THE PALE CURSE THAT BINDS US

Sarah, lying in her small room in Seattle, waiting for her alarm to ring before she goes to M&M Gold Block, where she worked as a cleaner, reflects on the situation that led to her exile 7 years ago. And how she stood, looking up at the full moon that hung so bright, a luminous disc that seemed close enough to touch if she dared to reach it. She stood in the centre of the gathering circle with her arms loose at her sides. She felt the weight of two hundred eyes pressing down on her; some were that of pity, some disgust, and some were blankly indifferent. The bonfire crackled and spat sparks into the October sky, its smoke mixing with damp earth and the sharp musk of shifting wolves. Sarah had waited eighteen years to smell that on herself. Month after month, year after year, everyone around her transformed with grace and power, but not her; she couldn't transform. There he was across the flames, Alpha Gideon, her father. He stood like carved stone, all hard angles and cold authority. The man who had once called her “little moon” carried her on his shoulders through these woods and shared stories under starlight. That man was gone. He was buried beneath the mask of Alpha command. She spent the last five years trying to win back his approval through obedience and usefulness in other ways, except for shifting. However, perfect obedience wasn’t enough when you couldn’t do the one thing that mattered. “Sarah Martins.” His voice was stern, cold, and formal as he beckoned to her; each syllable of her name carried the weight of judgment and disappointment. “Step forward,” he echoed. Her legs moved as though she wasn't listening to her brain, one foot, then another. The circle of wolves parted like water, leaving a clear path between her and her father. Some faces showed pity, Beta Marcus looked stricken, and Elder Rowan’s clouded eyes somehow conveyed sorrow despite their blindness. The look of neutrality screams, “We have written her off, forgotten her, or are just waiting for formalities so they can go back to their lives and never remember Sarah Martins.” She caught sight of her sister Josephine, tall, golden, and perfect, standing next to her father in the firelight. Josephine wouldn’t make eye contact, and they didn't interact for weeks. She had since realized that Sarah would be exiled, so she decided to cut off any form of association with Sarah so she could have a good standing with the pack. Sarah couldn’t blame her. After all, Josephine was so young, still building her reputation. Why would she risk it for a sister who’d proven herself worthless? Three feet from Gideon, Sarah stopped. The heat from the bonfire behind her was intense, making sweat trickle down her spine beneath her ceremonial dress. Up close, she could see the tension in her father’s jaw, the way his hands were clenched into fists at his sides, the muscle jumping in his temple that meant he was controlling himself with effort. “You have been given every opportunity,” he began. “Five years. Five years of waiting, of making excuses, of telling ourselves you were a late bloomer, that your mother’s human blood delayed the inevitable.” Sarah stiffened. Her mother had died when she was six, leaving secrets she’d never known. The pack assumed Helena was human. Sarah had never corrected them because she hadn’t understood herself. But she remembered Helena’s strange grace, the moonlight that seemed drawn to her, the way flowers thrived in her presence. “But the truth is clear now,” Gideon’s voice stronger, control slipping. “You are not a wolf. You are not a pack. No child of mine would be this weak.” Weakness? The word hits her like a physical blow to her stomach. The word considered worse than being called cruel, stupid, reckless, or cowardly in Silverfang vocabulary is being used to define her. It is regarded as a bone-deep weakness not to transform. It means you couldn’t contribute to the pack’s strength, couldn’t fulfil the basic requirement of lupine existence, and that was unforgivable. That meant exile. He continued, “You have until sunrise to leave our territory.” The formality cracked just slightly, and for a second, Gideon’s voice sounded almost pleading, almost desperate. “Go to the cities, Sarah. Live among humans. Find a life that fits what you are. But you cannot stay here.” Sarah’s throat had closed completely. She forced it open through sheer will. “Dad...” The word came out broken, childish, the voice of the six-year-old who’d lost her mother and clung to her father like he was the only solid thing in a dissolving world. “Please. I can still be useful. I’m good at healing, at mediation, at record-keeping. The archives are a disaster. I could organise