Elder Mora's POV
The night smelled of smoke and blood.
I stood on the ridge above the pack house with my old bones aching in the cold, watching the dark forest sway under the weight of a storm on the horizon. The Moon hung full and swollen above us, the silver light catching on the wet leaves until the woods seemed to glow.
It was a night of prophecy. I had lived long enough to know the signs.
And I feared what they meant.
The Council thought I was nothing but a traditional necessity, a keeper of old stories, good for chants during seasonal rites. But I had spent a century learning to read the threads the Moon Goddess left behind. Tonight, those become concrete, dangerous, and undeniable.
The girl, Aisla.
