The council chamber had never smelled so much like fear.
Not the sharp, honest kind that came when rogues howled at the borders or cracks groaned in the walls. This was sour, hidden—a sweat-slick unease seeping from fur and skin as elders, warriors, and omegas crowded into the old stone hall.
Luna stood with her back to the Moonstone pillar in the center of the room, the faint, icy hum of it running up her spine. She'd come into this chamber once as a trembling omega with a tray, eyes down, shoulders hunched, Selene's laughter snapping at her heels.
Tonight, she stood as the storm-queen they whispered about.
And the woman who had once broken her between these very stones was about to be stripped bare.
"Everyone is here," Elia murmured at her elbow.
Luna's gaze swept the room.
The elders sat on the half-circle of carved stone benches, Maera at the center, her lips tight, eyes hollowed out by too many sleepless nights and too much cracked rock.
Warriors lined the walls, some in full armor, some half-shifted, unable to fully relax.
Omegas clustered near the back, peering around pillars, eyes wide.
Near the front, Rhea rested a shoulder against a column, arms crossed, jaw tense. Rebel lounged beside her in the way of wolves who only appeared relaxed—they were coiled, ready.
Orion stood to Luna's right, one step back.
Not in front.
Not behind.
His presence was a steady heat at her shoulder, his scent sharp with resolve and a thin line of dread.
The empty space on Maera's left chair—once reserved for the future Luna of the pack—felt like a wound.
Selene's seat.
It was unoccupied.
For the moment.
Maera's gaze flicked to Luna, then to Orion.
"Are we truly doing this?" the elder asked, voice brittle. "Now? When the other packs will be here within days? When the Bloodfangs are barely off our border?"
Luna's hands flexed at her sides.
The shadow-threads in her veins pulsed faintly, restless.
"Especially now," Luna said evenly. "The Goddess peeled your rot from the walls. It's time we peel it from our council too."
A low ripple went through the room.
Maera's eyes flashed.
"Careful," she snapped. "You may be blessed, girl, but you are *not*—"
"She is the one who kept your pups breathing when the curse came for them," Elia cut in sharply. "The one who held the nursery ceiling with her body. Maybe consider listening."
Maera's nostrils flared.
Luna lifted a hand slightly.
"Enough," she said quietly.
The word carried.
Wind stirred at her call, a subtle hush that ran around the chamber like a hand smoothing ruffled fur.
"I'm not here to stage a coup," she added, gaze sweeping the elders. "Not today. I'm here to stop this pack from bleeding out from wounds it keeps pretending don't exist."
Her eyes locked on Maera.
"Selene is one of those wounds," she said.
A rustle, sharper this time.
Selene had done her work well over the years.
Her web ran deep.
Allies.
Debtors.
Wolves who owed their places on these benches or in these ranks to some whispered favor.
And then there were those who had simply been too afraid to cross her.
"Bring her," Orion said, voice rough.
The door at the back of the chamber creaked.
Two warriors entered.
Between them, Selene walked like she owned the room.
Her hair—dark, glossy, perfectly braided—fell over one shoulder. Her clothes were immaculate, untouched by grit or battle. She held herself tall, chin high, eyes sharp.
If not for the faint, tight lines around her mouth and the way her fingers twitched once against her skirts, Luna might almost have believed her completely unbothered.
Selene's gaze swept the room, cataloguing.
Measuring.
Settling, finally, on Luna.
She held it.
No flinch.
No smile.
"Storm Pet," she said, voice smooth. "I hear you've been busy rearranging *my* pack."
Luna felt her wolf bare its teeth.
She smiled.
Mathematically.
"You hear much," she said. "Say more."
Selene's lips twitched.
She walked to her old chair and, deliberately, sat.
The audacity of it sent a murmur rolling through the council.
"That," Luna said quietly, "is no longer yours."
Selene's lashes flickered.
"Oh?" she asked. "Did I miss a coronation while I was—what was I doing, again?" She tapped a finger against her cheek, feigning thoughtfulness. "Oh. Right. Keeping your precious Alpha's alliances from unraveling while you played thunder at the border."
Rhea let out a low, incredulous sound.
