The circle didn't dissolve so much as loosen. People drifted back to the outer ring of fires in slow, shuffling lines. Bread was passed hand to hand, water shared without looking anyone in the eye. The argument hadn't ended; it had folded itself small and climbed into everyone's pockets to be carried until morning.
Elara stayed where she was until the pressure of bodies moving past made her stand. Caleb rose with her as if tied by an invisible cord. Torvee shifted, settling Jonah more firmly against her hip. Riven gave a final sweep of his gaze across the hollow and then stepped away to the shadow of a leaning oak, where wolves waited like punctuation marks in the dark.
The elders didn't leave. The fae healer—hair like frost, hands inked with old, tidy symbols—stood at the edge of the firelight and watched the embers settle. Beside her, the other fae elder held himself too straight, jaw clenched as if he were chewing something bitter. The shifter elder lowered himself onto a fallen log with a careful economy that made Elara think of men who'd learned to save their knees for winter.
Caleb touched Elara's shoulder. "Food?" he asked.
"In a minute," she said, though her stomach had been empty long enough to feel like part of her spine.
The healer spoke first, not turning. "Riven."
The alpha left the oak's shadow and approached without hurry. When he stopped, he stood where he could see the whole hollow if he lifted his eyes, and the whole circle if he didn't.
"We have to speak of her," the healer said. Her glance flicked to Elara and away again, as if to acknowledge courtesy before ignoring it. "Keeping our mouths shut hasn't kept anyone alive."
The elegant fae elder's mouth compressed. "Prophecies, in a camp full of smoke and fear? We feed panic enough without stories."
"Prophecy isn't a story when it's happening," the healer returned, cool as stream water.
The shifter elder rubbed a thumb along a scar at his wrist, thinking. "If you wait for a quiet room to name a storm, you'll never name one."
Elara took a step closer. "If you're going to talk about me," she said, "don't do it as if I'm a ghost."
Riven's head tipped the slightest fraction—amusement, or approval, or both.
The healer turned properly then. In the firelight, the lines on her face looked carved, not worn. "Very well, child," she said. "Elara. We've been trying not to say a word that will change the shape of your nights. It will change them anyway."
"Try me," Elara said, though part of her wanted to stick her fingers in her ears like a child by a pond who doesn't want to hear the depth.
The shifter elder nodded to the healer, a small courtesy between old crafts. She accepted it and stepped into the space between them.
"There are old words," she said, plain, not sing-song, not cloaked. "Not riddles. Names. One is Lunara. Daughter of the moon. The one whose blood takes light and does not die from it. The one who sees what is hidden—bloodlines, bonds, intention if she chooses to look long enough—and the one who binds what is separate. Human. Wolf. Fae. Shifter." She did not raise her voice on the last word. She didn't have to. "It is not a crown. It is a weight."
Elara's mouth had gone dry. She forced her hands to unclench. "And you think that's me because my veins glow in the moon and I can see colours."
The healer's eyes softened, briefly. "Because you keep doing the work of it when no one has given you permission. You pulled strangers into a circle and made them sit. You let the boy's sentence stay in the air when every nerve in the room wanted to scrub it out. You look like a girl. You act like a hinge."
The elegant elder made a small, scornful sound. "And prophecy makes girls into instruments. Convenient for wolves who need a banner."
Riven didn't move. "I don't need banners," he said, mild as winter. "I need people who don't run when teeth show."
"Prophecies are burdens," Caleb said, voice steady but tight. "She has enough of those."
"Prophecies are choices," the shifter elder said. "Badly dressed as inevitabilities. People put them on or they don't. That's the only magic in them that works."
Elara breathed. In. Out. In again, slower. Her silver sight slid over the elders' faces—green old and deep in the healers, green sharper in the elegant one like glass, a quiet blue threaded through the shifter elder that didn't belong to any animal she could name, only to the way he held himself. She let the sight fade. "Is there anything else I need to know? About being this… Lunara?" She could barely make her tongue do the shape of the word.
The healer tipped her head. "Only this: the moon is not a switch. It waxes and wanes. There will be nights when your light will not reach the end of your arm. If you build a life that depends on you shining, you'll drown at new moon."
"That's not very comforting," Caleb muttered.
"It's very true," the healer said.
The shifter elder scratched at the scar on his wrist again, a habit that looked like a memory he'd learned to carry outside his head. "It also means the rest of us need to learn not to treat you like a torch," he said to Elara. "If the only plans we make are the ones your glow can bless, we deserve to fail."
Elara swallowed laughter that wanted to come out as a sob. "I don't want songs," she said. "I want us alive next week."
"Songs usually come after," the healer said. "Or never. Don't worry about them."
