The mountain wind didn't just blow; it screamed. It clawed at the stone walls of the infirmary, finding every crack and crevice, much like the whispers of the pack found every corner of my life. In the Black Ridge, you were either a predator or you were prey. And if you were twenty-one and still hadn't shifted, you were something even worse.
You were a mistake.
I leaned over the stone basin, my hands submerged in freezing water as I scrubbed the blood from my father's surgical tools. The water was pink, swirling with the remnants of a warrior's training accident.
My skin was raw, the knuckles cracked and weeping from the lye soap, but I didn't stop. The rhythmic scritch-scratch of the brush against the steel was the only thing keeping my mind from drifting to the moon.
Today was my twenty-first birthday. The final deadline. In our lineage, if the wolf didn't come by the third Blood Moon of the cycle, she was never coming. I could feel the eyes of the pack on my back every time I walked to the well...eyes full of pity or, worse, a dark, mocking amusement.
"Still cleaning, Kaelen? I'm surprised you haven't scrubbed your own skin off just to see if there's a wolf underneath."
The voice was like silk dragged over jagged glass. I didn't need to look up to know who was standing in the doorway. The scent of expensive lilies and woodsmoke hit me first.
Isolde.
She wasn't the Luna, not officially...but she played the part with a lethal, practiced precision. She had been Alpha Vane's mistress for three years, ever since he had stopped looking for the "fated mate" the moon had apparently forgotten to give him. She was a high-born from a northern pack, draped in furs that cost more than my father's entire apothecary.
"The Alpha wants these tools sterilized for the ceremony tonight," I muttered, my voice raspy. I kept my head down, focusing on a stubborn spot of dried gore on a bone-saw.
"The Alpha wants a kingdom that doesn't smell like human failure,"
Isolde said, sauntering into the room. Her silk dress hissed against the stone, a stark contrast to my tattered, grey tunic. "Vane is announcing our permanent union tonight at the gala. He's tired of waiting for a fable. He wants a real woman by his side, Kaelen. Not an outcast who can't even catch her own scent."
She reached out with a manicured hand, her long, silver-painted nails plucking a scalpel from the drying rack. She turned it in the light, her eyes reflecting the cold metal.
"Do you know what the warriors call you?" she whispered, leaning in close. "The 'Dead Pulse.' They say your blood is just stagnant water. Vane thinks it's an embarrassment to have you in the palace halls. If I were you, I'd stay in the cellar tonight. It would be a shame for the High Healer's daughter to be seen scavenging for scraps while the rest of us celebrate."
She dropped the scalpel back into the basin, splashing the cold, bloody water onto my face. I didn't flinch. I didn't even wipe it away. I just stared at the ripples until she walked out, her laughter echoing down the corridor.
"Kaelen."
My father's voice was soft, heavy with a weight that made my heart ache. Silas stood in the back doorway, his hair whiter than it had been a month ago, his eyes full of a guilt he couldn't hide. He walked over to me, taking the scrub brush from my hands and setting it aside.
"I'm twenty-one today, Dad," I whispered, finally looking up. "And I'm still just... this. The glitch. The girl who eats in the kitchens because the warriors don't want to look at me."
"You are more than 'this,'" he said, his voice trembling. He pulled a small, silver vial from his belt. The glass was etched with runes of suppression, cold to the touch. "The balance is almost there, Kaelen. Your body... it's holding back a storm. You just have to trust me. Drink."
"Trust you?" I looked at the grey, gritty sludge inside. "You've been feeding me this ash and hemlock since I was sixteen. You told me it was for a sickness. But I'm not sick, am I? I'm just empty. This ash... it makes me feel like I'm made of lead. It makes the world go grey."
"Drink it!" he hissed, his eyes darting to the door. Panic flared in his expression. "Vane is looking for an excuse to exile you. He's looking for a reason to cleanse the 'weakness' from his pack. If he sees the heat in your eyes, if he feels the pressure building in your blood...he won't wait for a shift. He'll put you down like a rabid dog to protect the others. Please, Kaelen. For me."
I looked at his desperate, tired face. He was the only person who loved me. The only person who didn't look at me like I was a broken tool. I took the vial and swallowed the ash.
It hit my stomach like a cold stone, instantly numbing the strange, electric hum that had been buzzing in my joints since dawn. The fire in my blood went out, replaced by a familiar, leaden silence. My vision, which had been growing dangerously sharp, blurred back into the dull, hazy reality of a human.
"Go to the laundry," Silas panted, wiping sweat from his brow. "Help with the linens for the gala. Stay out of sight. I'll bring you something to eat after the Alpha makes his announcement."
The Great Hall was being transformed into a cathedral of excess.
From the shadows of the servant's corridor, I watched the preparations. Thousands of white roses were being woven into the chandeliers.
Casks of expensive wine were being rolled in from the southern territories. The air was thick with the scent of roasted meat and the pheromones of high-ranking wolves.
I was carrying a basket of heavy velvet runners for the long banquet tables when I saw him.
Alpha Vane.
He stood at the head of the hall, surrounded by his generals. He was a masterpiece of marble and ice. His hair was the color of midnight, and his eyes...the color of a winter storm, were currently fixed on a map of the borderlands. Even from fifty feet away, his power was a physical weight, a pressure that made my lungs feel thin.
He was the man I was supposed to have been born to impress. The man my father once hoped I would stand beside.
Vane looked up, his gaze sweeping the room with a bored, lethal intelligence. For a split second, his eyes landed on me. I froze, the heavy basket digging into my hip. I expected him to look away, to treat me like the ghost I was.
Instead, his brow furrowed. He stepped away from his generals and walked toward me.
Every step he took was a lesson in dominance. The warriors in his path moved without being asked. The air seemed to grow colder as he approached. I lowered my head, staring at his polished black boots.
"The laundry is in the west wing, isn't it?" his voice boomed, a low, vibrating hum that made my bones ache.
"Yes, Alpha," I whispered.
He reached out, his large, calloused hand gripping my chin. He forced my head up, his thumb pressing into the soft skin beneath my jaw. I could feel the heat radiating from him..the raw, unbridled power of a True Alpha.
He searched my eyes. I saw the flash of amber in his pupils, his wolf sniffing at the air, trying to find a scent. He found only the bitter, dusty smell of mountain ash.
"Twenty-one years," Vane mused, his voice dropping so only I could hear. The cruelty in his tone was calculated, meant to draw blood without a blade. "And still, you smell like a grave. Why does your father keep you here, Kaelen? You're a drain on our resources. A blemish on my halls."
"I do my work, Alpha," I said, my heart hammering against the cage of my ribs.
"Your work could be done by a human slave from the outskirts," he said, releasing my jaw with a flick of his hand as if he were discarding trash. "Tonight, I announce my union with Isolde. After that, there will be no room for 'glitches' in the Black Ridge. Tell your father to find a village for you. You have until the moon sets tomorrow to be gone from my sight."
He turned his back on me before I could even gasp. He walked back to his throne, where Isolde was waiting, her hand sliding possessively over his arm.
I stood there in the middle of the Great Hall, the heavy basket of velvet at my feet, and for the first time in my life, I didn't feel like a ghost.
I felt like a bomb.
Deep beneath the mountain ash, deep beneath the leaden numbness my father had forced into my veins, something screamed. It wasn't a wolf. It was something older. Something that didn't care about Alphas or sigils.
The ground beneath the palace seemed to shiver. I looked down at my hands. They were trembling, but not with fear.
The ash was failing. And the sun was about to go out.