Rebel folded his arms, expression going flint-hard.
Maera cleared her throat.
"Selene," she said, some of the old deference still clinging to her tone. "We have... concerns. About decisions made in... haste. About things kept from this council."
Selene placed a hand delicately over her heart.
"You wound me," she said. "After everything I've done."
"Let's discuss 'everything,' then," Luna said.
She stepped away from the Moonstone pillar, into the center of the ring.
The stone under her feet hummed like a drum.
"I asked the Goddess why She bound me to this pack," Luna said, voice carrying. "To an Alpha who rejected me. To a den that threw me out. She answered, as She tends to, with *questions.*"
A few wolves snorted softly.
They knew that feeling.
"She asked," Luna went on, "how many of Moonshadow's choices had truly been made by Moonshadow...and how many by a single, careful hand whispering at throats."
Selene's jaw tightened, just enough for Luna to catch it.
Kerran limped forward from the shadows near the archival shelves, arms full of scrolls and crumpled records.
He set them down on the low stone table in front of the elders with a grunt.
"I kept the books," he said, voice rough. "For seasons. Some entries were... missing. I thought it old age at first. Ink spill. Forgetfulness. Then the new records started to look... different."
He unrolled one parchment.
A list of names, tithes, border patrol rosters—official record of pack business.
Beside it, he set another: the same date, in his own clumsy script, stained and half-torn.
The two were not the same.
Maera frowned.
"What is this?" she demanded.
"The copy I was told to present to you," Kerran said, pointing at the first. "And the one I kept for myself when I started to suspect someone's hand was... too tidy."
His eyes flashed to Selene.
Color rose high in her cheeks.
"Are we truly dredging up old scribbles?" she scoffed. "In the middle of a crisis?"
"Yes," Luna said softly. "That's what rot loves most. Crisis. No one looking too closely at what's already crumbling."
She took a scroll from the pile.
Held it up.
"When the Shadow Pack petitioned for aid," she said, "they sent word to the council. An Alpha-level message. Written in the old, formal hand. Asking for counsel. Protection. They were desperate. Wolves on their borders were missing. Their pups sick. Their walls... cracking. Sound familiar?"
Unease flickered through the chamber.
The Shadow Pack's name tasted like bone dust.
Everyone knew what had happened to them.
Or thought they did.
"We never received such a message," Maera said stiffly. "They never came to us. They fell because they were weak."
Luna's hand shook as she turned the parchment so Maera could see the seal.
The old Shadow Alpha's mark had been pressed there, clear and dark.
"Because *someone* took this," Luna said, each word careful, "intercepted it from the messengers before it reached you—and kept it."
Maera's eyes widened.
She turned to Kerran.
His face was lined with grief.
"I found it," he said quietly, "in a stack of outdated patrol rosters. Filed under 'irrelevant inquiries.' Not in your hand." His gaze flicked to Selene again. "In hers."
His trembling finger pointed.
Selene's expression didn't crack.
"Intercepting messages?" she said lightly. "You think I have time to chase pups with scrolls?"
"You made time to chase *me* when I carried them," Luna murmured.
Memory surged.
A dark hallway.
Warm bread cooling on her arm as she hurried to the elders with a note Orion had asked to be delivered.
Selene's hand on her elbow, too tight.
"What's that, runt? Let me help you. Oh—clumsy. Dropped. I'll take it. Run along."
Luna's stomach turned.
"Shadow Pack died screaming for help you buried," Luna said softly.
Selene's eyes flashed.
"It was one message," she snapped, the smooth veneer cracking for the first time. "From a pack that had spat in our faces at the last treaty summit. They called us weak. Accused *us* of hiding cracks in our walls. I wasn't about to paint a target on our backs by linking our names with theirs."
"You decided that alone?" Orion's voice came, tight.
Everyone's gaze swung to him.
Selene's narrowed.
"I made a choice," she said. "When you were too busy polishing your Alpha shine to see the game being played in the dark. You're welcome."
"You made that choice on the backs of their dead pups," Luna said.
Her voice was no longer soft.
"Alliances," Kerran rasped, pulling another scroll. "Tithe ledgers. Patrol routes. Every time a decision would have cost you power, Selene, the 'official' record... shifted."
