BLOOD AND BARK
1142 Words
Chapter 5: Blood and Bark
The trees felt different.
Not just older, or thicker, but aware—as if they'd opened unseen eyes and turned their gaze on Elara. She walked deeper into the woods, pulled by the rhythm thrumming beneath her skin, the same rhythm that had ignited during the failed shift under the full moon.
Kael’s voice still echoed in her ears, but it was distant now. A warning from another life.
“Stay with the pack.”
But she couldn’t. Something had stirred, something ancient and wild and hers.
The deeper she went, the more the forest changed. The silver leaves gave way to violet moss. Branches twisted into unnatural shapes, and bark shimmered with a faint iridescence. The very air seemed heavier here, thick with memory. And the howling—it no longer sounded like a beast. It was a song, slow and aching, echoing through the earth.
She paused at a wide clearing ringed with enormous blackwood trees. In the center stood a stone monolith—half-buried in tangled roots, its surface etched with runes that shimmered faintly red in the moonlight.
Her mark pulsed in response.
Elara approached the stone, her hand trembling as she reached out. Her fingers brushed its surface.
The world fell away.
---
She was not in the forest anymore.
Not really.
She stood in a vast, empty expanse of starlight and shadow. No ground beneath her feet. No sky above. Just space—alive, whispering.
Then the whispers became words, and the starlight shifted, folding inward, shaping into a figure cloaked in shadow and silver.
“Elara,” the figure said, voice neither male nor female, but both—and more. “Child of the broken bond. The forest remembers.”
Her voice shook. “Are you... 2rotin?”
A pause.
“We are. We are what you left behind. What your blood betrayed. What your heart forgot.”
Elara took a step back. “I don’t understand. What do you mean, forgot? I didn’t choose this—I don’t even remember who I am!”
“You will. When you are ready. When the blood accepts the bark.”
“What does that even mean?” she demanded. “Why couldn’t I shift? Why did the others collapse?”
The figure raised a shadowed hand, and a vision burst forth in the space between them—a shimmering image of her pack, writhing under the blood moon. Then: her, untouched by its pull, the mark on her back glowing like a brand.
“Your bond to the moon is not theirs. You are Moodbound.”
The word echoed through her, heavy with ancient power.
“Moodbound,” she whispered. “Like... the old legends?”
“No legend,” 2rotin said. “The first wolves were born not from blood, but from memory. From the moon's tears upon bark. You carry that origin. Forgotten, silenced, sealed. But now... the seal weakens.”
Elara tried to breathe, but the air here felt too thin. “So I’m not one of them. Not like Kael or Lukas?”
“You are more. And more is feared.”
She shook her head. “That’s why I couldn’t shift. Why the others collapsed. I’m... incompatible.”
“No,” 2rotin said. “You are returning. And in doing so, you unsettle the balance.”
Another image flashed: her younger self, bloody, scarred, emerging from the woods twelve years ago. A hand—a woman’s hand—reaching out before vanishing in mist.
“That voice I heard when I was found,” Elara said, heart pounding. “Was it my mother?”
2rotin said nothing.
But the silence was answer enough.
“Where is she?” Elara asked.
“In the grove where the moon no longer shines.”
The starlight dimmed.
“You must choose,” 2rotin said. “Return to the pack, and forget. Let the blood path continue. Or follow the bark, and awaken all that has been buried.”
Elara closed her eyes.
She saw Kael’s face, twisted with worry. Lukas writhing on the ground. The scent of burning bark. And the pull in her bones—the song only she could hear.
“I want the truth,” she said. “All of it.”
The figure stepped back, arms wide.
“Then bleed with the trees.”
---
She awoke gasping, knees hitting the forest floor. The clearing around her pulsed with faint red light, the monolith glowing brighter now. A fresh sting on her back made her flinch—and when she reached behind her shoulder, her fingers came back wet with blood.
The scar had split open.
But beneath the pain, something in her felt lighter. More aligned.
She wasn’t lost. She was being called home.
“Elara!”
Kael’s voice rang out through the trees.
She turned just as he burst into the clearing in wolf form, golden eyes frantic. He shifted mid-run, crashing to his knees beside her, breathing hard.
“You vanished,” he said. “The whole pack—Lukas barely woke up. We thought—”
“I had to come,” she said softly. “Something’s waking up in me. I saw... 2rotin.”
His expression darkened.
“That name is forbidden.”
“It shouldn’t be.”
“Elara,” he growled. “That name is dangerous. It nearly ended us once before.”
“Maybe it should’ve,” she snapped. “If the path we’re on is built on lies.”
Kael grabbed her wrist. “Don’t talk like that.”
“Then listen,” she said, voice fierce. “The forest didn’t just remember me. It remembered everything. The origin, the truth of who I am. I’m not like you, Kael. I never was.”
His grip loosened.
“I know,” he said quietly. “I’ve always known.”
Elara froze.
“You knew?” she asked. “And you didn’t tell me?”
He looked away. “I was trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
“From them,” he said. “From what they’ll do if they find out. Moodbound blood is outlawed. If the Elders discover what you are—”
“Then we stop hiding,” she said.
“Elara—”
“No more running, Kael.”
She stood, the blood drying on her back like a mark reborn.
“I want to find her,” she said. “My mother. The woman who left me there.”
Kael hesitated. Then nodded once. “Then we go together.”
---
In the shadows beyond the clearing, unseen and silent, something watched them. Not beast, not man, but the echo of an oath broken long ago.
And when it turned, its eyes burned with moonlight.
The Moodbound had awakened.
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