The moon broke.
Not in silence. Not in mystery. It ruptured with a sound that ripped straight through bone and memory, as though the heavens themselves had screamed. Light spilled from the fracture, cascading across the sky in jagged rivers of silver and red. Every wolf on the ridge collapsed under the force of it, instincts keeling before something no mortal creature was ever meant to witness.
I remained standing.
I hated that.
My wolf did not.
She rose inside me, spine straight, gaze fixed on the falling pieces of the sky. Each shard bled light that dissolved before it reached the ground, as if reality could not tolerate the moon’s broken remains.
Valen staggered but did not fall. His feet braced against cracking snow. His eyes shone with something almost human for a fraction of a
