The figure stepped out of the darkness.
Tall didn't begin to describe him. He towered over me, broad-shouldered and solid in a way nothing else in the Veil had been. Where the flickering figures were transparent, fading, barely there, this man was aggressively real. Every line of him sharp and defined against the twilight.
His hair caught the crimson moonlight first. White-blond, but not the pale color of age. This was stark, bright as starlight, with streaks of black running through it like someone had painted eclipse shadows into the strands. It fell past his shoulders, untamed.
Then I saw the scars.
They covered him. Silver lines crisscrossed his bare arms, his throat, disappearing beneath the dark leather he wore. Not the pink of healing wounds or the white of old injuries. These were metallic, gleaming like liquid mercury frozen mid-drip. They moved when he did, catching light that shouldn't exist.
Divine scars. The kind that came from wounds that couldn't fully heal because the weapon that made them shouldn't have existed in the mortal world.
His eyes fixed on me. Pale gray, almost colorless, holding depths that made my stomach drop. Old eyes. Ancient ones. The kind that had seen too much and forgotten how to look away.
"Haven Willow." My name rolled off his tongue like he'd said it a thousand times before. "The scentless omega. Luna's latest disappointment."
I took a step back, my weightless body responding before my mind caught up. "How do you know my name?"
"I know all their names." He moved forward with predatory grace, closing the distance I'd created. "Every wolf Luna drags to the Veil passes through me first. You're number three thousand four hundred and seventeen."
The number hit like a slap. "That many have died?"
"That many have been judged." His lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Not all of them died. Some just wished they had."
He circled me slowly, studying me the way wolves studied prey. I turned with him, not willing to give him my back.
"You're different from the others," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "The flickering ones. You're solid."
"Because I'm not dead." He stopped in front of me, close enough that I could see the silver scars pulsing with faint light. "Not anymore. Luna found a better use for me than dissolution."
"What use?"
"Guide. Witness. Executioner, when necessary." His eyes bored into mine. "I make sure the trials run according to her design. I keep the dead in line. And I mark those she's chosen for special attention."
The way he said 'special attention' made my skin crawl. "Is that what I am? Special?"
"Moon-cursed is the technical term." He reached out suddenly, faster than I could track. His fingers closed around my left wrist, grip iron-tight.
Heat exploded where he touched me.
Not the painful fire of Luna's judgment or the rejection bond tearing apart. This was different. Colder. Sharper. Like ice pressed directly against bone, burning in reverse.
I tried to pull away but his grip was absolute. The heat intensified, spreading up my arm in branching lines that glowed silver beneath my skin.
"What are you doing?" I yanked harder but might as well have been trying to move a mountain.
"Marking you." His voice was flat, matter-of-fact. "Luna's orders. Every wolf who enters the trials receives her brand."
The cold fire concentrated in my wrist where his fingers pressed. I watched in horror as my skin began to change. Not burning. Transforming. The flesh rippled like water, then solidified into something new.
A crescent moon.
Black as the roses growing around us, stark against my pale skin. The symbol burned itself into existence, each curve precise and deliberate. When it finished, the glow faded but the mark remained, raised slightly like a scar.
Astro released my wrist and stepped back.
I cradled my arm against my chest, staring at the brand. It didn't hurt anymore but I could feel it, a constant pressure like someone was still touching me. Like Luna herself had pressed her thumb against my skin and left an impression.
"What does it mean?" My voice came out shaky.
"It means you're hers now." Astro's expression was unreadable. "Body, soul, and whatever comes after. The mark tracks your progress through the trials. Fail, and it consumes you from within. Succeed, and it transforms into something else."
"Transforms into what?"
"Power. Purpose. Permission to live again." He tilted his head, studying the mark with clinical detachment. "Assuming you survive long enough to find out."
I touched the crescent with trembling fingers. The surface was smooth, warm, pulsing with a heartbeat that wasn't mine.
"How many have survived all nine trials?"
His silence was answer enough.
"None," I whispered. "No one's ever made it through."
