Sienna's POV
I cannot remember the last time I ate.
Day three? Day two? The days are blurring together into one long stretch of pain and hunger and the constant burning in my shoulder where something is very wrong.
I woke this morning shaking so hard I could not shift back to human form. My wolf body is weak. Everything aches in ways that do not make sense. My paws are infected. The cut on my shoulder has turned dark and swollen and it smells like something rotting.
The palace prepared me for many things. Dancing. Politics. How to smile and nod and make important wolves feel important. They did not prepare me for this.
I am moving through the forest on instinct now, following streams because water is the only thing I can find that does not run away. The smell of the palace is completely gone. I have no idea where I am anymore.
Around midday on day three, I hear them.
Horses. Human voices. The clink of armor.
I freeze behind a fallen tree and watch as five royal guards pass through the forest on horseback. They are wearing my father's colors. Silver and violet. The colors of Moonvale. The colors of home.
My wolf wants to run toward them. Wants to shift and cry and beg them to take me back. But my human mind remembers what it means to be marked rogue. These guards are not here to help me. They are here to drag me back like a prize.
I stay completely still while they pass. I do not breathe. I do not move. I watch their horses disappear into the trees and I listen to the sound of them getting further away.
Then I run in the opposite direction.
I follow a stream deeper into territory I do not recognize. The markings on the trees are unfamiliar. Older. Like they have been here longer than the Moonvale borders. Like I am entering a place where my father's power does not reach.
That should make me feel safer. It does not.
By day four, I shift back to human form because my wolf body is too weak to hunt and I am desperate enough to try human hands on something. The cold hits me instantly. I have nothing. No clothes. No shelter. No way to warm myself against the night.
I find a stream and drink until I am sick. I try to catch fish with my bare hands and fail. I find some kind of root plant and eat it even though I have no idea if it is poison.
Nothing helps.
My body is breaking down and I can feel it happening. The fever started yesterday. It is worse today. My skin feels like it is on fire but I cannot stop shaking. The wound on my shoulder is spreading. Red lines are running down my arm now like roots of something dark growing through my body.
Infection. That is what my mother called it before she died. Before the sickness took her.
I am dying.
The thought should scare me more than it does. Instead, it just feels like one more terrible thing happening to a girl who has had everything taken away.
On day five, I can barely walk.
The fever makes the forest spin. The trees move when I am not looking at them. The ground is not where I expect it to be. I trip and fall and get up and trip again.
My shoulder is screaming. Every movement sends pain shooting down my arm. The wound is weeping something that smells wrong. That smells like death.
I keep moving anyway because staying still means dying and I am not ready for that yet.
Around sunset, I notice something is different about the air. The scent markers on the trees have changed. The ground feels different under my feet. The whole forest has a different quality to it, like I have crossed some invisible line.
Another pack's territory.
I can smell it clearly now. Old scent. Strong scent. Alpha scent.
Entering another pack's territory as a rogue is suicide. This is what the elders taught us. A rogue has no rights. No protection. No claim to anything. If the Alpha of this territory finds me here, they will kill me.
I should turn back.
But I cannot make my body do it.
The fever is too high. The pain is too intense. My legs are barely holding me up. If I go back into the empty forest with no shelter and no food and this infection eating me alive, I will be dead by morning.
At least if I enter this territory, there is a chance. A small chance. A desperate chance.
Maybe the Alpha is merciful. Maybe they will see a dying girl and feel something other than hunger.
Maybe I will get lucky for the first time since I said no in the throne room.
I cross the border.
The scent gets stronger immediately. This is definitely someone's territory. Someone important. Someone powerful. The markers are fresh. They are everywhere. Like whoever lives here is making sure everyone knows exactly where they stand.
I walk deeper, following some instinct that says I need to find shelter before the fever takes over completely. The trees are getting thicker. The darkness is getting deeper.
Then I see it. A clearing.
I stumble into it on legs that will not obey me. The world is tilting. The fever is so hot now that I feel like I am burning from the inside out. My shoulder is radiating pain in waves.
I collapse in the underbrush at the edge of the clearing and my body just stops. No more running. No more fighting.
Just the fever. Just the pain. Just the certainty that I am going to die here in unknown territory with no one to remember me.
The moon is coming up. I can see it through the trees, silver and cold and beautiful. The same moon that watched me refuse a prince. The same moon that watched my father erase me.
Maybe the moon remembers me even if nobody else does.
I close my eyes and let the fever take me.
But before everything goes dark, I smell something new on the wind.
A wolf.
Not far away. Close enough that I can smell the power on them. Close enough that I can feel them moving through the forest like they own every tree and rock and blade of grass.
An Alpha wolf.
This is it. This is the moment. Either they will kill me and end this suffering, or something else will happen.
I do not have the strength to run anymore. I do not have the will to fight.
I just lie in the underbrush and wait for whatever comes next.
The footsteps are getting closer. I can hear them now. Big paws on soft ground. Branches breaking under weight. The sound of something massive moving through its own territory like everything here belongs to it.
A massive dark wolf emerges into the clearing.
And it goes absolutely still.