Mourning

Mourning
The funeral blurred around me like a smear of gray and black. Voices murmured, feet shuffled, someone sobbed into someone else’s shoulder — but it all felt distant, muffled, bleak.

No, not Kairn and Skye’s. Three days after the battle, they both remained in Damaris’ care, critical, but alive. The problem with that—we didn’t know what was wrong with them.

Whatever the bullets had been laced with… That knowledge died with Clove and escaped with Levi’s broken body. No one had seen the rogues since. Whether they had retreated or disbanded entirely, no one knew for sure

Shadowthorne wolves stood shoulder to shoulder with Silverstone, their expressions all matching, a sea of faces, heavy with grief.

Warriors who would have once snarled at each other now leaned together for support. Pack members from both territories walked with bowed heads. Even the children were silent, clinging to their parents’ legs, sensing the weight in the air.

I felt none of it.

I walked because my legs instinctively remembered how. I breathed because my body refused to stop. But inside, I was hollow.

Someone had scooped out everything that made me me and left only the echo of pain behind. My hands worked, moving wood, carrying bodies, patting shoulders with reassurance I couldn’t feel.

Every few steps, my mind flickered back to the clearing — the gunshots, the bond ripping open, Skye’s agony crashing into me like a black tidal wave. Kairn’s heartbeat against me, so faint. The way the world had gone dark around the edges.

I blinked hard, but the memory clung to my vision like smoke.

Around me, the packs mourned the fallen — warriors from both sides who had given their lives in the battle. Their names were spoken with reverence. Their families wept openly. The air was thick with incense and sorrow.

The Silverstone pack walked among us, slept in our houses, ate at our tables, clung to us for comfort. And the Shadowthorne pack provided, desperately needing the support in return.

But my grief was suspended, frozen in place.

Because my grief wasn’t for the dead.

It was for the living.

For the two souls lying motionless in Damaris’ healing hall, suspended between life and something far worse. Kairn, pale and still, his breathing shallow and uneven. Skye, unmoving, his chest wrapped in layers of bandages that did nothing to hide the unnatural stillness beneath.

They were alive — but unreachable--and that was a different kind of torment.

My fingers twitched at my sides. We were gathered outside the ceremonial hall, but I ached with the need to be with them, to shake them awake, to feel even the faintest spark of their presence through the bond. But the bond was quiet. Too quiet. Like a door had been shut between us.

I didn’t know how to exist without their warmth humming in the back of my mind. Every second, every movement, felt heavy.

The packs bowed their heads in unison, united in grief as our priestess spoke to the packs.

“Children of Shadowthorne. Children of Silverstone. Tonight, we stand together not as two packs, but as one grieving heart.” Willow took my hand, squeezing softly. I barely felt it.

“We gather to honor those whose spirits have returned to the embrace of our Goddess — warriors, kin, friends, Lunas… Their names will be spoken for generations. Their courage will echo long after our own voices fade. They fought not for glory, but for the fragile thread of peace we now hold in trembling hands.”

A hand rested on my shoulder, Novic’s bandaged fingers giving a comforting rub as Juniper leaned against my opposite side.

“And yet… I see fear in your eyes. I feel weight in your chests. I know the darkness pressing at the edges of your thoughts. We have lost so much. We may lose more before the dawn fully breaks. But hear me now — grief is not the end of our story. Grief is the proof that we have loved. And love, even wounded, even bleeding, is the strongest magic we possess.”

A fresh wave of tears welled in my eyes. Love. That was what we shared—something worth fighting for, until the very end.

“Look around you. Shadowthorne stands beside Silverstone. Tonight, we mourn together. We breathe together. We endure together. Our fallen would ask nothing less.”

I looked up at the bodies on the wood stacks, dozens of them, rogues and pack members alike. So much loss… for what? Vengeance? Ambition?

“And for those who still fight for their lives—suspended between this world and the next—we hold vigil. We hold hope. We hold love. Even when our hearts feel numb. Even when confusion clouds our thoughts. Even when the bond feels too quiet, too thin.”

Her words broke me as she seemed to read my mind. I swallowed the tightness that formed in my chest and held back the sob that threatened to break free.

“Hope is not a weakness. Hope is an act of defiance. So, I ask you — no, I beg you — do not let despair claim what our enemies could not. Do not let fear hollow you out. Do not let grief turn you against one another. Let love be the lantern we carry into the dark. For the dead, we bow our heads. For the living, we lift our hearts. For the future, we stand unbroken.”

I stared at the ground, tears dripping down my face and soaking into my black dress. I grieved the loss of Luna Vera. Of Sabier, my quiet companion. I even grieved for Clove, so lost in her desperation and jealousy that she lost sight of the people she’d once loved.

But through the sorrow, my thoughts circled the same desperate loop.

Wake up. Please. Just wake up.

I didn’t care about the funeral rites. I didn’t care about the politics, the alliances, the fragile peace that had been forged in blood.

I didn’t care about the curious glances other wolves cast my way. The Luna who seemed to leave death in her wake.

All I cared about were the twins. My twins. My heart. My home.

A cold breeze swept through the gathering, rustling cloaks and stirring the incense smoke. I shivered, though I wasn’t sure if it was from the wind or the emptiness gnawing at the inside of my chest.

Someone touched my arm, gentle, hesitant. I turned to see Lucille, eyes red, expression soft with worry. She had Aurora clutched against her chest, the baby sleeping soundly against her shoulder.

“Tyranni… you should rest.”

Rest. The word felt meaningless.

“I can’t,” I whispered, my voice barely audible. “Not until they wake up.”

Lucille’s face crumpled, but she didn’t argue. She simply squeezed my arm and stepped back.

The ceremony continued. The pyres were lit in the evening light.  The packs mourned together. The world kept turning.

But me? I remained suspended in that moment of gunfire and pain, trapped between hope and despair.

I lifted my gaze toward the healing hall, its windows glowing faintly in the fading light.

Please, I begged silently, fiercely, with every fractured piece of my soul. Please wake up.