A year had passed.
A full turn of seasons beneath a gentler sun.
The days here seemed longer, but not in the way that dragged. Time in the Moon Pack stretched differently—like dough in warm hands. Expanding. Rising. Becoming something soft and nourishing. Xochi had learned to breathe here. To move without flinching. To sleep without nightmares.
She trained every morning, fast and fierce beside her pack—her body lean with muscle, her reflexes honed sharper than she’d ever thought possible. In the afternoons, she read books in the garden with her mother, traded stories over hibiscus tea, and in the evenings, she sketched quietly in the courtyard while the stone beneath her soaked up the last of the day’s heat.
Sometimes she would spend hours in the kitchen. The head chef claimed she had
