Aria's POV
"Stop the light!" Elder Magnus shouts at me over the screaming. "You have to control it!"
Control it? I don't even know what it is.
The silver glow pouring from my hands is getting worse. It's spreading up my arms now, crawling across my skin like living fire. It doesn't hurt, but it should. Something this powerful should hurt.
Around the Grand Hall, more wolves collapse. I count at least thirty on the ground now, maybe more. They're all gasping, sweating, shaking like they have a terrible fever.
Dr. Simmons runs between them, checking pulses, shouting orders that no one follows because everyone's too busy panicking.
"This is her fault!" Selene screams from the platform, pointing at me with a shaking finger. "She's a witch! She cursed us!"
"I didn't do anything!" I yell back, but my voice comes out too loud. Too powerful. The windows rattle.
Kira appears beside me again, grabbing my glowing arm without fear. "We need to get you out of here. Now."
"I can't—" I start, but then I look outside again.
The destruction is spreading faster. The dead grass reaches the forest edge now. Trees are turning black and crumbling to ash. Animals run away in terror—deer, rabbits, even birds falling from the sky.
Everything the blood moon's light touches dies.
And somehow, impossibly, I feel it happening. Like the land itself is connected to me. Like I'm connected to the death spreading across it.
"Make it stop," I beg Magnus. "Please, tell me how to make it stop."
The old wolf looks at me with eyes full of guilt and grief. "I can't. Only you can stop it. Or..." He swallows hard. "Or it continues until there's nothing left."
"Until what's left?" Thorne demands, suddenly right at the edge of the crack in the floor. He must have circled around. "Explain. Now."
Magnus turns to face his Alpha, and for the first time in my life, I see the elder stand up straight and tall. Defiant.
"You want the truth, Alpha? Fine. The Moonshadow family wasn't cursed. They were murdered. Seventy years ago, powerful families in this pack—including the Ravenwoods—slaughtered Aria's ancestors and stole their magic to make themselves stronger."
The crowd goes silent. Even the sick wolves stop moaning.
"That's a lie!" Beta Raymond, Selene's father, pushes forward. His face is red with anger. "The Moonshadows were cursed! Everyone knows—"
"Everyone knows the story your grandfather told after he helped kill them," Magnus snaps. "I was there, Raymond. I was young, but I remember. I remember the screaming. The blood. The way your family divided up the stolen power like it was treasure."
My head spins. My family was murdered? For magic?
"The magic fought back," Magnus continues, his voice shaking now. "It created a protection curse. If the last Moonshadow heir was ever betrayed by her fated mate, the stolen power would return to her. And everyone who benefited from the theft would pay the price."
He turns to look at me, and tears run down his wrinkled cheeks.
"You are the last Moonshadow heir, Aria. And tonight, your fated mate rejected you in front of the entire pack. The curse activated. The magic came home."
I can't breathe. Can't think. This isn't real. It can't be real.
But the silver light pouring from my hands says otherwise.
"How do we break it?" Thorne asks quietly. Too quietly. The dangerous kind of quiet that makes smart wolves run away.
Magnus hesitates. "There are only two ways. Either Aria willingly completes the mate bond with you, choosing forgiveness over revenge. Or..." He pauses. "Or the curse runs its course. The pack dies. She inherits all the stolen power and survives alone."
The silence that follows is so thick I could cut it with a knife.
Then everyone starts talking at once. Shouting. Arguing. Some wolves drop to their knees, begging me to save them. Others back away like I'm a monster they need to escape.
"She planned this!" Selene shrieks. "She trapped Thorne with fake mate bond magic so she could destroy us all!"
"I didn't!" I scream back. "I didn't know! I didn't—"
My grandmother.
The thought hits me like lightning.
Grandmother Celia has been getting weaker for months. She always said it was just old age, but what if it wasn't? What if she knew this was coming? What if she's been preparing for it?
"I have to go," I say, backing toward the broken doors. "I need to see my grandmother."
"You're not going anywhere," Beta Raymond growls, moving to block my path. Several warriors move with him, forming a wall.
"Get out of my way," I warn.
"Or what? You'll kill us too?" Raymond's hand drops to the silver knife at his belt. "You're a threat to this pack. You should be locked up until we figure out how to stop this curse."
The silver light blazes brighter. The floor cracks wider beneath my feet.
"I said. Move."
Thorne suddenly appears between us. "Stand down, Raymond."
"But Alpha—"
"I said stand down!" Thorne's Alpha command rolls through the hall, forcing every wolf to obey. Even Raymond backs away, though his face twists with fury.
Thorne turns to face me. We're only a few feet apart now, close enough that I can see the storm in his ice-blue eyes.
"Go," he says quietly. "Check on your grandmother. But Aria..." His jaw tightens. "This isn't over. We will figure this out."
"There's nothing to figure out," I reply, my voice cold as winter. "You made your choice. Now live with it."
I push past him, past all of them, with Kira at my side. The crowd parts like water, everyone too afraid to touch me.
We're almost outside when someone screams behind us.
"She's dead! Someone help—Julia's not breathing!"
I freeze in the doorway.
Julia. The baker's wife. She used to sneak me extra cookies when I was little, back when most people treated me like bad luck.
She was kind to me.
And now she's dead because of what I am.
The silver light dims slightly as guilt crashes through me.
"Aria, we need to go," Kira urges, pulling my arm. "Now."
We run into the night.
The blood moon hangs overhead, pulsing like a heartbeat. Its red light paints everything the color of fresh blood. Behind us, the Grand Hall fills with more screaming. More death.
Ahead of us, the forest is dying. Trees crack and fall. The path to Grandmother's cottage is lined with black, withered plants.
And inside my chest, where the mate bond used to live, something else grows. Something ancient and powerful and angry.
Something that whispers: They deserve this. They all deserve this.
The thought should scare me.
Instead, it feels like coming home.
We're halfway to the cottage when Kira suddenly stops running.
"Aria," she gasps, doubling over. "Aria, something's wrong."
I grab her shoulders. "What? What is it?"
She looks up at me with fear in her eyes. Real, bone-deep terror.
"I can feel it. The fever. It's starting."
No. Not Kira. Anyone but Kira.
"The curse," she whispers. "It's got me too."