He unrolled another parchment.
Names of rogues brought into the pack border as temporary labor, to help reinforce the western wall seasons ago.
In the original, written in Kerran's hand, there were eight.
In the official record, only three.
"The other five?" Luna asked.
Kerran's mouth thinned.
"Never got proper standing," he said. "No marks. No oaths sworn in front of the council. Easy to deny later that they'd ever been inside our walls."
"Convenient," Elia said coldly, "when they were the ones blamed after the first curse cracks appeared and we needed scapegoats."
A murmur, louder now.
"Those rope burns around their necks," Rebel growled under his breath. "I remember. Thought we'd... hung the guilty."
"We hanged wolves who had no voice in this room," Luna said, eyes locked on Selene. "No one to speak for them. No way to prove they'd been following *your* instructions at the wall when the curse first showed."
Selene's jaw clenched.
"This is ridiculous," she said, rising from her seat. "You drag out old records, twist them, lay every shadow at my paws because the Goddess gave your runt a lightning trick and suddenly she smells blood."
The word *runt* no longer slid under Luna's skin like it used to.
It hit stone.
Broke.
"You can call me what you like," Luna said. "It doesn't change what you did to me, either."
Selene's laughter was sharp.
"Oh, yes," she said. "We all know you never let go of a slight."
The air in the chamber chilled.
Luna stepped closer.
"You told me," she said, voice deceptively quiet, "that a wolf like me should be grateful to clean boots. That the only reason I was in the den at all was because you convinced the elders not to leave me in the snow."
Selene smirked faintly.
"Still true," she said. "You were a charity project."
"You beat me," Luna continued, as if she hadn't spoken. "When the warriors weren't looking. When Orion wasn't looking. You knocked trays from my hands. Tripped me. Called me names so no one else had to get their paws dirty."
She lifted her chin.
"You told me," she said, "that the Goddess had made a mistake when She tied my soul to his. That you'd fix it. For the good of the pack. For him."
Murmurs rose, hissed.
Selene's face went still.
"Careful," she said, eyes narrowing. "You're wandering into story-telling now. Little victims often do."
"I was there," Rhea said suddenly, voice cracking the tension.
Every head turned.
Rhea pushed off the column, stepping into the light.
"I saw you shove her," she said to Selene, jaw tight. "Saw you push her into the storage room. Heard her hit the wall. Heard you say 'No one will ever want something that broken, runt. Not even the moon.'"
Silence fell.
Thick.
Horrified.
Selene's lips parted.
The Luna saw it—a flicker of vulnerability, old and sour, before the mask slammed back down.
"You didn't say anything then," Selene snapped. "You didn't stop me."
Rhea's jaw flexed.
"No," she said. "I didn't. I was a coward. Angrier at my own bruises than yours. Swore I'd tell Orion if it got worse. It always got... just bad *enough* to make you bleed, but not enough for me to risk my own place to stop you."
Her voice dropped.
"I'm sorry, Luna," she said. "Too late, I know. But I won't stay silent now."
Luna's throat tightened.
She nodded once, not trusting herself to speak.
Elia stepped forward next, eyes hard as flint.
"You came to me in the healers' den once," she said to Selene, "and told me to mark a pup with 'grey lung' instead of 'curse-suspected,' so it wouldn't go on the official ledger. Said we had enough panic in the walls already."
Selene's jaw flexed.
"A single mark," Elia went on. "But it meant the elders didn't call a full investigation. Didn't widen the wards around the nursery. That oversight helped the curse settle deeper. You did that. With a few carefully chosen words."
She tilted her head.
"How many others?" she asked.
Selene's nostrils flared.
"You blame me for a curse that came from the cracks themselves?" she demanded. "From your Goddess' *pet's* power spilling where it didn't belong?"
"Watch your tongue," Maera snapped reflexively, but there was no real weight behind it.
The old Alpha-favored Luna, Selene-chosen script was unraveling in front of her. She couldn't see where to cling.
Kerran dragged another scroll forward.
"The day of the rejection," he croaked. "The Moon Ceremony. There should have been a witness record. There always is when a mate bond is claimed or broken. It's tradition."
