Time passed strangely after Astro left.
I tried counting my breaths to measure it, but the Veil made even that impossible. Sometimes I'd take three breaths and the crimson moon would shift position in the sky. Other times I'd breathe for what felt like hours and nothing would change at all.
The crescent mark on my wrist kept pulsing. Not painfully, but insistently, like a second heartbeat I couldn't ignore. I pressed my thumb against it, trying to make it stop. The mark only grew warmer, as if responding to my attention.
The flickering figures had returned to the edges of the clearing, watching from the shadows between the bone trees. They didn't approach. Didn't speak. Just watched with their hollow eyes and waited for me to fade like they had.
I wouldn't give them the satisfaction.
I paced instead, forcing my weightless body to move in patterns that made sense. Ten steps forward, turn, ten steps back. It gave me something to focus on besides the crushing silence and the certainty that I was going to die here.
Again.
The roses had spread while I walked. Black petals carpeted the silver grass now, turning the clearing into a garden of darkness. They didn't have a scent. Nothing here did. The absence of smell was worse than any stench could have been.
"Counting steps won't save you."
I spun around.
Astro stood at the tree line, exactly where he'd disappeared. He looked different somehow. More tired. The silver scars on his arms pulsed with dimmer light, like he'd expended energy I couldn't see.
"How long have you been standing there?"
"Long enough to watch you walk the same path forty-seven times." He moved into the clearing, his boots silent on the rose petals. "You're trying to impose order on chaos. It won't work."
"What else am I supposed to do? You left me here with no explanation, no help, just this." I held up my marked wrist. "Do you have any idea how terrifying it is to be alone in this place?"
"Yes." The single word was heavy with centuries. "I know exactly how terrifying it is."
His tone made me hesitate. The memory I'd accidentally touched flashed through my mind. That vast, aching loneliness. How long had he been trapped here, watching wolves fail and fade?
"You came back," I said quietly.
"I never left." He gestured at the shadows. "I've been here the whole time. The Veil doesn't let me wander far from marked wolves. Luna's insurance policy to make sure I do my job."
"Which is?"
"Explaining the rules." He moved to the center of the clearing and sat down cross-legged on the black roses. After a moment, he gestured for me to join him. "You should sit. This takes a while."
I approached cautiously and lowered myself to the ground across from him. The roses beneath me were soft, almost warm, like sitting on living flesh.
Astro's pale gray eyes fixed on mine. "The Lunar Veil exists between life and death. It's Luna's domain, her testing ground, her prison for wolves she deems unworthy. You died in the mortal realm, judged and found lacking. Now you're here."
"I know that part already."
"Do you?" His eyebrow lifted. "Then you understand that everything you were before means nothing here. Your pack status, your connections, your history. All of it burned away the moment you crossed over. The only thing that matters in the Veil is what Luna sees in your heart."
"And what does she see in mine?"
"Weakness." He said it without malice, just fact. "You couldn't hold your mate. Couldn't defend your bond. Couldn't even keep your wolf from abandoning you. Luna looks at you and sees a failure worth testing."
The words stung because they were true. I wrapped my arms around myself, the crescent mark pressing against my ribs.
"The Reckoning consists of nine trials," Astro continued. "Each one designed to strip away another layer of who you think you are. Each one testing a different aspect of your wolf soul."
"What kind of tests?"
"Emotional. Physical. Spiritual." He ticked them off on his fingers. "Some will make you relive your worst memories. Others will force you to make impossible choices. All of them will hurt in ways you can't imagine yet."
"And if I fail?"
His expression darkened. "Your wolf dissolves. What's left of her, anyway. She'll scatter into the Veil, becoming part of the static, part of the hum you hear everywhere. You'll fade like the others. Conscious but not alive, present but not real. Trapped between existence and nothing until Luna decides to mercy-kill you."
I thought of the flickering figures, their hollow eyes and layered voices. "How long does that take?"
"Depends on how strong your will is. Some wolves fade in days. Others last centuries." He glanced at the watching shadows. "Sera's been here for sixty years. Marcus for two hundred. They're all waiting for Luna to end it, but she likes keeping them around. Reminders of her power."
"That's cruel."
"That's divine." He echoed his earlier words. "Gods don't operate on mortal morality."
I looked down at my marked wrist. "What happens if I succeed? If I survive all nine trials?"
"Redemption." For the first time, something that might have been hope flickered in his eyes. "You earn the right to return to the living world. Luna restores your wolf, your bonds, everything she burned away. You get a second chance at life."
"But you said only three wolves have ever succeeded."
"In thousands of years, yes." The hope vanished as quickly as it had appeared. "The odds aren't in your favor, Haven."
