Six years later.

Mira Lane woke from another dream she could not remember. Her throat ached as if she had been screaming. The scent of salt and pine drifted through the open window. Outside, gulls cried above the sea cliffs, and the waves rolled endlessly below.

Six years. Six years since Martha had found her and said, “You’ll need a name if you’re to stay.”

Mira Lane. Healer’s apprentice. Human.

She had repeated it every morning until the words dulled. If she said it enough times, perhaps the echo of another name—the one whispered by the Elders, the one that still ached behind her eyes—would fade.

Yet some days, when the smell of iron or salt thickened the air, her body betrayed her. The scent would slice through her calm, and something deep inside would lean toward it—hungry, remembering. She would clamp down on the feeling, force her mind to list ingredients instead of instincts. Feverroot, willowbark, crushed sage. The language of healing kept her human. The other language—the growl beneath thought—had no place here.

Sometimes, in her reflection, the pale glimmer beneath her skin betrayed the lie. The dull ache beneath her ribs never faded. The silence where her wolf should have been was a wound that never closed.

When the ache rose too sharply—when the silver veins under her skin began to throb—she did what Martha had taught her.

Breathe in for four. Smell the earth. Feel the grain beneath your fingertips. Let the world remind you that you are here.

But lately, the breathing barely helped. The pressure behind her eyes built until it pulsed with its own heartbeat. Each pulse came with a spark of heat under her skin—like cracks forming in glass. Sometimes she thought she could hear it, a faint chiming, the sound of the old binding fracturing one hairline at a time. When the glow came, she tasted metal, the memory of the ritual searing the back of her tongue.

Some nights it quieted. Other nights, she could still feel the wolf pressing against the cracks, testing them.

‘I’m still here,’ it whispered from the dark corners of her skull.

***

The scent of boiling herbs dragged her back from the edge of memory.

“Mira, mind the salve!” Martha’s voice cut through from the back room. “You’ll boil it over again.”

Mira blinked and stirred the mixture, watching the green paste bubble. She had learned most of Martha’s trade by rote—poultices, tinctures, teas. Enough to pass for a healer’s apprentice. But whenever the metallic tang reached her, her throat would tighten. Her hands wanted to move differently—sharper, faster.

Healer’s apprentice. Human. She repeated it under her breath.

***

When the bell above the door chimed, Mira startled hard enough to splash the pot. It was only Mrs. Dalton asking for feverroot, but her pulse didn’t slow until the door closed again.

After the shop emptied, Martha came out wiping her hands. She was older now, hair gone fully gray, but her eyes missed nothing.

“You jump at shadows,” she said gently.

Mira forced a small smile. “Old habit.”

“It’s not the shadows that worry me.” Martha studied her for a long moment before turning to hang dried lavender. “It’s the way you look at the moon sometimes. Like you’re waiting for it to bite.”

Mira had no answer.

***

That night they sat on the veranda with tea cooling between them. The sea breathed below.

Martha unfolded a newspaper, squinting through her spectacles. “Another one gone missing,” she said.

Mira stilled. “Missing?”

“Out near the old woods, close to the border road. Same place the last one vanished.” She tapped the page. “Both on the full moon.”

A hollow feeling opened in Mira’s chest. “Animals, maybe,” she offered weakly.

Martha’s gaze cut to her. “Don’t lie to me, girl. You know what else walks under that light.”

Mira’s throat went dry. “You don’t believe in that nonsense.”

“I believe in patterns,” Martha said. “And this one’s older than both of us.” She folded the paper. “Old things live in those woods, Mira. Things that don’t forget. I’ve told you before—keep away from the grove when the moon is high.”

“I do,” Mira whispered.

She’d overheard their orders as a child—take the unbound, silence the rogue blood before it spreads. The knowledge turned her stomach cold.

This wasn’t random. It was method. And if Magnus’s men were still searching, then the binding’s weakness wasn’t coincidence—it was a beacon. She wasn’t just hurting; she was signaling. The Moonfire wasn’t just tearing her apart—it was dragging Magnus’s wolves right to Martha’s door.

***

Later, alone in her small room, she sat on the edge of the bed watching moonlight spill across the floorboards. The ache in her temples began again—a slow, throbbing pressure that made her vision pulse. She pressed her palms against her skull, but the pain only spread, crawling behind her eyes. She could almost see it: thin silver fissures glowing beneath her skin, the binding’s edges tearing open.

In the pause between heartbeats, she swore she could hear the faintest echo—something deep inside her cage stirring, testing its bonds.

‘I’m still here,’ it whispered.

Mira’s chest tightened. “No,” she breathed. “Stay buried.”

But the silver beneath her skin glowed faintly in reply, and outside, somewhere beyond the cliffs, the forest answered with a howl.