Selene folded her arms.
"And?" she asked.
"You never submitted one," Kerran said. "You told me you'd write it yourself. That it was... delicate."
His eyes flashed.
"I found *something* instead," he said. "In your own hand. Practice lines. Phrases. 'The runt attacked me.' 'She tried to force a bond.' 'I had to protect him.'"
Fury roared in Luna's ears, a hot, buzzing sound.
Selene's cheeks flushed.
"That was—" She swallowed. "That was nothing. I was... preparing. In case she made trouble, tried to turn the pack against me with her sob stories."
"So you had lies ready," Luna said.
"To protect the pack," Selene spat. "From *you.* Do you have any idea what would have happened if they'd actually snapped you to his side? If the Goddess had stuck us with a runt as Luna? Every Alpha in the region would have sniffed blood. We'd be dead already."
Her eyes blazed.
"I did what no one else had the spine to," she hissed. "I made the hard calls. I told the ugly truths. I kept us from becoming a charity case. If I had to bruise a few feelings, shove a few omegas, bury a few... inconvenient scrolls to do it, so be it."
"Inconvenient wolves," Luna corrected, her voice gone low and dangerous. "Not scrolls. Wolves. You buried *wolves.*"
Selene's face flickered.
"So did you," she threw back. "Out there, in your storms. You tell me you never made a cold choice? Never weighed one life against many? Spare me your martyr act."
Luna's jaw clenched.
"I never once used another's vulnerability to polish my own crown," she said. "I never once told a pup the moon had made them wrong so I could feel more right."
She stepped closer.
The air chilled.
Lightning flickered faintly under her skin.
"You think you were protecting the pack?" Luna asked. "Let's list what you really protected: your claim on Orion. Your status as 'future Luna.' Your carefully cultivated network of favors owed. You told yourself you were shielding them from my weakness. But every time you silenced a cry for help, every time you made it harder for truth to reach these benches, you made us softer where it mattered most."
Her hand slammed against the Moonstone pillar.
The old crystal rang.
"We stand in cracked halls," Luna said, voice rising. "We barely held our pups from sliding into nothing. We watched one of our own packs vanish because their messenger never made it to this room. And in every one of those threads, Selene, *you* are there. Not alone. Never alone. But woven deep."
Selene's nostrils flared.
"And what of *his* part?" she demanded, whipping her head toward Orion. "Will we flay me and let him keep his fur? He stood there and said the words that broke that bond. He watched me shove you. He took my counsel gladly when it lined up with what his pride already wanted."
Her lip curled.
"You going to martyr yourself alone, Alpha?" she snarled. "Or share the blame you're so desperate to offload onto me?"
All eyes shifted to Orion.
He did not flinch from the gaze.
He stepped forward.
One pace.
Two.
Until he stood not between Luna and Selene, but beside Luna, a half-step behind her shoulder.
He bared his throat.
Not to Selene.
To the room.
"To every wolf here," he said, voice steady but raw, "I stand guilty. I rejected the bond the moon offered me. I allowed Selene's whispers to feed my fear. I turned my head when I should have listened. I watched an omega bleed in these halls and told myself it wasn't my concern. That makes me weak. A coward. And still, somehow, your Alpha."
A harsh breath shivered through the room.
"I am not here to excuse myself," he went on. "Only to draw a line. I am done letting Selene speak as if her manipulations were some noble self-sacrifice on my behalf. She fed my worst instincts. She sharpened my fear into cruelty. I chose what I did because I was wrong. *Not* because she was right."
His gaze locked on Selene.
"You do not get to wear my failure as your badge," he said quietly. "We both carry it in our own ways."
Something in her eyes flickered.
Luna saw the girl Selene might once have been—sharp, hungry, terrified of ever being on the ground while someone else loomed.
Then it was gone.
"You would be dead without me," Selene said, voice brittle. "You'd have stumbled into five treaties blind. You'd have given half our hunting grounds away to the Shadow Pack's desperate heirs. You'd have—"
"Shared food with wolves who starved," Luna interrupted. "What a horror."
Murmurs of agreement.
Of shame.
