Whisper to the Moon

Chapter Two: The First One Who Asked My Name

I woke before dawn the next morning.

The shed was drafty, the meager straw kicked aside. I tucked the sketch and the bone back into my coat and pushed open the creaking door. The snow had finally stopped. The fire pit was nothing but cold, gray ash; deer bones were scattered everywhere, and wooden cups lay tipped over in the frozen mud. I crouched and started cleaning—sweeping the ash, piling the bones, and stacking the cups neatly on the stone ledge. Near the training ground, a dozen bone knives lay scattered in the dirt, their blades crusted with dried blood and mud. I cleaned them one by one, handles out, blades in, lining them up meticulously on the rack.

A guard passed by. He glanced at me but said nothing.

As the sun rose, casting a pale light, the clearing slowly filled with people.

I crouched by the shed door, laying out herbs to dry—thistle and wormwood, pulled up by the roots, washed clean, and spread across a flat stone. The wind swept down from the slope, drying them fast.

Then, a scream cut through the clearing—high, sharp, forced from a raw throat.

I looked up. A she-wolf was running from the housing area, a child clutched in her arms, her boots stumbling through the thick snow. The boy in her arms was maybe seven or eight. Blood ran down his left pant leg, leaving a broken, vivid red trail behind them.

"Does anyone have medicine?" she screamed, her voice cracking with panic. "Does anyone have medicine?"

The clearing went dead quiet. A few hunters turned. Thor set down his knife and walked over to look at the boy's leg—his pants were torn, revealing a deep gash on the outside of his calf. The flesh was split, blood pouring out. Thor frowned and muttered, "Find Logan," but he didn't move. No one moved. No one knew what to do.

Grey rose from the step where he'd been sitting. He looked at the boy's leg, then at Thor. "Tear a strip of cloth and press down on it," he said. But his voice lacked certainty.

The she-wolf had already crouched and torn her own hem, wrapping it frantically around her son's leg. The cloth soaked through the moment it touched the wound. She peeled back the edge, and the blood was still seeping relentlessly. Her lips trembled. The boy in her arms cried, his sobs muffled against her chest, sounding as if he couldn't catch his breath.

I stood up and walked over. Crouched down. Reached out and touched the blood-soaked cloth, lifting it gently. The wound was deeper than she'd thought—at the edge of the torn flesh, I could see a pale yellow layer of tissue.

The she-wolf looked up at me. Her eyes were light brown, etched with fine lines at the corners. She hesitated for half a second.

"Human," she said. "Can you do this?"

There was no malice in her voice. No trust, either. Just a raw, desperate question: who are you, and what gives you the right?

I looked at her. "I can," I said.

She held my gaze, then looked down at her son's leg. Looked back at me. Then, she let go. She placed her son's leg in front of me and gave me the space I needed.

I grabbed a handful of half-dried thistle from the shed door and crouched down to chew it. It was bitter, the juice scraping my throat. I chewed it into a thick paste, spat it into my palm, and pressed it firmly onto the wound. Blood mixed with the green pulp, seeping through my fingers for a moment, before the color deepened from bright red to dark, slowly clotting. I tore another strip from my coat and wrapped it around the leg—two tight loops below the knee, a secure knot at the side. The cloth pressed against the wound, and no more blood seeped through. The skin at the edge was turning pale—a sure sign it was closing.

The she-wolf watched my hands through the last loop. When the cloth passed around her son's calf, she reached out and touched the edge of the bandage. Dry. No wetness.

Her shoulders dropped in profound relief. She lowered her head and pressed her forehead against her son's hair.

"He can walk now," I said softly. "Change the dressing in three days. Don't let it get wet."

She looked up at me for a long moment. Her lips moved, making a small sound like a sigh. Then she asked, "What's your name?"

I crouched there, my hands still covered in her son's blood. The green juice from the thistle mixed in, sticky and stark.

"Elin," I said.

She nodded, tasting the word. "Elin." She looked down at her son's leg, then back at my hands. "Elin," she said again. "Thank you."

The boy leaned against her, his tears not yet dry, but he was no longer crying. He turned his head to look at me, his eyes a striking pale amber.

That evening, a frozen fish appeared on the stone slab outside my shed. A big one. A little later, the she-wolf came back, standing at a respectful distance outside the door. "My name is Sera," she said. "This is my son, Coren." She paused. "The wound stopped bleeding. Thank you, Elin."

After she left, I squatted by the door and looked at the fish. Moonlight fell on its scales, rendering them cold and white.

More people came in the following days.

Thor brought a bow that evening, its string loose. "Can you tighten it?" he asked. His tone had changed—before, it had been a sharp order. Now, it was a genuine question.

I tested the string. "Yes."

The next day, someone came asking if I still had that chewed-up herb. The day after, someone asked what to do for a sprained ankle. On the fourth day, a she-wolf named Ella stood at my door, holding a bundle of dry wood. "Can you show me how to start a fire?" she asked. "I can never get mine going."

I followed her to her shelter and looked through her woodpile. The wood wasn't dry, and there was snow underneath. I picked out the wet pieces, laid dry bark at the bottom, and