Chapter 130 The Cleansing Of The Grounds
The next morning came far too quickly.
For a long moment I lay tangled in the blankets, staring at the faint gray light creeping through the curtains. My body still ached from Darius and I’s love making the night before, and my mind was heavy with everything Mara had poured into it.
Ceremonies. Rituals. Responsibilities.
Luna.
The word still felt strange when I thought it. Beside me, the bed was empty. Darius had already left.
I stared at the ceiling for another minute before groaning and forcing myself upright. The room was quiet except for the distant sounds drifting in from outside,voices, movement, the occasional thud of something heavy being dragged across stone.
Preparations.
The first day of cleansing.
I rubbed my face with both hands.
“Here we go ,” I muttered to myself.
If I was going to do this, I had to start acting like it. By the time I stepped outside the pack house, the sun had barely cleared the mountains. The air was crisp and cool, carrying the smell of pine, earth… and something sharp.
Ash.
The entire pack grounds were already awake.
Warriors moved through the wide courtyards carrying wooden buckets filled with water from the lake. Omegas followed behind them with baskets of gray ash that had been gathered from the old ceremonial hearth.
The lake water.
Moon water.
Apparently not mystical at all.
Just lake water.
Still, the way the pack handled it made it feel sacred. I paused on the stone steps for a moment, taking everything in. Lines of wolves were already spreading out across the territory.
Some headed toward the outer training fields. Others toward the boundary stones.
A group of omegas was dragging long brushes across the stone courtyard, scrubbing the ground in slow, deliberate motions while another poured water over the surface.
The smell of wet stone filled the air.
Someone noticed me standing there.
Then another. Within seconds the activity around the main house slowed. Heads turned. Spines straightened.
And I suddenly realized every single wolf in sight was looking at me.
Right.
Luna.
I resisted the urge to turn around and walk back inside.Instead I stepped down the stairs and walked straight into the courtyard.Mara appeared almost immediately at my side.
“You’re up early.”
“I didn’t sleep much.”
“That will change after the ceremony.”
I glanced around at the dozens of wolves already working.
“I doubt that.”
She followed my gaze.
“The cleansing begins at sunrise.”
“I can see that.”
Mara motioned for me and we headed inside and went to the underground training grounds
A pair of young omegas were scrubbing one of the old sparring rings nearby, pushing brushes through muddy streaks left behind from countless training sessions.
The ring looked… brutal.
Dark stains had seeped deep into the packed dirt.
“How old are these?” I asked.
“Some of them are decades old.”
“And we’re cleaning them now?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Mara looked at the training ring thoughtfully.
“Because the Moon Goddess celebration isn’t just about honoring the present.”
“It’s about releasing the past.”
I watched one of the warriors dump a bucket of water across the ring.
The mud turned darker instantly.
“And the ash?” I asked.
“Purification.”
“From a spiritual perspective?”
“From every perspective.”
The words settled into me slowly.
A group of warriors approached the courtyard carrying larger buckets.
One of them hesitated when he saw me standing there.
“Luna,” he said carefully.
The title still felt strange.
“Morning.”
He looked briefly at Mara, then back at me.
“Where else would you like us to clean?”
I blinked.
“Where else?”
I glanced around.“Everywhere.”
He hesitated again.
“The elders usually decide the order.”
I felt something sharp flare in my chest. Of course they did. Elders. Committees. Rules layered on top of rules.
“No.”
Both he and Mara looked at me.
“No?” the warrior asked.
“No elders.”
“Luna…”
“We clean everything.”
I gestured across the courtyard.
“The training rings.”
“The outer walls.”
“The boundary stones.”
“Everything.”
The warrior shifted slightly.
“That will take all day.”
“Good.”
I stepped closer to the training ring and crouched down beside the omegas. They froze when I reached for one of the brushes.
“Keep going,” I said.
The brush was heavier than I expected.The bristles dragged across the dirt with a gritty sound as I pushed it through the muddy water.
For a few seconds, no one moved.
Then Mara laughed quietly. “Well,” she said, turning to the warriors.
“You heard your Luna.” Something changed after that. The hesitation disappeared. Warriors spread out quickly across the courtyard. Buckets sloshed as more water was poured. Ash scattered across the ground like pale snow before being scrubbed into the dirt. The courtyard filled with motion.
I kept scrubbing.
One of the omegas beside me finally spoke.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Why not?”
“You’re Luna ”
I shrugged.
“So?”
“So… you’re not supposed to clean, just tell us what to do and we will do it..”
“Who said that?”
“The elders.”
I snorted.
She looked uncertain.I pushed the brush through another muddy streak.“This land belongs to all of us,” I said.
“So we all clean it.”
Something in my voice must have settled her nerves.
After that, the work continued without awkwardness. The morning passed in steady, physical rhythm.
Water, Ash,Scrubbing,Washing.
The pack grounds slowly transformed around us. Old training rings that had once been stained dark were now clean enough to show the pale brown of the original earth.
Stone walkways gleamed wet under the sunlight.
The blood guards moved along the boundary markers, pouring moon water over the carved stones and wiping away old dirt.
I followed them for a while.
The boundary stones were older than I expected.
Each one carried carved runes worn smooth by time.
“These mark the territory?” I asked.
A warrior nodded.
“Yes.”
“And they’re cleaned every year?”
“Only before Silverbound.”
I placed my hand on the nearest stone.
It felt cool under my palm. Strange. I had spent so much of my life without a pack.
Without land.Without belonging.
Now I was standing here… responsible for all of this. For the first time since arriving, the title Luna didn’t feel like a weight. It felt like something else. It felt like purpose.
By late afternoon the pack lands looked different, they looked cleaner and brighter. Even the air felt lighter somehow.
The smell of ash and lake water lingered everywhere. Mara joined me again near the central courtyard.
She studied the freshly washed stone.
“You did well.”
“I scrubbed dirt.”
“You led, in scrubbing dirt.”
I looked across the grounds. Wolves moved easily now. Talking. Laughing. Working together. And something inside my chest settled into place.
I realized that every day I spent in this pack I no longer felt like an outsider. I no longer felt like the hybrid everyone feared. Standing there among them, watching the pack rebuild its land piece by piece…I felt like a Luna.