"Three have." His voice was quiet. "In all the centuries Luna's been running this game. Three wolves survived. Two went mad from what they experienced. The third threw herself back into the Veil rather than return to the living world."
The clearing suddenly felt colder. "Then why bother? Why run the trials if no one can win?"
"Because Luna doesn't want you to win." Astro's eyes flashed with something that might have been anger or might have been old, tired resignation. "She wants you to break. To prove that every wolf is weak at their core. That love, loyalty, hope, all of it crumbles when put to the test."
"That's insane."
"That's divine." He moved past me, his shoulder brushing mine. The brief contact sent another jolt of cold fire through my system. "The goddess doesn't think like mortals. She's been alone at the top of creation for so long she's forgotten what it means to be breakable."
I turned to watch him walk toward the edge of the clearing. "Where are you going?"
"To prepare the first trial." He didn't look back. "Moonset comes soon. When it does, the Veil will summon you. Follow the pull. Don't fight it."
"Wait." I hurried after him, my weightless steps eating up distance faster than they should. "You can't just leave me here. I don't know what I'm supposed to do."
He stopped at the tree line, standing in profile against the rose forest beyond. The silver scars on his throat pulsed in rhythm with my new mark.
"You survive." His voice was hard. "Or you don't. Those are your only options."
"You said you guide the wolves through the trials. Doesn't that mean you help them?"
"I witness." He finally turned to face me fully. "I keep order. I enforce Luna's laws. Helping you would violate my purpose here."
"Then what good are you?"
Something flickered across his face too fast to read. "None. But I'm all you've got."
He started to turn away again but I grabbed his arm without thinking. The moment my fingers touched his skin, cold fire exploded between us. The crescent on my wrist blazed bright enough to light up the clearing.
Astro went completely still.
"Let go." His voice was different now. Lower. Dangerous.
I couldn't. My hand was frozen to his arm, the mark on my wrist burning so cold it hurt. Through the connection, I felt something surge into me. Memories that weren't mine. Emotions I didn't understand. A vast, aching loneliness that had no bottom.
His loneliness. Centuries of it. Standing watch over wolves who failed and faded, over and over, unable to help, unable to stop it, unable to even die properly and escape.
"I said let go." He ripped his arm away with enough force to send me stumbling backward.
The connection severed. The cold fire vanished. I stood there gasping, my marked wrist throbbing.
Astro stared at me with something that might have been shock or might have been horror. The silver scars on his body were glowing now, all of them, painting him in mercurial light.
"What are you?" he breathed.
"I don't know." I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to stop shaking. "What just happened?"
"You shouldn't be able to do that." He took a step back, then another. "No wolf in the Veil has ever been able to touch my memories. Luna made sure of it when she bound me here."
"I didn't mean to." The mark on my wrist was still hot, still pulsing. "I just wanted you to stop leaving."
He stared at me for a long moment, his expression cycling through emotions too complex to name. Finally, he shook his head.
"Moon-cursed," he muttered, and this time it sounded like an accusation. Or maybe a warning. "She really did mark you for something special."
"Special how?"
"I don't know yet." He backed toward the shadows, his glowing scars beginning to dim. "But I'm going to find out before the first trial begins. Stay here. Don't wander. The Veil eats wolves who get lost."
"You're still leaving?"
"I have to." His eyes met mine one last time, and I saw something in them that might have been regret. "The trials don't prepare themselves. And you need time to understand what that mark means."
"I don't understand any of this."
"You will." His form began to fade, melting back into the darkness between the trees. "Or you'll die trying."
Then he was gone, leaving me alone in the clearing with my burning wrist and a hundred questions I had no way to answer.
I looked down at the crescent mark. In the crimson moonlight, it almost looked like it was bleeding. Like Luna had carved a piece of herself into my skin and left it there to fester.
The mark pulsed once, hard enough to make me gasp.
Then it went still, settling into a constant low throb that I knew I'd never stop feeling.
I was marked. Chosen. Moon-cursed, as Astro had said.
And the trials hadn't even begun yet.