Luna's curse

Chapter One The Edge of the Forest The first rule was: do not be seen. I knew it as well as I knew my own hearbeat.The rule lived in my bones. The witches never wrote it down. They didn’t need to. They spoke it like a warning, like a prayer, like it was the only truth that stood between life and ruin. The second rule: do not touch. Not the trees. Not the animals. And never, ever a person. I stood at the edge of the clearing, the hem of my cloak brushing dew-wet grass, my bare feet dusted with ash from the morning wards. Just beyond the rise, the Moon Fang Pack’s territory shimmered beneath the thinning fog so close I swore I could taste the scent of wolves in the air. Wild. Untamed. Alive. I had never gone past the border. The third rule forbade it: Never step into Moon Fang land. “Back from the edge, moon born,” came a voice behind me, sharp as flint, but not without its own weathered kind of care. “I wasn’t crossing,” I said, though I still took a step back. I wasn’t foolish. Not when I’d seen Mareth raise storms with a single word. Not when I’d watched her speak to shadows like they were old friends. “You don’t need to cross,” she said. “The curse burns even here.” My gaze fell. I hated that she was right. I never wanted to hurt anyone. I never meant to. But the wolfsbane in my blood didn’t care what I wanted. Behind her, Tamsin stirred the morning’s brew. She was the youngest of the three witches quick-witted, quicker with her tongue. She was the one who’d sewn the threads of my cloak by hand, charms woven into every seam, designed to smother my scent and dampen the moon’s pull. “Maybe if you’d stop pining at the border like some lovesick ghost,” she muttered, “the forest wouldn’t hum so loudly.” “It’s not humming,” I said. “It’s screaming,” Ysra added as she emerged from the grove, arms full of wild mushrooms and something wriggling inside a net. Her voice was always the calmest and somehow, that made it cut deepest. “The land feels it when your curse stirs. So do the wolves.” That was the worst part. I didn’t even have to do anything. Just being near the edge made the world tremble. My presence was a ripple, a disruption in the veil. A sign that something unnatural still breathed. They had raised me gently. Carefully. With spells for silence. Wards for hiding. Cloaks, charms, incantations they covered me in protections like a second skin. But no spell was strong enough to hide what I was. Born under a silver moon. The Luna’s Bane. A prophecy dressed in blood and shadow. And no matter how many rules they gave me, no matter how many walls they built Destiny always found the cracks. Today had to be different. I wasn’t supposed to exist everyone made sure I knew that. I was a mistake written in moonlight and blood, a curse given form. But I did exist. I breathed. I felt. And for just one day, I wanted to know what it meant to be something more than a warning. So much for rule number three. I tugged my cloak tighter around me, its charms brushing against my skin like forgotten prayers. The third rule echoed in my head: Never step into Moon Fang land. But the forest beyond the border called to me louder than the rules ever had. “Mother Mareth, what’s cooking?” I asked, schooling my voice into something light as I stepped toward the hut we’d carved into the roots of the earth. Smoke drifted from the chimney. The scent of rosemary and dried bone hung thick in the air. She didn’t look up from the bubbling cauldron. “Stomach-salve for the fever foxes. And don’t think I don’t see the mischief crawling up your spine, girl.” My smile was small and sharp. “I’m just asking a question.” “You’re plotting,” Mareth muttered, stabbing the mixture with her wooden ladle like it might betray her. The others moved about the clearing. Ysra was hanging bundles of herbs to dry in the morning sun, muttering to herself in the old tongue. Tamsin had disappeared into the grove with a satchel and a list of rare roots to find. No one was paying too much attention. Good. That was part of the plan. The witches could touch me unlike anyone else because they were protected. Spells woven into their skin, their blood, their bones. Their magic buffered the sting of my curse. They had survived me, shaped me, even loved me in their own cautious way. But they would never let me live. I slipped into the hut, grabbed the satchel I’d hidden beneath the loose floorboard two nights ago. Inside: a flask of wolfsbane tonic to keep the curse from flaring, a strip of warding cloth from my cloak, a single piece of moonstone hidden in a scrap of silk. And the map I’d stolen from Tamsin’s satchel. My hands trembled as I stepped back into the light, but I didn’t hesitate. I gave Mareth one last glance she was still busy muttering over her pot. I whispered a silencing charm, barely above a breath, and crossed the threshold of our hollow without a sound. The trees watched me as I passed. The wards shivered, then stilled. I followed the deer path north until I reached the edge of the clearing where the magic thinned. Beyond it, the forest thickened wild and unclaimed. Moon Fang territory. My heart hammered in my chest. I took one breath. Then another. And I stepped over the line. The air changed the moment I crossed. It was sharper here, tinged with iron and pine. The world felt bigger, like it was waiting. The weight of the rules fell away with every step I took. For the first time in years, I felt alive. I didn’t know what I would find. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. But I didn’t care. I just wanted one day. One day where I wasn’t a secret or a shadow or a curse. One day to be Liora.