you mean?”
“The scent was hers, Kael. Exactly. But it felt… off. Like someone wearing her skin.”
Kaelen stood abruptly.
“Find her. Now.”
---
Back in the forest, Sera lay still under her blanket, the flicker of firelight dancing across her features.
Her lips curled slightly into a smile.
She had waited years for this moment — the moment the Blessed Luna would finally show herself. And now that Aelira had… the rest was only a matter of time.
She would study her. Learn her voice. Her movements. Her power.
And soon… her scent would not be borrowed.
It would be hers.
- Writer