Of dawning realization.
Maera's hands, resting on her knees, trembled.
She looked suddenly... old.
"Why?" the elder asked, voice small. "Why, Selene? The rest—all of it, I can almost understand. You were ambitious. You wanted power. You made... ugly choices." Her mouth twisted. "Many of us did. But the pups. The scroll. The Shadow Pack. Why *that*?"
Selene's eyes went hard and bright.
"Because no one ever did it for *me,*" she said.
The words rang with raw, unexpected truth.
Luna blinked.
"In my first pack," Selene went on, words rushing now, "I was nothing. Middle daughter of a middle hunter. Not the strongest. Not the prettiest. Not the cleverest. Just... there. Easy to overlook. Until someone needed a scapegoat."
Her lip curled.
"They blamed me when the first crack touched our walls," she said. "I was the unlucky pup who'd been closest when the stone split. 'Selene brought it.' 'Selene stepped wrong.' 'Selene offended the Goddess.' They... cast me out. Called it 'preventative.' You know what it is to be thrown into the snow, runt. Don't you dare pretend you don't."
The old insult hit softer this time.
Luna's wolf flinched.
Not for herself.
For that younger Selene.
"You came here," Selene hissed, "to Moonshadow. As a pup. As a project. People cooed over your tragedy. Fed you scraps. Patted your head." Her eyes glittered. "I came as a threat. An outsider. A reminder that curses travel. That the Goddess' displeasure might land on any den. I learned quickly that the only way to stay was to make myself indispensable. Untouchable. I did what I had to. I carved a place with my teeth."
"And decided," Luna said softly, "that the only way to keep it was to put your teeth in anyone beneath you."
Selene shrugged one shoulder.
"If I hadn't," she said. "I'd be bones under some tree. The elders would have tutted and said 'what a shame.' The same way they tutted when your parents didn't come back from patrol."
Pain pinched Luna's chest.
"You turned your hurt outward," she said. "You used it like a knife on anyone smaller. Anyone you could cast as the 'cursed one' to keep their eyes off you."
Selene laughed once, bitter.
"And it worked," she said. "Until She came back with lightning in her skin and you all started looking at *her* like a new sort of goddess."
She spat the last word.
"This is what this really is, isn't it?" she hissed. "You don't want 'justice.' You want a new story. A better villain. A neater arc. 'Selene the schemer, cast out so the moon's chosen can shine.'"
Luna's fingers curled.
Anger flared.
Pity brushed its edge.
Both felt dangerous.
"It doesn't have to be neat," Luna said. "You're not a tale. You're a wolf. You hurt and were hurt. You chose to pass that hurt on instead of break it."
Her voice hardened.
"But the damage you've done? That's real. The Shadow Pack is gone. Those rogues we hung are dead. Those pups choked on curse because you buried a line in a ledger. I won't let your pain excuse *that.*"
Selene's eyes flashed.
"So what now?" she asked. "You throw me out? Hang me? Offer my head to the Bloodfangs as a chewy little apology?"
She stepped forward, chin high.
"You think that will heal your cracks?" she taunted. "You think casting me out will erase the fear in these stone hearts? I was not the only one who chose to look away. To step on the weak."
Her gaze cut around the room.
Maera flinched.
Rhea looked down.
Elia's jaw clenched.
Old guilt seeped from the corners of the chamber.
Luna felt it.
The temptation.
To pin everything on Selene.
To make her the curse's face, the wall's crack, the pack's bruise.
"So don't," the Goddess' voice brushed Luna's mind, warm and firm. *Do not make her your scapegoat, child. You know too well how that burden cuts.*
Luna exhaled.
"Selene," she said, "you're right about one thing. You're not the only one at fault. But you are the one who has woven your ambition through every wound in this den. You knew what you were doing. You chose it again and again, long after you had power enough to stop clawing others down."
She straightened.
"The pack needs to see that choices have consequences," she went on. "That the days of quiet knives and buried scrolls are over. That an omega's bruises matter as much as an elder's pride. That if you hurt our most vulnerable, you do not keep a chair in this room."
Her gaze swept the elders.
"The Goddess burned rot from the walls," she said. "We have to choose to burn it from our councils."
