The Storeroom Key

Chapter 2 The Ice Cave Memory

I passed our den and headed for the hidden grove at the edge of the territory. Before leaving, I wanted the herbs I had grown there.

They were the only things in the Silver Moon Pack that belonged to me alone.

Some had taken years of old magic and my own blood to raise.

The surrounding pines hid the grove from the main trail.

At night, I worked there by touch, pressing a drop of blood into each new bed and whispering the old growing prayers beneath the patrols' hearing.

The smell reached me first: torn roots and crushed leaves.

I ran the last few yards. Every planting bed had been ripped open. Stems had been ground into the mud.

Two pack warriors loaded what remained into a basket while Elara watched.

The warriors kept their eyes down. One held an armful of fever remedies, their roots still dripping soil. Three rows of wound herbs had become green pulp beneath his boots.

She held a stalk of Heart-Guard between two fingers. The herb took six months to mature. One dose could keep a wounded warrior's heart beating until I reached him.

Elara rolled the stem between her fingers and sniffed the small red leaves.

“What have you done?”

Elara jumped. “Aria! I just felt a little chill. Caleb was so worried. He said I could take anything I needed for a soothing tea.”

She had stripped a winter's supply for tea.

“There is no second harvest,” I said. “Those remedies were meant to last until spring.”

Even blood magic could not force Heart-Guard through winter soil. If the rogues used poison again before spring, I had no replacement.

Caleb came through the trees. “What is all the shouting about? Elara, are you all right?”

He stepped across a crushed bed to reach her.

“I'm fine, Alpha.” She leaned into his arm. “I think I upset Aria.”

“They're plants, Aria. Stop making a scene. I'm tired of your jealousy.”

Cold stone pressed against my back. For a second, the ruined grove was gone.

*A year ago, a rival shaman drove a blizzard across our northern border. I held up a collapsing ice tunnel until the last warrior escaped. Then I fell inside with my magic spent.*

*The cold had reached my chest by the time I called Caleb through our bond.*

*Ice had sealed one sleeve to the cave floor. I could no longer feel my legs, and every breath came shorter than the one before. I scraped together enough power to open the bond once.*

*“Caleb, help me. I'm dying.”*

*His alarm hit the link first. Then I heard Elara. She had gone out for winter berries and scratched her finger on a thorn.*

*She whimpered his name. The warmth in the bond vanished while I was still speaking.*

*Caleb shut the link.*

*Three days later, he found me half-frozen in the cave. “I knew you'd be fine,” he said. “You're strong.”*

*He had carried Elara's basket with him. A strip of clean linen covered the scratch on her finger.*

Elara dropped the Heart-Guard into her basket. The sound brought me back to the grove.

I opened the satchel at my hip. A spare tunic, a whetstone, one water skin. Caleb watched me tie it closed.

“Finished pouting? Good. Go back to the den. I'll tolerate the silent treatment for a few days, nothing more.”

He gave me the small smile that usually ended our arguments. My silence had always been enough for him.

I picked up the last unbroken sprig near my boot and wrapped it in cloth.

“Where do you think you're going?” His voice rose. “You're an orphan. You have no family and no other pack. In three days, you'll crawl back and beg me to forgive you.”

Five years ago, I let him believe that story. The Silver Moon Pack could accept a nameless stray more easily than the missing High Priestess of the Holy Moon Sanctuary.

I removed the Sanctuary silver from my clothes and hid the old prayers. Caleb told his people he had rescued me, and I never corrected him.

I had hidden every tie to my former life because I chose him over it.

I had a home. I had simply stopped speaking its name.

The attack horn screamed across the valley.

This was the full invasion call. Rogues had crossed the border.

The two warriors dropped the herb basket. A second blast answered from the northern watch, longer and harsher than the first.

The defenses had already failed.