***

The forest swallowed sound. Even the wind seemed to vanish as Mira stepped from the narrow path into the grove. The moon hung high and full, her basket knocked lightly against her hip. Every instinct screamed to turn back, but she couldn’t. The dreams, the headaches, the humming under her skin—they’d all been worse tonight.

Maybe if she came here, to the heart of the forest where it had all ended, she could finally quiet the ache.

She stepped between the old stones.

A dark shape sprawled in the grass at the edge of the clearing—massive, still, slick with blood.

She moved before she realized it, running toward the shape and dropping to her knees beside it.

A wolf. Enormous. Its fur, black as wet earth, glistened red where its flank had been torn open. Blood pooled beneath its ribs, steaming in the cold. The scent hit her like a memory.

Rogue. Magnus’s hounds had smelled the same after their hunts—blood and burnt magic.

Her stomach twisted. One of his.

Run. Hide. Don’t let it smell you.

But the wolf’s shallow breathing stopped her. It was dying.

Mira pressed trembling hands to the wound. “Stay still,” she whispered. “Please, just—stay still.”

The wolf’s eyes snapped open—green, flecked with gold. Fierce. Not Magnus’s red.

For a heartbeat, they locked on hers.

And a flash of silver ripped through her veins, bursting from her palms. Light exploded around them, bright enough to bleach the grove in white fire.

Every carved stone flared with runes. Mira screamed.

The light poured out of her hands and into the wolf, flooding through the cracks the binding had left behind. Her wolf—the one she’d been told was gone—howled inside her skull, alive and furious.

The magic wasn’t gentle. It tore through her like molten glass, knitting flesh even as it burned her hollow. The wolf’s wound sealed, but the healing devoured her strength in return. Pain split behind her eyes; blood spilled from her nose.

This is what they meant, she thought dimly. The light that blesses can sear the pack to ash.

When the magic sputtered out, she collapsed beside the wolf, shaking. The silver glow faded from her skin like dying coals.

The wolf stirred. Its wound was gone.

Mira forced herself upright. “You need to leave,” she whispered. “Go before someone finds you. Go before I—”

The words broke. She didn’t know what she was afraid she might do.

She turned and fled.

Branches tore at her sleeves as she ran. Her breath came in shallow gasps, the forest spinning around her. The moon followed through the trees. With every few steps, silver flickered beneath her skin.

When she saw the faint lantern glow of Martha’s cottage, her knees almost gave out. She pushed open the door and stepped inside.

Warmth hit her first—the smell of smoke and chamomile. Martha stood at the hearth, eyes sharp even at this hour.

“Mira,” she said quietly. “What have you done?”

Mira froze in the doorway. “I—there was an animal. Hurt. I couldn’t just leave it.”

Martha’s gaze flicked to the faint glimmer tracing Mira’s wrists. “An animal?” she asked softly. “Or something worse?”

Mira looked down. The glow was fading, but threads of light still pulsed under her skin.

“It wasn’t supposed to happen,” she whispered.

Martha gripped her shoulders. “You’ve been quiet for years. Hidden. Whatever you touched tonight, it saw you. It felt you.”

“It was just a wolf—”

“Wolves don’t bleed silver.”

Mira’s head throbbed. Martha caught her before she fell, easing her onto a chair.

“Head?”

Mira nodded weakly. “It’s worse this time.”

Martha studied her. “The binding’s cracking,” she murmured. “You feel it, don’t you? Whatever they did—it’s coming undone.”

“I don’t want it back,” Mira whispered.

“You don’t get to choose.” Martha said

***

Hours later, Mira lay awake, staring at the ceiling. The pain had dulled to a steady pulse. When she closed her eyes, she saw the wolf—the wound, the green-gold eyes, the impossible recognition that had flared between them.

She turned toward the window. The moon had dropped lower, veiled in thin clouds.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

No answer came. Only the sea far below and, for the first time in six years, something stirring in her soul.

***

Before dawn, deep in the woods, the wolf stirred. His wound had healed almost completely. He remembered the girl—the flash, the scream, the silver fire.

He should have died. But he hadn’t.

He breathed in—and froze. No scent. The clearing smelled of ash and old magic, but not her.

Yet her presence pulsed through him, woven into the scar that shimmered faintly across his flank. It hummed softly, a tether without scent, as if the Moon herself had hidden her from him.

The scent is gone, he realized. Vanished.

But the memory of her remained—bright as the light that had saved him.

He lifted his head toward the fading moon. “She’s alive,” he rasped. “And she doesn’t even know what she is.”

The wolf’s other half—Sylas—stirred within. ‘Find her,’ it urged. ‘The bond is forged.’

He looked once more toward the path she had taken and limped into the trees.