THE LUNA HE THREW AWAY

Maren’s Secret

I hardly slept. When the moon moved past the Hollow, and the echoes of my claim faded, the adrenaline drained away, leaving me empty and shaky. I sat by the pool with my elbows on my knees, picking at the scabs on my knuckles. The night air was sharp, and the silence grew so heavy that I started to hate it.

Fen was gone, maybe hunting, sulking, or avoiding feelings. After the argument at dusk, when Cass lashed out at Kael for taking watch alone, no one spoke much. Kael lingered within sight but kept distant, leaning against a tree, looking like he wanted to talk but didn’t trust himself. The scratch from their fight marked his cheek. Neither mentioned it, but the silence between them stayed sharp. Cass dozed upright, arm over her knees, knife in her lap. She hadn’t really rested since we crossed the border yesterday, and now seemed all tension, jaw set, eyes never fully closing. We were together in the Hollow, but the air stayed tight with things unsaid.

The fire was down to embers when I heard footsteps careful, slow, and too light for a threat. I stayed still. I’d learned to act like stone until people revealed what they wanted. The footsteps stopped. My mother stood at the fire’s edge, hands clenched, her hair loose for the first time in years. She looked older. Not weak like weathered stone, chipped but standing.

She didn’t say my name. She didn’t speak at all. Her eyes searched mine, raw and searching, and I stared back with my own desperate confusion. For a moment, fear pricked behind my ribs had I forgotten how to be her daughter?

She eased herself down onto the ground beside me, moving slowly with her hands pressed to her knees for support. She settled slightly apart, making sure to give me space but still present at my side.

“I used to hate the Hollow,” she said. Her voice was rough, like she’d been holding back her words for years. “Your father loved it. He said it was the only place the pack couldn’t touch him.”

I waited. Fear bloomed in my mouth, sharp and metallic. This wasn’t fear of monsters. It was the fear that secrets might prove I was wrong about someone I loved.

She slowly reached into her pocket and pulled out a folded, yellowed piece of paper with soft, tattered edges. She placed it between us. Even before I saw the words, I recognised my father’s handwriting.

“I’ve had this for three years,” she said. “He gave it to me the night before he died. He told me to wait until you needed it. I didn’t want to. I thought if I held onto it, maybe I could keep you from becoming like him.” Her fingers twisted together, and for the first time, I saw how fear had been living in her hands. “I was afraid you’d run, or that the truth would make you leave me behind. Or maybe I hoped it would protect you, somehow, that you’d have a safer, smaller life.” She laughed, soft and bitter. “That was foolish. You’re not something to be kept. You’re not a secret. I should have told you sooner.”

She handed me the letter. It shook between my fingers; I was afraid to open it. The weight of it throbbed in my hands. I could feel everything about to fall or shift the dread that opening it could unmake my whole world, or worse, show I’d always been right about myself.

I opened it. The words were short, almost careless. I heard my father’s voice in my head, not as a hero, but as the tired man who came home from the border with mud on his boots and stories he never finished: You are not a mistake. You are the correction. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there to see it.

The correction. The phrase unsettled something deep inside me, as if he’d left behind a riddle instead of comfort. Did he mean that I was meant to fix something he had broken? Or was I the answer to some old wound in our family, the thing that set things right? Part of me wanted it to mean I was special, chosen for something important; another part feared it meant I only existed to repair someone else’s damage. I didn’t know whether to feel proud, burdened, or simply lost. The uncertainty pressed at my chest, leaving me grasping for any meaning and turning over my father’s words again and again, searching for a piece of myself in them.

I stared at the letter, the words swirling inside me like smoke. The correction. Did he mean something had gone wrong? Was I fixing a wound, mending a break in him, in us, in the world? The phrase felt too big, and I didn’t know if I was chosen or changed. I waited for clarity, but only confusion and a shaky hope grew.

That was it. No instructions. No answers. Just that one sharp truth. For a long moment, I just sat there, the letter shaking in my hands. The words seemed to echo inside my chest, leaving an ache that I couldn't name. I looked at my mother. She was crying, but not in a way that asked for comfort. She let it happen, let it show. For the first time, I realized how much she had given up to keep me safe, and how wrong she had been about what safety really meant.

“I tried to make you small enough that the world wouldn’t notice,” she said. “I thought that was love. But love isn’t hiding. Love is letting someone be as big as they need to be.”

I didn’t know what to say. I sat there, holding the letter, sensing the weight of loss and what I’d been given. Cass woke, blinking sleep away, looked at me, her gaze flicking from my hands to my face. She shifted closer and, after a pause, rested her hand on my shoulder. "Whatever it is," she whispered, "we’re with you. You don’t need to carry it alone." Kael moved closer but kept back, shoulders tight, lips pressed, eyes flicking over the letter before glancing away. He murmured, "If you need to talk or just want company, I’m here." Fen returned, silent, blood under his nails, eyes heavy, but he met my stare and gave a short, almost protective nod. I felt their uncertainty and worry, but also a fragile comfort, as if my secret, though it shifted the ground, also tied us together.

My mother stood, brushed away her tears with the back of her hand, and gave me a steady look. She walked into the trees, leaving me with the letter, the Hollow, and the truth. For a moment, I felt bigger than the world and more alone than ever.

The Hollow was silent. The pool, black and still, mirrored only the moon. I stared into its surface, willing it to reveal a shape of me, some proof that I existed, but saw nothing but white light and emptiness rippling back. My chest ached for a sign something that might slice through the darkness and let me see who I was becoming.