MARKED BY THE MOON

Every Elder in the Room

Kian POV

Eleven elders sat in that council chamber this morning. All of them own the same robe.

That's the first problem I ran into within minutes of returning to the pack house, Luna beside me, the scrap of green fabric held carefully in a small cloth pouch like it might disappear if we're not careful with it. Formal council robes have been standard for generations, identical in color and cut, worn by every elder who's ever sat at that table. A torn piece of fabric doesn't point to one person.

It points to eleven.

"We need to see all of them," Luna says, pacing the length of the small side room we've claimed for this, torchlight flickering against the stone walls. "Tonight. Check each robe for damage."

"And if the guilty one already disposed of theirs? Burned it, buried it, replaced it with an identical robe before we even thought to look?"

"Then we watch for who reacts wrong when we ask." Luna stops pacing, looking at me with the same sharp focus I remember from the moment she first found that requisition form in the records room, weeks and a lifetime ago. "Guilty people give themselves away. Not always with words. Sometimes just with how fast they answer, how eager they are to prove they have nothing to hide."

I send for all eleven, one at a time, careful not to let word spread that we're looking for anything specific. The first three come and go without incident, robes intact, alibis solid enough that I believe them without much effort. The fourth, an older man named Ephraim who's sat on this council since before I was born, hesitates just slightly too long before confirming his robe is exactly where it should be.

"Show me," I say.

Eventually, the robe pulled from his wardrobe and laid across the table between us, intact, unmarked, exactly as he claimed. I let him go, though something about his hesitation stays with me, filed away for later.

By the seventh elder, exhaustion is setting into both of us, the kind that comes from holding too much fear and grief in one body for too many hours straight. Luna sits across from me during the brief gaps between interviews, one hand resting against her stomach, though whether from worry or simple tiredness, I can't tell anymore.

"You should rest," I say quietly.

"So should you." She doesn't move. "We're close. I can feel it."

The eighth elder is Priya's oldest friend, a woman named Odalys who's served on this council for longer than almost anyone else alive. She arrives already in tears, having heard about Priya's letter, about Cassia's death, about the terrible unraveling happening around all of them tonight.

"I don't need to see your robe," I tell her gently, and watch relief and grief war across her face in equal measure.

"You should," she says anyway, voice trembling. "Everyone should be checked. No exceptions, or this investigation means nothing."

She's right, and something about her insistence, her willingness to prove her innocence even when I'm ready to spare her the indignity of it, tells me more than any torn fabric could.

By the time we reach the eleventh and final elder, the night has grown late enough that the pack house has settled into an uneasy quiet around us, guards doubled at every entrance, the weight of everything that's happened today pressing down on every hallway like a held breath.

The eleventh elder is a woman I barely know, quiet, unassuming, someone who's attended council for years without ever drawing much attention to herself. Her name is Renata. She arrives calm, composed, and the robe already folded neatly in her arms before I even ask.

"I heard what happened to Cassia," she says, laying the robe across the table. "Terrible business. I assumed you'd want to see this."

I examine it carefully, running my fingers along every seam, every hem, searching for any sign of a tear that matches the scrap Bettina found clutched in Cassia's dying hand.

Nothing.

The robe is whole. Perfect. Untouched.

I'm about to thank her, about to move on to whatever comes next in an investigation that's yielding nothing but exhaustion and dead ends, when Luna's hand suddenly closes tight around my wrist.

"Wait," she says quietly.

I follow her gaze to Renata's hands, folded calmly in her lap, and for a moment I don't understand what Luna's seeing that I'm not.

Then I noticed it too. A thin line of raised skin along the side of her palm, barely visible in the torchlight, half-healed, the exact shape and size of a fresh cut from something sharp and thin.

Like wire.

"That's a recent injury," Luna says slowly, her eyes never leaving Renata's face. "How did you get that?"

Renata's composure doesn't c***k, not exactly, but something behind her eyes shifts, calculates, recalculates.

"Kitchen accident," she says smoothly. "A broken jar. Nothing serious."

"May I see it," I say, and it isn't really a question.

For just a moment, the smallest fraction of a second, I see real fear flash across her face before she buries it again beneath practiced calm.

"Of course," she says, extending her hand.

The cut is exactly where I'd expect it to be if someone had used a length of wire to reach through a narrow window, exactly where the metal might bite into skin under enough pressure and enough haste.

"Renata," I say quietly, every instinct in me going cold and sharp at once, "I think you and I need to have a much longer conversation."

Her hand trembles slightly in mine, and for the first time since this whole nightmare started, I watch someone's careful mask finally begin to slip.

"You don't understand," she whispers. "If I tell you anything, they'll do to me exactly what they did to her."

Behind us, the door to the small room creaks open before either of us can respond, and a guard steps inside, face pale, breathless from running.

"Alpha," he says urgently. "You need to come now. It's the border. Something's crossed onto our land, and it's not one of ours.”