Luna Priestess

The Ashen Pack

“Absolutely not.”

“Lyra...”

“No. Maren, no. Send someone else.”

Maren didn’t even look up from the scroll she was reading.

We were in her study, which is really just a smaller, colder version of my room with more books in it, and she had that particular calm about her that meant my opinion on the matter had already been filed away as irrelevant.

“There is no one else,” she said. “You are High Priestess. The blessing rites for the summit candidates have to be performed by the High Priestess. That is you. Congratulations, again, on the promotion.”

“You can’t send me to his territory.”

“I can, and I am, and you will go, because refusing to bless a summit candidate’s claim is a political insult this Temple cannot afford right now. Five packs are watching to see if the new High Priestess can hold her own weight. Do you understand what it looks like if you can’t?”

I did understand. That was the worst part.

“What if it happens again?” I said. “What if I go there and my Sight just...stops. In front of his entire pack this time, instead of just five Alphas and their entourages.”

“Then you will handle it,” Maren said. “Quietly. Calmly. The way a High Priestess handles everything.”

“You don’t know that I can do that.”

She finally looked up.

“I know you don’t have a choice,” she said, not unkindly. “None of us do right now. Not until we understand what’s happening to you.”

I hated that she was right.

Rhys was waiting outside the study, arms crossed, already looking like a man who knew exactly what had just been decided in there.

“You’re coming,” I said before he could ask.

“I know. Maren told me an hour ago.”

“You knew before I did?”

“She wanted me ready to travel. Figured it’d go easier telling me first.” He fell into step beside me as I stormed down the corridor toward my room, not really going anywhere, just needing somewhere to put all this energy that had nowhere else to go.

“For what it’s worth, I don’t love this either.”

“Then tell her no.”

“Nobody tells Maren no, Ly. You just did, and look how well that worked out.”

I threw open my door hard enough that it banged against the wall, which probably wasn’t fair to the door, since none of this was its fault.

“I don’t want to see him again,” I said. “I don’t want to stand in front of him and find out my gift just...leaves. Like it did last time. Not in front of his whole pack.”

“So don’t look at him.”

“That’s your advice? Don’t look at him?”

“It’s not a bad plan,” Rhys said, leaning against the doorframe, arms still crossed.

“You perform the rite. You keep your eyes on his hands, not his face. You bless the claim, you get back on the horse, and we go home. Three days there and back, tops.”

I wanted to be annoyed at how reasonable that sounded. I mostly just felt tired.

“You’re coming the whole way,” I said. Not really a question.

“Course I am.” He said it easily, like it wasn’t even worth discussing, and something about that eased the knot behind my ribs a little.

“Somebody has to keep you from setting the man on fire out of pure spite if this goes sideways.”

“I would never.”

“You absolutely would.”

He wasn’t wrong about that either.

Ashen territory looked nothing like I’d imagined.

I’d spent the whole two-day ride picturing something cold to match the name...grey stone, bare trees, a pack house built like a fortress that most certainly hated visitors.

Instead, we came over the last ridge into a valley thick with dark pine, mist hanging low over the tree line, and a pack house that looked more like something carved out of the mountain than built on top of it.

Smoke curled up from a dozen chimneys. Somewhere below us, dogs...real dogs, not shifted wolves...were barking at something in the yard.

“Pretty,” Rhys said, which from him counted as a whole paragraph of admiration.

“Don’t get comfortable.”

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

They were waiting for us at the border marker, a whole line of them, Betas and guards standing at careful attention the way packs do when they want a visitor to know they’re being watched and welcomed at the same time.

And at the front of the line, arms loose at his sides as he had absolutely nowhere else in the world to be, was Kaius Draven.

My stomach dropped the second I saw him. Same as last time. Exactly the same, like my body had filed the reaction away and was just waiting for an excuse to use it again.

I hated that too.

“High Priestess.” He inclined his head as we rode up, and his voice was lower than I remembered, rougher somehow, like gravel under a boot. “Welcome to Ashen land.”

“Alpha Draven.” I dismounted before he could offer to help me down, which I’m fairly sure annoyed him, based on the small twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Thank you for the welcome.”

“You’ll forgive me if my pack is curious about what happened in the Temple hall.”

“There’s nothing to forgive. I’m curious myself.”

That got an actual reaction out of him...surprise, quickly buried, like he hadn’t expected me to just say it plain.

Good. I didn’t have the energy for pretending today.

“Well,” he said. “Let’s see if it happens twice.”

The greeting rite is old. Older than the Temple itself, probably, some tradition from back when packs and Priestesses needed a formal way to prove neither side meant the other harm.

It’s simple. Embarrassingly simple, considering how much weight gets put on it. The Alpha offers his hand, palm up. The Priestess places hers on top. A blessing is spoken.

That’s it. I’ve performed it a dozen times as a novice, standing at Maren’s elbow, and nothing has ever happened except the words leaving my mouth and the Alpha nodding like he felt something profound, when really it’s just tradition doing what tradition does.

Kaius held out his hand.

I looked at it instead of his face, exactly like Rhys told me to. A good hand. Big, scarred across two knuckles, steady in a way that told me he wasn’t nervous, even if half his pack clearly was, watching this exchange like they expected fireworks.

I placed mine on top of his.

The words were halfway out of my mouth...by the light of the Hollow Moon, I bless this claim and this territory...when his skin touched mine, and every word in my head just stopped. Vanished. Like someone had reached in and wiped the slate clean.

And then, the black.

Total, sudden, exactly like before, my vision was going out like someone had pinched a candle wick between two fingers, except this time I wasn’t standing safely inside a Temple hall with only Alphas and Betas watching.

This time, there were dozens of pack wolves lined up on either side of us, every single one of them close enough to smell it happening.

I heard someone gasp. I heard Rhys move, fast, a half-step closer to me like he meant to catch me if I went down.

And underneath his hand, still holding mine, I felt Kaius Draven’s whole body go rigid.

“You feel that,” he said. Quiet. Not a question, not really, more like he needed to say it out loud to believe it. “You feel that too.”