The ink on the letter had dried hours ago.
Luna still hadn't folded it.
The parchment lay on the low table in front of her, pale and stubborn under the lamplight. Her words to the Goddess—halting, sharp, then soft—stared back up at her.
She didn't reread them.
She stared *past* them, at the faint hairline crack in the shrine's ceiling.
It didn't crawl anymore.
Not like before.
It just sat there, a thin dark reminder that even stone remembered its breaks.
She knew how it felt.
A chill threaded through her veins, not entirely from the curse she'd dragged into herself.
"Are you going to keep brooding at the rock," Elia's dry voice came from the doorway, "or do I need to bring you more parchment to glare at?"
Luna blinked.
She hadn't heard the older wolf approach.
"Brooding implies a plan," Luna said without looking over. "I'm... not there yet."
"Ah," Elia said. "So we've moved on to 'existential stewing.' An upgrade."
She padded in, the shrine's wards flickering briefly as they tasted her and let her through. She set a small clay cup down beside Luna's letter, the steam curling up rich and bitter.
"Drink," she said. "You're pale."
"I'm always pale," Luna muttered, but her fingers curled around the cup anyway.
The warmth bit at her cold-stung skin.
The strange shadows threading her veins darkened then lightened, pulsing in time with her heartbeat. The curse she'd taken in had settled, not gone—but no longer clawing at her from the inside every time she inhaled.
"You talked to him," Elia said.
It wasn't a question.
Luna huffed tired amusement.
"You hear everything," she said.
"I stand in hallways a lot with my ear to doors," Elia corrected. "Occupational hazard."
Luna took a sip.
The tea was strong, laced with something minty and grounding.
"He loves you," Elia said bluntly.
The words landed like stones on still water.
Ripples moved through Luna's mind.
"Does he?" she asked evenly. "Or does he love the idea of not having been wrong?"
Elia shrugged.
"Both, probably," she said. "Wolves are messy. Love even more so."
Luna set the cup down carefully.
Her hands shook, just a little.
"He said all the right things," she admitted, staring at her own fingers. "He knelt. He apologized. He... bared himself." Shame warmed her cheeks at the memory of his voice cracking, of his eyes wet, of his throat bared not to her teeth but to her choice.
Elia watched her, unreadable.
"And?" she prodded. "Did your cold little cursed heart thaw?"
Luna laughed, a short, startled sound.
"It—" She stopped.
Frowned.
"It... lurched," she said finally. "Stupid thing. He says 'I love you' and suddenly the part of me that spent nights in the snow pretending I didn't care... cared. It *hurt* more, if anything."
Elia's gaze softened.
"Of course it did," she said. "You ripped those roots out once. They don't like being told to grow back."
Luna pressed her thumb to the lip of the cup, feeling the heat there.
"When the moon first marked us," she murmured, voice gone distant, "I thought it was a mistake. Some quiet, foolish part of me still... hoped. But mostly I was terrified. Of him. Of what it meant. Of how the others would look at me if they knew."
She exhaled slowly.
"And then he said no," she continued, "and it—" She pressed a hand to her sternum, fingers splayed. "It was like something inside me had been humming on that bond, on that *maybe,* and he took a knife and cut the string."
Elia was quiet.
"I remember the silence," Luna whispered. "After. In the woods. The way my wolf howled not at him, but at *me,* for being so stupid to think we could ever... belong. I swore I wouldn't ask for that again. Not from him. Not from anyone."
She swallowed.
"And then he looks at me now with those eyes and says he loves me and—" She made a frustrated sound, curling forward. "I don't know which part of me to strangle first. The part that still... aches for him. Or the part that wants to sink my teeth in his throat for daring to want me *now.*"
Elia snorted.
"Why not both?" she suggested. "We're wolves. We multitask."
Luna let out another laugh, weaker this time.
Silence settled, not oppressive, just... full.
"I'm angry," Luna said finally, more to the stone than to Elia. "I thought I'd burned through it. Out there. In the storms. But it's still here. Coiled."
"Of course it is," Elia said. "You never really let yourself feel it. You were too busy surviving."
Luna's jaw tightened.
"I *am* angry," she repeated. "At him. At Selene. At Maera. At this den. At the Goddess. At *myself.* For walking back in here. For still feeling anything when he says my name."
She swallowed thickly.
"When he touched me in the hall," she admitted, voice small, "when he dragged me back from the nursery door... it felt... *right.* That's the worst of it. My body remembers. My wolf remembers. That scent. That heat. That... *home.*"
The word slipped out before she could catch it.
Stung.
Elia's expression flickered.
"Your soul remembers, too," she said quietly. "Mate-bonds don't care much for timelines. Or apology schedules."
"Maybe they should," Luna snapped.
Elia lifted one shoulder.
"Talk to the moon about that," she said. "I just live under Her."
Luna stared at the letter again.
Ink.
Words.
Words to a Goddess who'd tied her to a wolf who hadn't wanted her until she'd outgrown him.
It wasn't that simple.
It never had been.
"He chose Selene over me," Luna said, tasting the old bitterness. "He chose safety. Politics. The known poison over the unknown blessing. That... *choice*—" Her hands curled into fists again. "That doesn't vanish just because now I'm not an omega who sleeps in the kitchen and he's... realized I might be useful."
Elia's eyes flashed.
"Do you really believe that's all it is?" she asked. "Usefulness?"
Luna thought of Orion's voice in the shrine, rough and raw.
The way it had broken on I love you.
The way his hands had shaken.
The way he'd knelt.
"It's not *just* that," she admitted reluctantly. "I felt... more. But I can't tell where his guilt ends and his... love begins. And I don't trust my own heart to tell the difference yet."