The elegant fae folded his arms. "This is all very tidy. The girl who glows is the girl the stories say will bind us all together. Convenient." His eyes slid to Riven. "And what do wolves gain if humans believe they can become shifters? An army of the pliable? A buffer? A way to say we didn't turn you while you point them at whatever you don't want to bleed for?"
Riven's gaze didn't alter. "We gain nothing if this camp tears itself to bone by breakfast."
"Enough," the healer said, not looking at the other elder. "The girl asked what she needed to know. We told her. Now we get back to what we all need to do."
Elara let the breath out and felt something settle behind her ribs, heavy and oddly balanced, like a pack fitted properly. "Fine," she said. "Then we start by telling the people who will be listened to. Not me." She turned, searching for faces. Heath stood with the other two humans she'd chosen earlier, as if proximity could be a shield. "Heath," she called quietly. "Owen. Elise." She looked over her shoulder. "Caleb."
They came as if the ground had been oiled, feet dragging until the last two steps when pride kicked in and made them lift their chins.
"I'm not a herald," Heath said, before she could speak.
"Good," Elara said. "I don't want a herald. I want someone who'll tell them what was said without dressing it up."
Heath's mouth twitched despite himself.
Elara faced them squarely, the way she'd learned to face knives at the market so sellers didn't add a penny for cheek. "You heard the elder. The shifter ritual exists. It works only for humans. It kills fae and wolves. It doesn't make you what you fancy being; it binds you to what you are. Maybe that's a hawk. Maybe it's a snail. Maybe nothing happens and you wake weaker and you're still you." She didn't flinch from their eyes. "You need to take that to the rest of the humans. Not to frighten them. Not to sell it. To say it. From you, not from me. They don't trust me yet and they shouldn't have to."
Elise rubbed her palms on her skirt, leaving damp streaks. "You think they'll listen to us more than to you?"
"They'll hear you," Elara said. "That's more than listening, most days."
Owen frowned. "What are we inviting them to? A queue? An initiation? This elder says it's possible; he didn't say he'd do it here, now."
Elara glanced to the shifter elder. He had gone very still, like a beast deciding whether the rustle in the hedge is wind or teeth.
"I won't brew a draught in a camp with children trying to sleep," he said. "I won't test a ritual under a sky I haven't spoken to. I won't pretend a choice is anything but weight." His gaze moved to Jonah and lingered a fraction. "But I will not lie about its existence any more. If humans wish to walk toward that door, I will not bar it. I will tell them the cost. I will turn back those who want it for vanity. I will listen when the moon says no."
Owen let out a breath he'd been holding since the circle formed. "Then we tell them that as well." He lifted his chin, finding an old shape in his face—a watchman's certainty that the rule you can repeat out loud is the rule you can keep. "No promises. No dates. A door exists. It won't open just because we stare at it."
Heath gave him a sidelong look that was almost respect. "For once," he said, "we agree."
Elara nodded. "Good. Speak to them tonight. All of them you can reach without starting a fight. Avoid anyone with a knife already in their hand. We sleep. At first light we make ready to move. Then we meet back here and I ask you for the mood. Not a vote. A weather report."
"Why us?" Elise whispered, not quite accusation, not quite plea.
"Because you'll bring back different weather," Elara said, honest. "Heath will bring me storm. Owen will bring me fog. You'll bring me the bit of sun that breaks through whether we deserve it or not." She felt her mouth tip before she could stop it. "And Caleb will tell me if any of you have lied to make it easier to breathe."
Caleb coughed to hide the huff of a laugh. "I'll try not to," he said.
"Do try," Elara said, gentler than she meant to be, and stepped back. "Go."
They went, thin silhouettes folding into the larger dark, drawing small clusters of other silhouettes with them. Murmurs rose and fell. No one shouted. It wasn't peace. It was something like it that desperate people will accept when they can't afford the other kind.
"Eat," the healer said, practical as a grandmother. "Then sleep if you can. I'll sit with the worst wounds."
Elara's body remembered hunger all at once and made her dizzy. She took bread because her hands knew how to do that even when her head didn't. Caleb pressed a water skin into her palm, and the first swallow hurt like kindness sometimes does.
"Lunara," the elegant fae said softly, almost a bow buried inside a sneer. "What will you do when your prophecy refuses to cooperate? When humans choose not to be bound to beasts, when fae refuse to be counted, when wolves decide they don't need a hinge?"
Elara wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Exactly what we're doing now," she said. "Pick up whoever will come. Walk. Try not to die."
Riven made a sound that might have been agreement. Or approval. Or the noise wolves make when a plan is too simple to be argued with.
