The Soul Stone

The Soul Stone pressed cold against my back. Serrated silver chains held my wrists to its face, burning through skin and draining what little strength I had left. The pack had chosen good restraints for a dying wolf. Ice and stones came from every side of the square. One struck my temple. Another caught in my hair while the crowd shouted the names they had used for ten years. I knew many of the faces. I had mixed fever draughts for their children and carried food to their doors during hard winters. That morning, none of them saw the woman behind the chains. “Traitor!” “Murderer!” “Let her die!” I looked past them. The golden barrier over Silver Moon blinked against the winter sky. It kept the rogues outside our land, and every weak pulse matched the slowing beat in my chest. The shouting stopped when Alpha Callan entered the square. My mate walked down the path the crowd opened for him without once looking at the barrier. Cradled in his arms was Iris, the woman he called his Luna. Her silver hair lay across the dark fur of his cloak. She coughed into one hand and rested the other on his chest. The cough was small enough to make the wolves nearest her lean closer. Iris had learned exactly how frail to look in public, and Callan reacted before anyone else. “Where is the frostroot draught?” Callan demanded. Then he saw me. For ten years, every winter draught and healing balm in his den had passed through my hands. His eyes dropped to my chained wrists. He had remembered who made the medicine before he remembered why I was on trial. The memory showed in the way he almost turned toward me. Then his mouth tightened, and the disgust he had practiced for a decade returned. He looked away first. Callan set Iris on her feet and stopped before the stone. From beneath his cloak, he drew the tattered, blood-stained rogue cloak used to condemn me. “Selene, you are accused of colluding with rogues and murdering my father, the former Alpha.” His words carried across the square. “You hid behind silence for ten years. Today your memories will answer for you.” He turned to Iris and touched her cheek. That gentleness had once belonged to the two children we had been. Before his father's death, Callan had brought me scraped knees and winter coughs without asking whether an orphan belonged in the Alpha den. Iris now stood where those years should have led me. “When the truth is shown, I will strip away your mate mark. Iris will receive what should always have been hers. She will be our true Luna.” The pack cheered. Iris accepted it with her chin lifted, then glanced at me. She did not bother to hide her smile. He meant to give away a bond forged with my blood. I no longer had enough water in my body for tears. “You will regret this, Callan.” My breath clouded between us. “I regret the Moon Goddess ever cursed me with a monster for a mate.” He gave the signal. The elders began their chant. White light filled the runes carved into the Soul Stone. Cold magic entered my skull in narrow, searching points. Pain exploded behind my eyes. My back arched off the stone. The chains rattled and cut deeper as the magic pulled through one memory after another. I screamed until my throat gave out. The stone did not wait for one memory to close before opening the next. My mother's hands, Callan's childhood grin, and ten years of cells flashed behind my eyes and were pulled away. A sheet of light opened above the square. Every wolf turned to watch my memories. Callan stood beneath it with the blood-stained cloak still in his hand. He waited for the night of his father's death. The first image showed the Moon Punishment Post in the middle of the Great Frost. Golden blood ran down its base and into the barrier runes.