Ashes of the Past, Fire of Revenge

Ashes of the Past, Fire of Revenge

When I found out everything about my parents, something in me swelled until the world bent under it. The truth didn’t feel like a memory anymore; it was a living thing—hot, heavy, and enormous. I had to make it larger than grief. I had to make them giants.

“I have to be strong, Lira. I will face the priest and the king. I will—” I stood so quickly. Anger cracked through me like struck flint. “—I will kill them.”

Lira’s hands found my shoulders and held me down as if I might topple. Her thumbs dug into my wrists with fierce, steady pressure. “It’s not time yet, Selene,” she snapped. “Your wolf is still dormant. You don’t have the strength to face them—not now.”

My blood answered that with another roar. “I don’t care about timing,” I said. “They murdered my people. They butchered my family while calling it fate. I won’t sleep while they walk free.”

She pressed her forehead to mine, the heat of her skin grounding me. “Then don’t sleep. Prepare. Train. Bide your hours. The pack will stand with you—but you must be clever, not reckless. We are not pawns to be moved by grief.”

Her voice, fierce and blunt, was a gale that steadied a ship. It was everything I needed and nothing I wanted. I tested the edges of my resolve by repeating the lie I’d been telling myself since I was a slave in the palace: “Yes, Lira. We will help.”

We had promised the pack a hundred ways before—promises sewn of mud and blood and wolf-breath—but now the stakes felt different. The old longing to surrender, to crawl back to the palace and beg for crumbs of belonging, had been burned out by the revelation. Knowing who my parents had been and why they’d died changed me. Purpose shifted with the weight of that knowledge. Revenge uncoiled, a cold and precise thing.

“How can we fight for our title and our bloodline if the Alpha has already made an agreement with another pack?” I asked, the question tasting like iron.

Lira hesitated, then met my eyes. Her pupils were slits, worry and calculation warring there. “Aeron has agreed—apparently—to make Amera his force-mate,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean everything is finished.”

A bitter laugh escaped me. “He chose her so easily. He signed something with Fangwood. What hope is there for me? For us?”

“There is always hope,” Lira said, like a prayer and a warning at once. “Aeron hasn’t marked Amera yet.”

The words landed like a stone.

“Marked?” The old stories rose up—marks, bonds, the ritual that sealed fate and blood. The mark was what made a mate’s name into a chain. If Aeron had not pressed his mark into Amera, then the agreement was a promise and nothing more. Not yet a prison.

“And the blood moon,” Lira added, voice hardening. “Wait for the blood moon. The curse—that red thing you carry—will weaken. By then you’ll be stronger. By then we’ll know if the pact holds or splinters.”

I imagined the moon as something that could be fought, an enemy I could outrun. In reality it was less tangible and more treacherous: a calendar of fate painted in silver. The blood moon promised change—and with change came danger. If the curse lifted, would I be myself or some stranger born of the shift? If it didn’t, would I be a weapon without a hand to wield it?

My hands curled into fists. “How do I wait?” I whispered. “How do I hold my breath with the knowledge they took everything?”

Lira’s fingers threaded into mine. “You don’t wait idle. We train. We gather allies. We test old pacts and make new ones. Fangwood may be the loudest voice, but packs have divided before. Secrets can be unearthed. Harold likes to think he’s clever—leave him to his cleverness. We will be smarter.”

Her conviction stitched a thin line through the panic that wanted to tear me apart. Still, fear prowled at the edges of my thoughts. Images came unbidden: the courtyard slick with blood, the midwife’s shaking hands as she smuggled me away, the priest’s eyes bright as a knife. Hands I had loved reduced to shadow.

“Will the pack truly stand with me?” I asked. The question was smaller than my fear but hung heavier than any sword.

Lira’s smile was fierce and short, the kind that doesn’t promise safety so much as willingness. “They will stand. You are Wolfborn, Selene. Blood remembers its own. We remember our debts and our duties. The Moonshine pack knows the price of silence. We do not pay it twice.”

A cold laugh bubbled up and died. “And Aeron?”

Her jaw tightened. “Aeron is… complicated. He is not a monster. He has made choices that hurt you—of that I am not blind. But I know he still stands for us. Whatever he hides, whatever he plans, we can’t yet judge him.”

Her words lingered, heavy but oddly calming. The storm inside me eased, though not entirely. I drew in a slow breath and let it out, the anger thinning into weariness. My body reminded me of its limits—a dull ache in my stomach twisted, sharp enough to make me falter.

Lira caught it immediately. Her sternness softened. “You’ve been carrying fury since morning, Selene, and you haven’t eaten. Come home with me. Let’s have lunch.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but my belly betrayed me with a hollow growl. Heat rushed to my face, and despite everything, a small laugh escaped me. “I suppose the mighty avenger of kings and priests can’t fight on an empty stomach,” I admitted.

Lira smiled, quick and knowing, and looped her arm through mine. “Exactly. Rage can wait. Bread and meat cannot.”

As we walked back through the winding path to the village, the sharp edge of vengeance dulled into something steadier, something I could carry without breaking. The scent of smoke and herbs reached us first, curling from cookfires. Children’s laughter echoed faintly from the square, ordinary and jarring against the weight of what I carried.

My stomach clenched tighter, almost painfully now. “I think I could eat an entire deer,” I muttered, only half joking.

Lira chuckled. “Good. You’ll need the strength. Tomorrow we begin.”