Chapter 13: Whispers of the Past
The morning after the banquet dawned quiet—too quiet for the Crimson Moon estate.
The usual rhythm of training wolves, merchants setting up stalls, and patrols changing shifts felt muted, as though the pack itself was holding its breath.
Aurora sat by the open balcony of her quarters, robe drawn close, a half-drunk cup of tea cooling beside her.
Below, mist clung to the forest edge, wrapping the world in a gauze of silver.
She hadn’t slept.
Every time she closed her eyes, the same image replayed;Sophia’s face younger, tear-streaked, cradling a baby that felt like her.
She’d tried convincing herself it was an empathic echo, some trick of her still-developing abilities. But no—this had been too clear, too intimate.
A fragment of truth her soul had recognized before her mind did.
The door creaked softly behind her.
“Couldn’t sleep?” Jaxson’s voice was rough with fatigue, but his presence filled the room with grounding warmth.
He’d spent most of the night in meetings, calming a council uneasy with Sophia Valentina’s arrival.
Aurora shook her head. “No.” She hesitated before adding, “I saw something last night. When I was outside.”
Jaxson stepped closer, the faint scent of cedar and storm lingering around him. “A vision?”
“Something like that.” She turned to face him, eyes shadowed. “It felt… personal. Like a memory that wasn’t mine.”
Jaxson frowned. “Aurora, your powers are still settling after the ceremony. The elder warned you they’d surge unpredictably. It could’ve been residual energy from Sophia. She’s powerful—her aura might have triggered something.”
Aurora’s lips parted in quiet frustration. “You think it’s coincidence that my powers react the moment she arrives? That I see her holding a newborn and calling it ‘my little moon’?”
His expression hardened;not in anger, but in the careful control of a man balancing leadership and love.
“You’re seeing connections because you want answers,” he said quietly. “And Sophia is an easy target for suspicion.”
Aurora rose, silk whispering as she moved toward him. “You said you and Sophia were once close.”
He didn’t answer immediately.
His gaze drifted toward the horizon, where dawn spilled across the mountains. “Thirty years ago,” he said at last.
“Before she became Alpha of the Desert Rose Pack, she was different. Wild, brilliant, ambitious. We fought together in the Border Wars. I thought…” His voice trailed off.
“We could’ve built something, but politics don’t forgive sentiment. She chose her pack, and I—” he met Aurora’s gaze, “—chose duty.”
Aurora’s throat tightened. There was no jealousy in her expression, only a searching sadness. “Do you still love her?”
Jaxson’s brow furrowed at the bluntness. “No,” he said after a pause that felt a second too long. “But I remember her. And I know the kind of woman she is—she never acts without purpose.”
“That’s what worries me,” Aurora murmured.
By midday, the council chamber buzzed with murmured voices. Aurora joined Jaxson and the elders for the diplomatic session with Sophia. The long obsidian table gleamed like water, the Desert Rose emblem displayed beside Crimson Moon’s crescent sigil.
Sophia sat poised, her golden robes flowing like sunlight.
“I bring news from the southern border,” she said smoothly. “The Nightfall Pack has been mobilizing.
They’ve sent envoys to smaller clans, trying to recruit through fear. It’s not coincidence they’ve done so now.”
Her gaze slid briefly to Aurora. “Your Luna’s rise has been… remarkable. Rapid ascensions tend to unsettle our enemies—and sometimes our allies.”
A ripple passed through the elders.
Aurora felt their emotions crackle—curiosity, unease, doubt. She kept her posture serene, though her wolf bristled at the subtle barb.
“I earned my place,” Aurora said evenly. “If my existence unsettles others, perhaps they should question their own weakness.”
Sophia smiled faintly, a predator amused. “Confidence suits you, Luna. I only hope it doesn’t blind you.”
The rest of the meeting unfolded with careful diplomacy, but beneath the surface, Aurora could sense the undercurrents;Sophia’s curiosity tinged with something warmer, almost protective, and the elders’ growing unease over the word rapid.
When it ended, Jaxson escorted Sophia through the corridor. Aurora hung back, her heightened empathy tuning in to Sophia’s emotional resonance like a musician hearing dissonance in a chord.
It wasn’t purely manipulation or rivalry. There was grief, guilt, and a deep longing so sharp Aurora nearly gasped aloud.
She caught fragments as Sophia spoke softly to Jaxson:
“She reminds me of someone I lost.”
“You mean your daughter?”
“Something like that.”
The words hit Aurora’s chest like a physical blow.
That evening, she found herself wandering into the library of her father again—the one room that had belonged to her adoptive father. Dusty tomes lined the shelves, the air thick with old paper and cedar oil. She trailed her fingers along the spines until she stopped at a collection of trade agreements from decades past. There, buried between pages, she found an old parchment stamped with the Desert Rose crest.
A contract of alliance;signed thirty years ago by Alpha Viktor of Desert Rose and Vivian Blackthorne, acting as representative of Crimson Moon.
Aurora’s pulse quickened. Vivian had signed the agreement long before marrying her father. What business had she had with Alpha Viktor back then?
She turned the page and froze. Scribbled in faded ink along the margin were two words that didn’t belong to the formal script:
“Keep her hidden.”
Her hands trembled slightly.
Later, in her chambers, Aurora lit a single candle and sat cross-legged before it.
She closed her eyes, focusing her power through the rhythmic pulse of flame. She needed clarity;truth beyond rumor, beyond fear.
The world blurred around her as the psychic energy rose. Whispers echoed in her mind;layers of emotion and memory from the objects around her. The faint scent of Sophia’s perfume still clung to the gown Aurora had worn at the banquet, and when she brushed her fingers over the fabric, something opened.
A woman’s cry.
The rush of desert wind.
Hands handing over a baby swaddled in crimson cloth.
And Sophia’s voice—“Forgive me, little one. Forgive me.”
Aurora jerked back, chest heaving. The candle guttered violently, snuffing out. Darkness swallowed the room.
When Jaxson entered moments later, drawn by the sound of glass shattering, he found her kneeling amidst fragments of the extinguished candleholder, tears streaking her face.
“What happened?” he demanded, kneeling beside her.
Aurora met his gaze, eyes glowing faintly gold. “She knows me,” she whispered.
“Not just as your past. Sophia… she knows who I am.”
Jaxson’s expression darkened with concern. “Aurora—”
“I saw her holding a baby,” she interrupted, her voice trembling but resolute. “She gave that child away, and I think—” She swallowed hard, the words barely leaving her lips. “I think that child was me.”
Silence settled between them. Outside, the moon rose pale and heavy over the packlands. Somewhere in the distance, a lone wolf howled—a sound raw enough to echo through Aurora’s chest.
And in the darkness of that moment, something inside her shifted. The questions of power and politics fell away, replaced by something far more intimate.
Who was she, really?
The Luna of Crimson Moon—
Or the daughter of the woman who wanted to destroy it?