The Luna He Shouldn’t Want

Selene Moonspire outskirts were a place for the forgotten — and I had learned how to stay that way. The outskirts of the Moonspire smelled like ash and damp earth. The building leaned too far to one side, tne stone paths cracked and overgrown, and the sky above us always seemed to hang a little lower. Everything here sagged — roofs, shoulders, hope. I lived in a room above the apothecary. Small cramped. But save. I woke up to the same sound every morning: the clink of glass bottles, master Eric’s voice shouting for more Lavender roots or ground or ground hemlock. My hand moved before my mind caught up — muscles memory from years of repetition. Boil. Steam. Bottle. Repeat. This was my life: invincible, useful, small. I like it that way. “Oh! Gloves on,” Elric barked from the hallway, not even looking at me. “They’re on,” I said, flexing my fingers beneath the worn leather. “Good,” he muttered. “Don’t need you spoiling another root batch with sweaty palms.” He didn’t mean it unlikely. Eric had no softness in him, but no cruelty. He was all bark and tinctures, his moods preserved in old corked jars. Still, there was an unspoken understanding between us. He never asked why I away wear gloves and I never gave him reasons to. “Go fetch dried moss from the upper shelf,” he said, “and don’t drop the jars this time.” I climbed the creaky ladder, carefully balancing a satchel of already—labeled portions at my hip . The glass shimmered with sunlight through the grime shimmered window. Outside, the street bustled with quiet movement—vendors arranging baskets of bruised fruit. Street children racing barefoot accross stones. No one looked up. No one ever did. Even among the lows born I was east to miss . Quiet. Gloved. Scared in a way no one could see. I returned to the counter and crushed herbs into powder, my body moving without thought. Elric worked beside me in silence, only speaking when a measurement was off or a root too damp. “Another delivery to the blacksmith’s wife later,” he said. “The old crone’s still having nightmares.” “She’s convinced someone’s cursed her again.” “Because her tea taste like ash,” he said snorting. “Tell her to use clean water once in a while.” I bit back a smile. This was my world —cramped, bitter, strange and somehow comforting. But sometime, when the silence stretched too long, memories snuck in. I could still picture the first time I stepped into this apothecary— eleven year-old, shaking from cold, blood caked under my fingernails. I hadn’t said a work. Eric looked at me and tossed a broom into my arms . “Clean the floors,” he said. “If you don’t complain I might let you stay.” I never fainted. By midday the heat had thickened into something unbearable. I pulled my scarf higher over my mouth as I made my round through the district, delivering poultices and fever draughts to the old, the sick, the quietly dying. The air was heavy with salt and sweat. The blacksmith’s wife lived two streets over, near the dye vays. She she alway met me at the door, her ebony hand clutching the coin too tightly, her eyes darting like a rat’s. “You smell like burnt nettle,” she sniffed as I handed her the tincture. “You asked for sleep remedy.” “Hmph.” As always, I said nothing more than needed. The fewer words I spoke the less attention I drew. On my way back, I passed a line of children crouched in a shadowed alley, their knees scraped raw, their laughter rising like smoke. “Is it true you work with poisons?” One of the called. “Can you teach us?” “Not unless you want your toungues fall off,” I said dryly, and they all screamed in delight. Moments later that night —fleeting, foolish — reminded me I was still a person. Not just a per of gloved hand and tight lips. Mine I returned Eric was pouring over a ledger, muttering about missing herbs and nobles hoarding blackroot. “Crowns coming down on us like hawks,” he grumbled. “Don’t they have their own healers?” “They don’t want truth ,” I said before I could stop myself. “They want cleans hand and sweeter lies.” He looked up sharply. I busied myself cleaning the counter. “You’re cleaverer than most give you credit for,” he said after a pause. “Dangerous thing, that.” I didn’t respond. I didn’t need to. He knew I wouldn’t explain. By nightfall, I was back in my room above the shop, watching the lights fade behind Moonspires glittering tower in the distance. They looked like something from another world. And maybe they were. That world wasn’t meant for wolves like me — low born, voiceless, wrapped in old leader and older secrets. I sat by the tiny window, listening to the wind press against the walls like it wanted in. I flexed my gloves hand and whispered, “you’re not ready.” I didn’t know what for. But a part of me feard i would know soon . And her need for distance. The night air pressed in through the the cracked window, thick with the scent of damp stone and the distant smoke of forge fires. Moonspire’s glittered faintly in the distance, but I didn’t look at them for long. They belong to a world of politics, silk, and wolves who didn’t have to wear gloves to feel safe. I sat on the edge of my narrow bed, elbows on knees, gloves still on. I didn’t dare take them off not. Not even now. Not even here. But I could feel it . The itch beneath the leather. The slow, pulsing awareness that something inside me was always… listening. Watching. Feeling. I’d once tried to describe it — this gift, this curse — to someone. I was eight, and too young to understand what I’d done. The baker’s som scraped his knee. I touched his arm to help him up — and I felt if. His pain. Not just in the scrape, but deep inside, like a bruise that had nothing to do with flesh. He had just lost someone. Recently. His father. I told him I was sorry. Told him I knew he missed him. His face changed. He told his mother. She told other. By morning, no one would meet my eyes.