Silence.
Then, slowly, one by one, wolves rose.
Rhea was first.
She stepped to the center of the chamber and tapped her fist to the stone.
"I stand with Luna," she said. "Selene doesn't speak for me. Not anymore."
Rebel followed.
"Aye," he said bluntly. "We let you talk too pretty for too long, Selene. I won't again."
Elia stepped up.
"For too many seasons," she said quietly, "I let paperwork and herbs be an excuse not to see who was choking which wolves in this room. I failed. I won't fail like that again. I stand with Luna."
A low murmur of agreement spread.
Some voices faltered.
Some eyes stayed down.
But it was there.
Maera trembled.
Her hands curled around her knees.
Finally, she pushed herself to her feet.
Her voice shook.
"Selene," she said. "I... should have seen. I wanted so badly to believe in your counsel. In your... competence. You flattered us. Told us we were wise. You made our selfishness sound like strategy. That is on me. On all of us. But—"
She swallowed.
"I cannot allow you to sit in this circle any longer," she finished. "You have lied to this council. Hidden threats. Weaponized our wounds. You will not do so again. By my authority as elder of Moonshadow, I strip you of your future Luna title. Your council seat. Your right to speak for this pack."
Gasps.
Selene's face went white.
For a heartbeat, Luna thought she might lunge—at Maera, at Luna, at anyone.
Instead, Selene threw back her head and laughed.
The sound was brittle.
Frayed.
"You hear that?" she demanded of the room. "They strip me of a title they never formally gave. I did your ugly work in the dark, and now you wash your paws of it because your little goddess-pet makes a better story."
Her eyes met Luna's.
Burned.
"You think social exile scares me?" she asked. "I have lived it. I *was* it. I carved a place here with blood. I will carve another, somewhere else. And when your allies turn on you, when the other packs see what sits at your heart now and circle like crows, don't come howling to me."
She spun to Orion.
"And you," she hissed. "My pretty Alpha. You'll stand beside this runt and let her speak as if she's your equal? You throw me aside for her now, after I bled for your rank?"
Orion's jaw tightened.
"I chose you before," he said. "Over the moon's mark. Over the wolf She tied me to. It nearly broke us. I won't make that choice again."
Selene flinched.
Visibly.
Luna saw, the wound land.
Not just to her pride.
To whatever twisted, possessive thing in her that had labeled Orion as hers.
"You'll regret this," she whispered.
Not a threat.
A promise made to herself.
"I hope not," Orion said quietly.
She looked at him like she didn't recognize him.
Like she'd miscalculated a piece in her game and couldn't understand how.
Then she turned back to Luna.
Light from the Moonstone pillar glinted off her teeth.
"I made you," she said softly. "Every bruise. Every cut. Every lonely night. You think the Goddess gave you that spine? I did. Without me, you'd still be scrubbing floors and praying for a kindness that was never coming."
Luna's wolf snarled.
She stepped forward until she could see every line in Selene's face.
"You hurt me," Luna said. "You sharpened me. You taught me exactly what I never wanted to be. That does not mean I owe you my power. Or my story."
Her voice dropped.
"You fall," she said, "because of your choices. Not because you made me strong."
Selene's eyes glittered.
"We'll see," she whispered.
Maera gestured sharply to the warriors by the door.
"Escort her to the outer dens," the elder said, voice brittle. "She is to have no voice in council. No command over warriors. No say in pack decisions. She is... packless here, save for the basic protections we owe any wolf who does not raise a tooth against us."
The words were almost harder than exile.
To live among wolves and be treated as... nothing.
Selene's spine went very straight.
"I do not need your protections," she said.
"Take them anyway," Elia muttered. "You're going to need something when the moon catches up with you."
Selene lifted her chin.
She walked out between the warriors, steps measured, not a stumble in them.
No one moved to touch her in farewell.
No hands brushed hers.
No murmured goodbyes.
That, more than the formal stripping, was her fall.
Wolves she'd once charmed, manipulated, controlled now watched her with cool eyes.
Some angry.
Some relieved.
Some merely... done.
At the threshold, she paused.
Looked back one last time.
At Luna.
