The Cursed Luna’s Rise

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

And the following morning, after the festival, the sun was pale and thin, rising over the territory of the Bloodfang Pack and throwing long shadows through the trees. Elara followed the old ways, and all the ways were not familiar. Each stride was made against mossy ground, each call of the birds and every rustle in the foliage was keener, almost as though to remind her of her loss. She felt the eyes that were directed at her, and she knew—wolves did not like her. Others made a scornful sneer, causing the laugh to dribble in pointed drops. The little ones, the children who used to trail her in her training runs, were now talking almost in whispers and imitating the words of Kael.

"Begged him? Really, Elara begged him?" One small voice was whispering behind her.

"Shh!" another hissed and looked about him.

Elara continued to walk with her head down, and Seris brushed her leg. She was able to hear the murmurs of the pack behind her, the quiet shuffle of paws that walked behind without bumping, like shadows of doubts that were creeping behind her.

He made them believe it. Kael made all his murmurings of shame appear real. I didn't... I didn't do anything!

Her heart was aching with shame. Friends she had confided in, friends whom she had laughed with in the sun, now turned their backs on her. None of them, not one of them, came forward. Others made a gracious nod, remote and vacant. Others did not want to notice her and bowed their heads, as she was a ghost they could not recognize.

Lyanna was always present. She slipped through the pack as though she were a part of it, her smile self-gratified, her smile practiced. Elara might swear she felt it cut and slice like no knife. Kael had lied and made it appear that Elara had thrown herself at him and disgraced herself in front of other people, which is a fact that was distorted until it was unrecognizable.

Someone said, She is so weak. "Didn't even deserve him."

Elara's ears twitched. Her heartbeat was wild; her claws seemed to dig into the ground. She would have screamed, hit, and made them know it all. But no utterance could heal a bruised thing. Not yet. Not here.

I can't stay. I won't... I can't.

Seris gave her a gentle, insistent thrust with her hand. She heard the voice of the wolf saying to her, "You are more than they think."

"I know... I know," Elara said, cowering a little to balance her trembling knees. Her voice was choked, dry, and unpolished. "But is it enough?"

The shouts, murmurs, and glances pursued her all over the clearings and groves. She thought of Kael and her hand in the hand of Lyanna, the moon shining silver as it always shines to signify the tie that had never been tied by her.

You believe you can get away so simply? The sneering voice came out in the treeline.

The head of Elara whipped towards it with a chest lift. One of the pack enforcers came forward with glittering eyes. Where do you think you are going, ghost?

"I... I am only walking," I said to her, and I made it sound natural, but the hotness of anger was on my ribs.

"You're nothing now," he spat. "Just a joke. Don't act like you matter here."

She gritted her teeth, and she could just imagine taking him to pieces. Seris swore in her heart: Control. Wait.

Elara continued with slow but firm steps. She crossed the old practice field where Kael and she had run together, and the memories of play and jabs now reeked of betrayal. The stones, too, appeared to taunt her, and the old trails recalled the olden days.

"Why did he do this?" she whispered aloud. "Why me? Why now?"

Her own voice startled her. There was no sound in the forest except the rustling of the leaves and the murmur of water far off. The land seemed to be even holding its breath.

I can't stay. This place... It's dead to me.

The Forsaken Woods were before, and dark and winding, the planes thick and gnarled and resembling an outstretched hand. It was a legend that no wolf could go without encountering evil. Darkened characters, runaway gangs, old curses—whimsies of wood secrets had seemed to her little girlhood days to frighten her. But now Fear was an instrument that she made different use of. She would not flee. She would survive.

"Do you trust me?" she questioned Seris, with an expression of both resolution and uncertainty.

"Always," said her mind as it always responded.

She entered the shades of the Forsaken Woods. Moonlight penetrated through the dense canopy and made the leaves silvery green and stuck to her cloak and hair. Each of the steps into the woods was hard, doubtful, yet liberating. The pack she had in her back had stampeded to murmurs and echoes, and the stinging shame was a little farther away but clung as frost to her flesh.

