Chapter 39: Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter 39
Edgar's POV
Death didn’t feel like fire.
It felt like it was fading.
Each hour drained more of me than the last. My hands trembled when I tried to lift a cup. My voice cracked from dryness even after water touched my lips. And worst of all, my wolf was still silent.
Not just silent. Gone.
The bond with him had always been a tether. A hum in the back of my chest. A second breath. A companion I never questioned.
Now there was just a void. Cold. Hollow. Endless.
The curse was eating me alive.
Every healer had tried. Spells. Elixirs. Prayer circles. Nothing worked. The oldest wolves in the council whispered behind closed doors, too afraid to speak the word that hung heavy over us all.
Doomed.
I had become a shadow of the Alpha I once was. The pack needed strength. Fire. Leadership. What they had instead was a dying man with dimming eyes and a limp in his step.
“You’re out of time,” Garen said quietly that morning, his voice heavy with defeat. “If there is a solution, it must come from beyond.”
He didn’t have to say it aloud.
The Moon Goddess.
Our last hope.
That night, under the blood-hued moon, they gathered for the summoning.
It hadn’t been done in decades. The ritual was forbidden unless the Alpha’s life, or the balance of the pack, hung in jeopardy.
Apparently, I qualified for both.
The summit was high in the northern cliffs, beyond the frost-line. The air was thin, biting, laced with the howls of unseen spirits. I walked there myself, though every step felt like dragging chains.
The others, Elena, Garen, and several elders, waited in a circle etched with ancient runes. A pyre burned in the center, white flames dancing unnaturally, untouched by wind or wood.
“This is where she answers,” Elena said, her eyes shimmering with a mix of reverence and fear. “If she chooses to.”
“And if she doesn’t?” I asked.
Elena’s silence was enough.
I stepped forward and knelt inside the circle, my hands placed palm-down in the snow. My breath formed clouds in the freezing air. The flames hissed higher. The wind died.
Then came the chant.
Low. Rhythmic. Older than Duskwood itself.
“Moon above, light below,
Hear the howl of the fading soul.
Blood of Alpha, bound in pain,
We call your mercy once again.”
The flames flickered blue.
My chest tightened.
“Show yourself,” I whispered into the night. “Please. If you’ve ever watched us, ever guided us… don’t let me die like this.”
Then the wind stopped.
And time shattered.
She didn’t arrive like a storm. Or a beam of light. She arrived in silence.
Pure. Absolute.
The pyre snuffed out. The air turned silver. Every breath held its place like the world was holding itself still for her.
And then she stepped into the circle.
Not from above. Not from fire. She simply was.
The Moon Goddess.
Her skin glowed with the sheen of moonstone, her eyes galaxies. Her hair flowed like water down her back, braided with stardust. She wore no crown, yet the air bowed around her like even the sky knew who she was.
Everyone dropped to their knees.
Except me.
Because I couldn’t move.
“Edgar Nolan,” she said, her voice layered like chimes and thunder. “You’ve summoned me with your suffering.”
I swallowed hard, every part of me burning from proximity. “I didn’t… I didn’t want to summon you. But I had no choice.”
“Few ever do,” she said. “The blood curse runs deep. As deep as the betrayal that created it.”
“I didn’t know,” I said, voice cracking. “About my mother. About the child she had. About what she did to Lia.”
“You know now.”
She stepped closer, and I swore I felt my bones hum.
“You are dying, Alpha,” she said simply. “Each breath you take separates you further from your wolf. The tether was broken by your hand.”
“She tricked me. Lied. Hurt the one I” I stopped myself.
She raised a brow. “The one you love.”
I nodded once.
“Then why,” she asked, “do you seek to survive?”
I blinked. “Because my pack needs me.”
“Do they?” she asked, head tilting. “Or do they need the man you were before you let anger control your blade?”
The question burned.
I had no answer.
“Lia still lives,” she said then, more gently. “But she grieves you already.”
“I don’t deserve her.”
“No,” the goddess agreed. “But neither did she deserve to be cast aside.”
I bowed my head, ashamed.
The Moon Goddess knelt before me, this ancient being who had watched over wolves since the first howl, and placed her hand against my chest.
“Here is what I offer,” she said, and the world went still again. “I can slow the curse. Temporarily. It will not heal. Not yet. But it will give you time. Time to find what was broken.”
“What do I have to give in return?”
Her expression turned unreadable. “Your command.”
“My what?”
“You will no longer lead Duskwood,” she said. “Not while the curse lives in your blood. Until the tether to your wolf is restored, you must step down. As Alpha. As a warrior. As leader.”
The words struck like arrows. “You want me to give up everything?”
“I want you to live,” she said firmly. “And living, Edgar Nolan, means learning that strength does not always roar.”
I closed my eyes.
Everything I had built, everything I had fought for, would be placed in someone else’s hands. But if it meant surviving… if it meant seeing her again…
I nodded.
“Then so it shall be,” she said.
She pressed her thumb to my forehead.
A white light burst behind my eyes, not warm, not cold, just pure. Cleansing.
My limbs stopped trembling. The pain eased. Not gone, but dulled.
And in the faintest corner of my soul… a whisper.
My wolf.
Not whole. But not gone.
Hope.
When I opened my eyes, she was already fading, turning to silver mist.
“Wait!” I called. “Is there no way to break the curse completely?”
“There is,” she said, her voice echoing now. “But you already know what must be done.”
And with that, she vanished.
I awoke the next morning in the infirmary. Garen hovered at my side, shock written across his face.
“You’re… breathing normally,” he whispered. “Your pulse, it’s stronger.”
“She came,” I said. “The Moon Goddess.”
He dropped to one knee. “Then we are truly blessed.”
I pushed myself up, weaker than I used to be but no longer falling apart.
“I need to name a Regent,” I murmured. “Someone to lead while I… find what’s been broken.”
Garen gave a small smile. “Elena’s already prepared the documents. She knew you’d survive.”
I almost laughed. Almost.
Then the pain reminded me, nothing was finished.
Not yet.