At Orion.
At the elders.
"I survived one exile," she said softly. "I'll survive another."
Her gaze lingered on Luna.
"And I remember," she added, low enough that only Luna and the nearest few could hear, "what it feels like to be on the outside of warm walls in winter. The Goddess favors can turn. So can packs."
Luna held her gaze.
"I remember, too," she said. "Which is why I won't use that memory as a weapon the way you did."
Selene's mouth twisted.
In something almost like contempt.
Almost like respect.
Then she was gone.
The door thudded shut behind her.
Silence crashed down.
Luna let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.
The Moonstone's hum shifted—as if some thread wound too tight around it had finally snapped.
Maera sagged back onto her bench, looking twenty seasons older.
"This doesn't absolve us," she said hoarsely.
"No," Luna agreed. "It doesn't."
She looked around the room.
At faces she'd known as a runt and now saw with different eyes.
"You all let it happen," she said, not cruelly. Just... honestly. "You watched her hurt those beneath her. You heard whispers of buried scrolls, of silenced pleas. You chose to look away because it was easier. Because she flattered you. Because she made your fear sound like wisdom."
Guilt rippled.
"You have a Goddess-blessed wolf in your midst," Luna went on. "Not as your shield against your own choices. As a mirror. My power doesn't make you innocent. It gives you a chance to be better. To stop pretending this pack's only cracks are in the walls."
She exhaled.
"I won't be your scapegoat," she said. "But I also won't be your executioner. You want a new Moonshadow? Then you *make* one. In how you treat your omegas. In how you listen when someone smaller than you says 'this hurts.' In how you decide who sits in these chairs."
Her gaze flicked to Orion.
He met it.
Nodded once.
"So ordered," he said quietly, turning to the council. "Selene is stripped of rank and influence. Her past decisions will be reviewed. Where wolves died because of her lies and our cowardice, we will name them. Remember them. And we will not make them die twice by pretending they were at fault."
His voice shook on the last words.
Luna felt, distantly, the Goddess' presence curl around her.
*You did not throw her to the snow,* the Moon murmured. *You set down the weight she pressed onto your shoulders. That is justice. Not revenge.*
It didn't feel clean.
It wasn't meant to.
As the council dissolved into low, shaken conversation and wolves drifted out in clumps, Luna stayed by the Moonstone pillar, palm pressed against its cool surface.
Orion lingered beside her.
"You didn't kill her," he said quietly.
It wasn't quite a question.
Luna's eyes tracked the empty space where Selene's chair had been.
"No," she said. "I thought about it. In some dark corner of me that still wanted to offer her blood to all the girls she hurt. To the packs whose calls she silenced. It would've been... satisfying."
She swallowed.
"But then I remembered being... her," she whispered. "Cast out. Alone. Furious. And I realized—I refuse to become the thing she made me just to prove a point."
Orion's hand hovered near hers on the pillar.
Not touching.
Close.
"I'll watch her," he said. "Make sure her bitterness doesn't fester into something worse out there."
Luna nodded.
"Do," she said. "But don't make her your only lesson."
He flinched.
"I won't," he said.
They stood in silence for a moment, listening to the den breathe.
Somewhere deep inside, wolves howled—high, low, weaving.
A new song, trying to remember the words without the sharp thread of Selene's influence running through it.
Luna closed her eyes.
The den still had cracks.
In its walls.
In its stories.
In its heart.
Selene's fall wouldn't mend those overnight.
But it was a start.
A rot exposed to air.
A manipulation cut from the web.
And as the pack slowly began to understand that their villain hadn't been some outside curse but one of their own elevated and unchecked, Luna felt the first, fragile bones of a different kind of Moonshadow forming.
One where cruelty was not mistaken for strength.
Where an omega's bruises were not invisible.
Where the girl she'd once been could have survived without having to become a goddess to be heard.
Whether they ever truly forgave themselves—or her—remained to be seen.
Forgiveness, she was learning, was never neat.
But the fall of the wolf who had taught her that most painfully of all?
That was something she could watch without flinching.
And then, when the echoes died down, turn away from.
Toward the work of building something better in the space Selene had once occupied like a thorn.