them, make them searchable. I don’t have to be a warrior. I don’t have to hunt. I can help in other ways.” “Enough.” The alpha's voice cuts in. The one that compelled obedience on a cellular level, that made even rebellious wolves fall silent and bare their throats in instinctive submission. Sarah felt her body yearn to obey, to submit, to accept his judgment as truth. She locked her knees and stayed upright through force of will alone. “You dishonor the Martins' name with every breath,” Gideon said, and now the roughness in his voice sounded like grief poorly disguised as anger. “I grant you mercy by letting you leave with your life. Do not test my patience by begging for what you can never have. Do not make me…” He stopped. Swallowed hard. “Do not make this harder than it already is.” He continued with visible effort. Somewhere in the crowd, someone muttered in agreement. Someone else laughed. There were cruel bark sounds. Sarah’s vision swam with tears she absolutely refused to let fall. Not here. Not in front of everyone. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing her destroyed. She’d save that for later, for when she was alone in the dark and no one could see her fall apart. She looked at her father one last time, trying to memorize his face because she knew with absolute certainty she’d never see it again. Tried to find something in his eyes that said he still cared, that this hurt him too, that exile was breaking his heart as much as it was breaking hers. But Alpha Gideon stared back with nothing but cold dismissal. Whatever pain he felt, he’d buried it too deep for her to reach. “I understand.” Sarah’s voice came out steadier than she felt, and she was proud of that. Proud that she could stand here and accept her destruction with dignity, even if she couldn’t transform. “I’ll be gone by sunrise. I’ll never trouble the Silverfang Pack again.” She turned deliberately, movements controlled despite the trembling that wanted to overtake her limbs. The walk to the forest edge seemed to take hours and no time at all, each step carrying her further from the only life she’d ever known. The crowd parted again, creating a corridor of wolves who wouldn’t touch her, wouldn’t speak to her, who treated her like she was already a ghost. Sarah kept her head up and her shoulders back. She walked like this was her choice, like she was leaving with purpose rather than being thrown away like garbage. At the edge of the firelight, a hand suddenly caught her arm. It was Beta Marcus Venn, her father’s second-in-command. The man who’d taught her to fish, who’d always had kind words when Gideon grew distant. Marcus pressed something into her palm. She opened it and realised he had given her some money, maybe two hundred dollars. His eyes were wet with unshed tears. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, so quietly only she could hear. “This isn’t right. I told him, I argued against it, but he won’t listen. He’s terrified of something, Sarah. Whatever your mother was, whatever you might be, it scares him more than anything I’ve ever seen. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” “Marcus,” Gideon’s voice cut through the night like a blade. “Step away from her. Now,” Marcus released her arm immediately, the moment of compassion crushed under the weight of pack hierarchy and Alpha command. Sarah clutched the money and kept walking, into the darkness beyond the firelight, into the forest that had been her playground and training ground and home for eighteen years. Sarah walked until sunrise, following the trails she’d known since childhood, moving steadily away from pack space and toward the distant highway that would take her to Seattle. To the city where wolves didn’t go, where she could disappear into crowds of humans and rebuild herself into something that didn’t hurt quite so much. Her feet ached. Her chest ached worse. But she kept moving, because stopping meant thinking, and thinking meant feeling, and feeling meant breaking down completely. She could break down later. Right now, she needed to survive the next hour, and then the next, and then the next after that. By the first light, she’d left the Silverfang compound miles behind. She stood at the edge of the forest, looking out at the highway where cars passed by, strangers going to places she’d never been, living lives she couldn’t imagine. A semi-truck slowed. The driver, a woman in her fifties with kind eyes, leaned down: “Are you running from something or toward something?” she said. “Both,” Sarah said. “Mostly away.” “Seattle’s my next stop. Does that work for you?” “That works.” Sarah hoped in, leaving the forest, the lights, and the life she had known behind. She didn’t cry. Not yet.