---
Dawn came out of the trees on quiet feet. Mist lay in the hollow in low bands, and breath fogged in front of mouths. Birds tested their throats as if remembering which notes belonged to morning.
The camp had already shifted into movement. Fires were coaxed down to coals and covered. Children were wrapped and slung. What could be carried was strapped to backs; what couldn't was left in small, neat piles that made men look away.
Elara stood where the circle had been and waited. Garrett and Amber were already at the perimeter speaking in low voices to wolves who loped in from the dark and nosed their hands. Luke checked bundles like a quartermaster, counting without counting. Torvee tightened the strap of the small pack she'd made for Jonah and tied it off with a tug.
Heath arrived first, jaw set like a man who had argued with himself and won. Owen followed, eyes bloodshot but clear. Elise came last, hair damp with mist, a baby she'd taken from Brenna for a few minutes to let the other woman eat, as if making herself useful were an answer to fear.
Caleb stepped in beside Elara without being called.
"Well?" Elara asked, and the word felt like a stone dropped in a well to test depth.
Heath crossed his arms. "We're angry," he said. "Half because you hadn't told us there were choices. Half because there are. We're not soldiers. We're not experiments. Some are calling it a trick. Others a test. Some want to take it tonight because they're sick of feeling small." He looked away and back. "They won't. Not if I can help it. But they want to know we're not being… herded."
Owen blew out a breath. "Most are tired. Tired enough to listen. I told them exactly what the elder said. The door exists. It isn't a magic gate. It's a threshold you have to step over with your eyes open. A few said they'd think on it. A few swore they'd never touch it. No one tried to kill me for saying it. I'm calling that fair."
Elise shifted the baby gently, her voice softer, the shape of dawn in it. "Some are scared and that's that. But—" She hesitated and then committed to the truth. "When I said we don't have to be helpless anymore, they didn't throw things at me. A few cried. One laughed. That sort of laugh people make when they realise a weight can be put down for five minutes. That's what you asked for—a weather report. There's a break in the cloud. It could close. It could widen."
Caleb rubbed his thumb along the edge of his belt the way he did when he was making sure a knife was still where he'd left it. "I heard men planning to pressure others into it," he said. "Swagger and fear make the same sound. I told them the elder would refuse anyone who treated the rite like a competition. I think they believed me. If they didn't, Garrett can make them."
Garrett, who had the hearing of a door, grunted from ten paces away without looking over. "I can."
Elara let the reports settle in her like weather. Not a vote. Not a promise. A sky she could plan under. "Thank you," she said simply. "That's enough for today."
Heath shifted awkwardly. "What do you want us to say when they ask what next?"
Elara looked at the trees and the line between them that would soon become a path. "We walk," she said. "We get clear of what stinks of death. We find water we can drink without watching it for teeth. We make camp before dusk. We keep the children at the centre and the wolves where they can smell wind before it hits our faces. Tonight, if anyone still wants to talk about doors, we talk about doors. Not before."
Heath nodded once, surprised to find the answer enough. Owen rolled his shoulders and looked lighter by a thumb's weight. Elise passed the baby back to Brenna and wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand as if wiping sleep.
The fae healer came to Elara's side. "You did what needed doing," she said, not flatteringly, not cold. "Prophecies like girls who can count."
"I'm not a prophecy," Elara said, almost by reflex.
"Then you won't mind it," the healer said dryly, and moved away to check stitches and set a lad's sling properly so it would rub less.
Riven stepped up last, the way a mountain steps up only when you wander close enough to notice it has been there all along. "You asked for weather," he said. "You got it. Now we move."
"Where?" Elara asked.
"East," Riven said. "The ferals went west. There's a ridge that keeps wind clean. Two streams that don't meet for a mile. Trees enough to make us invisible if we behave."
"And after that?"
"After that," Riven said, glancing at the elders and then at the camp as if counting souls the way other men count coins, "we find out whether prophecy means anything with mud on its boots."
Elara huffed a breath that might have been a laugh if she'd had more sleep. "Fine."
She looked out across the hollow. Wolves at the edges. Fae moving among the wounded with hands that glowed only a little. Humans tightening straps and holding breath. Shifters somewhere between shadows and birds. Jonah taking Torvee's hand without asking because his body had learned how to do that now.
"Right," Elara said, loud enough for the nearest fires to pass it on. "Up. Light out. We walk."
The hollow answered—not with cheer, not with misery. With motion. Which, for now, was enough. And as they began to file between trees, the word the healer had given her lodged itself in Elara's chest in a way that made it easier to stand. Not queen. Not saint. Hinge.
She could be a hinge.
The line moved. The forest took them. And somewhere behind the thin morning sun, a moon Elara couldn't see yet tugged at her veins and said, keep going.