Book 1: The Luna’s Curse

Trial of Wolves - 1

Morning came with bells.

Not the wild ringing of the coronation, not the panicked tolling of watchfire alarms, but a measured, steady rhythm that rolled through Frost Vale like the slow beat of a war drum.

One.

Two.

Three.

By the third chime, every wolf in the fortress was awake.

By the sixth, every visiting Alpha knew: the Conclave of Moons had begun.

Aria woke with Kael’s arm still wrapped around her.

For a moment, the world was just warmth and breath and the quiet, unhurried rise and fall of his chest beneath her cheek. The fire in the hearth had burned low to embers. Pale light leaked in around the edges of the heavy curtains.

She didn’t move.

If she lay very still, she could pretend she was just any Luna, on any morning, with nothing heavier on her shoulders than pack disputes and winter rations. No Goddess. No Blood Moon. No northern houses sharpening their teeth.

The bells kept ringing.

She sighed.

Kael’s fingers flexed at her waist. “I know that sound,” he muttered, voice thick with sleep. “That’s the ‘I’m about to do something reckless and pretend it’s strategy’ sigh.”

“Very funny,” she said, but her lips curved.

His arm tightened briefly, as if he could physically keep her here, tucked against him and out of reach of gods and courts both. Then he loosened his hold and let her sit up.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“Like my bones have opinions,” she said. “But they’re not broken.”

She flexed her fingers. The fractures beneath her skin glowed faintly, more like banked coals than open wounds now. The web of bonds hummed just beyond the edge of her awareness—restless, waiting, but not in immediate crisis.

That was something.

She swung her legs over the edge of the bed.

“Aria,” Kael said quietly.

She looked back.

He was watching her with that expression she was still learning how to hold—equal parts pride, fear, and something so fierce it almost hurt to meet it.

“No one in that hall gets to decide who you are,” he said. “They’ll act like they can. They’ll dress it up in old laws and sacred rites. But they are not gods, and the one goddess who tried to write your story got told no under her own moon.”

The words sank into the places inside her that still felt sixteen and exiled and small.

“Then let’s go remind them,” she said.