"Then why try? Why not just give up now and get it over with?"
"Because the trying is the point." He leaned forward, intensity radiating from him. "Luna doesn't just want to break wolves. She wants them to break themselves. To choose dissolution over fighting. That's her real victory."
"So by refusing to give up, I deny her that victory?"
"Maybe." He sat back. "Or maybe you just draw out your suffering. I've seen it go both ways."
We sat in silence for a moment. The crimson moon had shifted again, casting longer shadows across the clearing. The static hum grew louder, like the Veil itself was listening to our conversation.
"What's your role in all this?" I asked. "Besides explaining the rules?"
"I witness." His jaw tightened. "I make sure the trials run according to Luna's design. I prevent interference from the faded ones. I collect the pieces when wolves shatter."
"You said you were her executioner too."
"When necessary." His eyes went distant. "Sometimes wolves break so badly they become dangerous. They try to escape the Veil, or they attack other participants, or they go mad and start tearing reality apart. When that happens, I put them down."
The casual way he said it made my stomach turn. "How many?"
"More than I can count." He met my gaze again. "Don't make me add you to that number."
"I won't."
"You say that now." His smile was bitter. "They all say that. Then the trials begin, and I watch them come apart one heartbeat at a time."
"You talk like you've never seen anyone succeed."
"I've seen three succeed and two of them went insane from it." He stood abruptly, brushing rose petals from his pants. "Success doesn't mean survival, Haven. Sometimes it means something worse."
I stood too, my legs steadier than they'd been before. "You're trying to scare me."
"I'm trying to prepare you." He moved closer, close enough that I could see the silver scars pulsing on his throat. "The first trial begins soon. When it does, you'll be pulled into a space designed specifically to break you. Everything you see will be real and unreal at once. Luna will be watching. The faded ones will be watching. I'll be watching."
"What do I do?"
"Survive." His hand moved before I could react, gripping my marked wrist. The crescent blazed between us, cold fire racing up my arm. "Remember who you are. Hold on to that. It's the only anchor you'll have when everything else dissolves."
The fire faded. He released my wrist and stepped back.
"What was that?"
"A reminder." He gestured at the mark. "When you feel yourself slipping, press your thumb against the crescent. It will ground you back to yourself. Not for long, but long enough."
"Will you be there? During the trial?"
"I'm always there." His expression was unreadable. "But I can't help you. Luna forbids it. The most I can do is witness and collect the pieces after."
"That's not very comforting."
"It's not meant to be."
The static hum suddenly intensified, growing so loud my teeth ached. The crimson moon blazed brighter, its light turning the entire clearing the color of fresh blood.
Astro's head snapped up, his whole body going tense. "It's starting."
"What's starting?"
"The Gathering." He backed toward the tree line, his eyes never leaving the sky. "All marked wolves are being summoned. The first trial is about to begin."
"Wait, you said I had time to prepare!"
"The Veil decides when you're ready, not me." He was already fading into the shadows. "Follow the pull. Don't fight it. And Haven?"
"What?"
"Try not to die in the first five minutes. It's embarrassing for both of us."
Then he was gone, melted into darkness.
The static hum grew louder still, so loud it drowned out thought. The crescent on my wrist burned ice-cold, pulling at me like an invisible rope. I tried to resist but my body moved without permission, drawn by the mark toward something I couldn't see.
The clearing blurred around me. The rose forest spun. The bone trees bent and twisted like they were caught in a hurricane that had no wind.
Then I heard it.
A bell.
Deep and sonorous, tolling from somewhere beyond the Veil. Each peal resonated through my bones, through my marked wrist, through the hollow space where my wolf used to live.
One toll. Two. Three.
The flickering figures emerged from the shadows, all of them moving in the same direction now. Drawn by the same pull. Answering the same summons.
Four tolls. Five. Six.
I tried to stop walking but couldn't. My weightless body was no longer mine to control. The mark on my wrist blazed brighter with each toll, dragging me forward with inexorable force.
Seven tolls. Eight.
Other wolves appeared beside me. Not flickering. Solid. Real. Their wrists bore the same crescent marks, glowing in the crimson moonlight. They looked as terrified as I felt.
The ninth toll rang out like judgment itself.
And the Veil tore open ahead of us, revealing a gateway of bone and starlight and something that looked like frozen screams.
The pull became overwhelming.
I stumbled forward with the other marked wolves, unable to resist, unable to fight, drawn inexorably toward whatever waited on the other side of that terrible gate.
The last thing I saw before crossing the threshold was Astro standing in the shadows, his silver scars bright as stars, his ancient eyes filled with something that might have been pity.
Then the gate swallowed me whole.