First Moon Rising

THE WRONG DRESS

Rose had never been in mud in her life. I knew the second I saw her at the border checkpoint, because she was screaming in a puddle.

It was 6:30 a.m. I was doing a morning inventory of the second ghost-root shipment, two tons, properly signed out this time because after Colten collapsed, I threatened to impound boots if they didn't sign, when the border bell rang.

Nora was already there, arms crossed, boots ankle-deep. In front of her, white dress, white heels, curled hair, lipstick. My sister. Wearing my other dress. The cream one I left in our shared closet with a safety pin on the strap because it was broken.

"I am Izel Stone," Rose announced, loudly so the pups could hear. "Liaison to Obsidian. Here for transfer inspection. My sister was confused yesterday. You know how unshifted."

Nora looked over Rose's head at me behind the drying racks, hands full of ghost-root stalks, gloves off counting damp leaves.

"Izel Stone? Funny. Our Izel Stone arrives at five a.m. with dirt on her face and ghost-root under her nails and silver lines. You arrive at six thirty with a powder and perfume that will kill pups. And our Izel knows Clause Nine, Section Three says no white in grey zone. White means unclaimed. Are you unclaimed, girl? Or lost?"

Rose blinked. She didn't know Clause Nine. In Obsidian, white meant purity.

"I am here to correct a misunderstanding. Sister Izel is confused, unshifted, doesn't understand pack law, not presentable. Our parents sent me to take over as liaison. More suitable daughter."

"More presentable?" I stepped from behind the racks, wiping my hands on my grey pants.

Rose turned. She stared at my clothes. Thick grey. No silk. Hair tied. Faint silver lines in morning light.

"What happened to your skin? Are you sick? Contagious? Did the curse Alpha?"

"It is First Moon," Nora said quietly. "Something your pack hasn't seen in a hundred years because you don't read books, only mirrors."

Rose didn't listen. She looked past me toward the healer hut where Colten was supposed to be soaking.

"Where is Alpha Yorkfang? I was told he accepted the alliance because of my presentation. I want to personally reassure him Obsidian will honor commitments unlike my sister-"

"He accepted because of Clause Nine," I cut in. "Which you called just herb sharing on stage because you didn't read it."

Rose's smile tightened. "Izel, don't be jealous. You were always jealous I shifted and you didn't. Look at you. Living in a broken cottage, playing with weeds."

"Mother also said north ridge was unclaimed," I said. "Mother was wrong. The ridge is a graveyard you are standing in with white heels."

The second bell rang. Heavier. Alpha bell.

Colten came out of the healer hut. Just from soaking. Hair wet, shirt off, bandages off for the first time since I met him, after yesterday's collapse. Black veins receded overnight to his shoulders, not his neck, because Nora and I changed the paste. Still pale, ribs showing, but standing straight.

He saw Rose in white first. Then me in grey behind.

His amber eyes narrowed.

"Izel? Problem at the border?"

Rose turned instantly. Soft shoulders, head tilt, hand on chest.

"Alpha Yorkfang," she breathed, stepping forward in the mud, white heel sinking. "I am Rose Stone. Izel's sister. The one who presented the proposal you accepted. The better one, presentable-"

"Take off her dress."

The words were quiet. The whole border went silent.

Rose's smile froze. "Excuse me?"

"You are wearing her dress," Colten said. His voice didn't rise, it got colder. "I remember that dress from the pack hall. She was supposed to wear it for the proposal. You wore navy to read her words. Now you wear cream to steal her work again. In my grey zone. In white. Take it off. Now."

Rose went red. "This is my dress. Mine."

"It is not," I said, stepping forward. "Cream dress, mine. Tag inside says I.S. in my handwriting because I bought it second-hand for twenty dollars and pinned the strap because it was broken. Check the left strap. My pin is still there."

Nora said loudly for the border log, "Emerald law: Impersonating liaison in grey zone is breach. Punishment impounding personal property. As per Clause Nine, Section Five, which Izel wrote yesterday after her boyfriend trespassed."

Rose clutched the dress. "You can't undress me. I'm high-ranked. Shifted daughter."

"You are trespassing in white in a graveyard," Colten said, walking closer. "My pups are buried on the ridge you called unclaimed. You wore white to a graveyard to steal a job from the woman who marked it grey to protect them. In Emerald, that's disrespect to the dead. So two choices, Rose Stone. One, you walk back to Obsidian in what you came in, and I log as minor breach. Two, you keep pretending you are Izel Stone, and I call your Alpha and tell him his daughter tried fraud on a ratified inter-pack alliance while wearing stolen property in a graveyard."

Rose's eyes filled with tears. She looked at me, expecting me to save her. The way I always saved her.

I thought of the navy dress on stage. The cream dress now.

"No," I said. My voice didn't shake this time. "You don't get to wear my clothes anymore. Ever. Take it off or I log as theft and your white heels as littering grey zone. Section Six."

Rose ripped the dress off right there at the border, down to her slip, mud splattering her white heels. She threw the cream dress at my feet. It landed with a mud splat.

"Fine! Take it! You think a cursed pack is better than Obsidian? You will die here, Izel! Last-ranked here too! Cursed like him!"

She ran back toward the border van, slip, mud, tears, white heels in her hand.

Nora picked up the cream dress from the mud and handed it to me. Cold, stained, but mine. The safety pin still there.

"Log it," Colten said to Nora. "Breach. Impersonation. White in grey zone. No escort. Attempted theft of liaison identity. Section Five. And add littering. Section Six."

"Already logged," Nora said.

Colten turned to me. The anger faded when he looked at me. He held his hand out, palm up, hovering an inch from mine. Not touching.

"Rule lifted for now," he said quietly, only I could hear. "If you want."

I looked at his forearm where the paste had cleared the black veins. I put my dirty, ghost-root-stained hand in his cold, healing one.

No burn at first. No blood. Just cold turning warm. Three perfect seconds. His black veins didn't flare. My silver lines pulsed once, soft, silver.

Then he hissed, sharp, pained, and jerked back like electrocuted.

His forearm, where I just touched, where the black had faded this morning, suddenly shot back up, black and pulsing, thick as roots, spreading up to his hand, wrist, elbow. Fast. Worse than yesterday.

Nora gasped. "Colten! No!"

He doubled over, gripping his wrist, teeth bared to keep from roaring in front of pups, a thin line of black blood from his nose onto the mud. Onto my cream dress in my other hand. The dress stained black, spreading.

He looked up at me, eyes fully black again, filled with pain and fear, not for him, for me, and choked one sentence:

"How much ghost-root did you touch today with bare hands?"

I stared at my hands. The silver lines, First Moon lines that glowed silver three days, that made me special, were no longer silver.

They were turning black, from the fingertips up, vein by vein, following his.