It was a low growl in the trees, and she stopped. Some form walked in the shadows, keeping watch. Her pulse quickened. This was not a familiar face, but she had an inkling that all was not well. There was a damp, mossy odor in the air of living earth, a good one, a full-blooded one, which was in sharp contrast to the stuffy indignation she had left behind.

"You're not scared, are you?" They heard a voice, smooth and derisive, and a little echo.

"I... No, I shouldn't be," I said to myself, with difficulty. "But maybe I should be."

The figure came out, high and slow. Bright eyes and body drawn up. Elara itched her nails to bend, yet she held them back and inhaled in the manner of her nose and exhaled in the manner of her mouth.

"You are spiritual," said the figure. "Most break and curl up. Most die in these woods."

"I am not going to die," I answered, my voice more even, a bit of defiance beginning in my breast.

The figure leaned his head and scrutinized her. Bold words, written thus lonely.

"I am not alone," she snapped, although Seris drew still nearer to her leg, comforting. I could burn this forest down—what remains of it—should I have the fire to do it!

There was a smooth and dark laugh that went round the trees. We shall have seen whether that is a big fire.

Elara's mind raced. Who was this wolf? Friend? Enemy? Ally? Rogue? The opportunities ran like writhing snakes within her breast. All the nerves of her body were screaming at her of danger, yet the beat of the blood that she could feel under her skin—the awakening in her of power, which she had not yet quite comprehended—called her on.

"I must live," she told herself, but that was nearly a mantra. "I have to rise... I can't stay broken here."

The figure made another step up. The shadow in the trees was accentuated, and something startled her eye. One of the branches broke, and a shadow passed. With a heart that throbbed, she leaped aside.

"Calm down," said the figure, but calm, almost teasing. "I'm not here to hurt you... not yet."

Elara's mind whirled. Not yet? Then what? Whatever game was this wolf playing, stalking up and down the Forsaken Woods, in those keen, cold-blooded eyes?

Seris growled low in her mind. Her chest shot through with fire, her fingers grew numb, and the heat rose in her stomach. It was whispering on her bones, a power that she had never possessed. Something awakened. Something dangerous. Something that she may need more than air to live.

You think you can enter my forest and take what you please? The figure said. A challenge. A test.

"I claim nothing!" Elara answered hastily, though her voice did not reflect the fire that was smoldering below. "I'm just... passing through."

The figure snickered once more, in a low, threatening tone, playing in dance across the trees. It is not an easy thing to pass through like wolves. Not without consequences."

Elara's stomach twisted. The woods that she was in now appeared to be breathing, patiently waiting. She heard every rustle, each glimmer of silver foliage, and every pop of a twig way out of proportion. Her blood ran; her wolf leaped with her.

I can survive this. I have to.

A puff of air was shaking the trees, and they smelled of something—of iron, and smoke, and danger. The eyes of the figure were shining in the light of the moon. "You possess spirit," they said again. "And fire. But the spirit is not sufficient in the Forsaken Woods. It will take you more than courage to live through the night.

Elara swallowed hard. The lies, the shame, and the humiliation that had brought her to this point whirled in her mind. Her heart began to beat like the forest, and she could feel some aching in the oldness of something inside her—something drawing her.

"I will find it, I will find it," she said to herself, not to the figure, but to Anthony. "I'll find it before it finds me. I have to..."

The figure again tilted his head and stepped back into the shadow and was lost in the forest. But they were there, a burden on her, a threat, a promise.

Elara looked around. The trees were as long as possible, the shadows were black and dark, and the moonlight flashed on moss and roots. She might hear far-off howlings, the sound of unheard things, and the voice of Seris beside her.

She drew a deep breath, and the fire in her chest was becoming hotter. The disgrace, the deceit, the denial—they were bonds she would blow. She would survive. She had to.

And down somewhere in the gloom of the Forsaken Woods, something was watching, something was waiting, something about to put her to the trial.

Her nails were stretched, her wolf grumbled, and her eyes were glittering dangerously.

What other horrors and secrets do these woods hold, and would her fire wake up in time to meet them all...?