She pressed her knuckles to her sternum, as if she could keep that organ from doing something rash.
"Half of me," she said, "wants to run back to the Rogue Lands. To the Grove. To a place where his voice is just an echo. Where my choices don't tangle with his every time I turn around."
"And the other half?" Elia asked.
Luna's throat worked.
"The other half," she whispered, "wants to take the hand he held out and *jump.*"
Elia nodded slowly.
"Sounds about right," she said. "You're split."
Luna snorted.
"Good thing I have so much practice living in between," she said. "Between omega and Alpha. Between human and wolf. Between curse and Goddess."
The older wolf's gaze sharpened.
"Luna," she said softly, "forgiveness isn't absolution. It isn't erasing what happened. It isn't pretending it didn't shape you. It's... choosing, over and over, not to let that hurt be the only language between you."
Luna's lip curled slightly.
"Are you here as my elder or as his friend?" she asked.
Elia bared her teeth in what might have been a smile.
"Both," she said. "Lucky you."
Luna's shoulders slumped.
"A mate is supposed to be..." She groped for words. "A refuge. A... *home.* I don't know how to build that with someone who once threw me out into the dark. Even if he thinks he means it now. Even if some piece of me... wants it more than my pride will admit."
The confession left her feeling raw.
Exposed.
Elia studied her for a long moment.
"When you walked away," Elia said quietly, "you didn't just save yourself. You cracked something in him, too. He hid it for years. Wrapped it in all that Alpha pride and 'for the good of the pack.' But cracks don't care about excuses. They widen."
Luna's brow furrowed.
"So now I'm responsible for his pain, too?" she asked sharply. "Because I refused to let him break me without consequence?"
"No," Elia said. "He's responsible for the wound. You're not his healer. The Goddess might be. Time might be. His own work, if he ever finishes it. What I'm saying is: you're not the only one who stepped away from a 'mate' that day. You both took something from yourselves. You both have scars in that shape."
Luna looked down at her hands again.
Scar-lines crisscrossed the backs.
Some from training.
Some from the Rogue Lands.
Some from battles here.
Underneath, a deeper scar hummed—one no one else could see.
Mate.
Bond.
Broken.
Maybe not beyond repair.
"I don't owe him forgiveness," she said slowly.
"No," Elia agreed. "You don't."
"I don't owe him my bond," Luna added.
"No," Elia said again.
"I don't even owe him this much consideration," Luna said, anger fizzing up. "He made his choice. I made mine. That *should* be enough."
Elia inclined her head.
"Then why are you still holding that letter instead of sealing it?" she asked gently.
Luna's jaw clenched.
Because in the letter, under all the formal words and careful thanks and sharp questions, she had written one line that had not let her rest.
*Why tie me to him at all,* she'd asked the Goddess, *if Your plan was to break me on his "no" and then hand me back to him when I no longer fit the girl he rejected?*
She hadn't put the next sentence to paper.
*What does it say about me if I say yes after that?*
Weak.
Some part of her still equated yes with weakness.
And yet.
And yet.
"When I stood in that hall," she said quietly, "dragging the curse through me, I heard him. Calling my name. Not as Alpha. Not as his pack's last hope. As... something else."
Her eyes blurred.
"I realized," she went on, "if I died right then, if the curse froze my heart, my last feeling toward him would be... unfinished. Not clean hate. Not clean love. Just... ache. I don't want that to be the shape of this forever."
Elia leaned back against the stone, crossing her arms.
"Then you've already started," she said.
Luna frowned.
"Started what?" she asked.
"Forgiving him," Elia replied. "A little. Against your better judgment. In the smallest way. By wanting something better than ache for the both of you."
Luna's immediate instinct was to argue.
To deny.
To snarl that wanting peace didn't mean forgiving.
But the truth sat heavy.
She hadn't pierced him in the challenge.
She hadn't walked away from his confession.
She'd let him kneel.
Let him speak.
Let him touch her hand.
"Part of me," she confessed, voice barely above a whisper, "wants to punish him. To make him beg and bleed and prove and prove and *prove* until his knees give out. To watch him flinch every time I pull away, the way I once flinched when he did."
She swallowed hard.
"And part of me," she continued, "hates that part. Because I know what it is to be left on your knees in front of someone you'd hoped would be a shelter. I don't... want to become the thing that hurt me, just wearing different fur."
Elia nodded slowly, approval glinting in her eyes.
"There it is," she said. "The line you won't cross."
Luna rubbed a hand over her face.
"I told him he can stand at my side," she said. "As my ally. Maybe more, *someday.* I put that 'maybe' between us like a shield. It felt... safe."
"And now?" Elia asked.
"Now I'm terrified," Luna said bluntly.
Elia snorted.
"Good," she said. "Terrified wolves pay attention. Just don't let it freeze you solid."
Luna picked up the letter.
Folded it once.
Twice.
Her thumb hovered over the seal.
"What if I forgive him," she asked suddenly, "and he breaks me again? What does that say about me? That I'm foolish? Desperate? That I didn't learn the first time?"
Elia pushed off the wall.
Stepped closer.
"You forgiving him," she said, "says something about *you,* not him. That you're braver than your fear. That you believe in the possibility of change, not because he deserves it, but because *you* deserve not to live chained to what he did."
"And if he fails?" Luna whispered.
"Then it says everything about *him*," Elia replied. "And nothing new about you. The blame doesn't jump back to your side just because you chose hope once more."
Hope.
The word felt heavier than any stone she'd held in the walls.
Luna sealed the letter with a press of wax and the simple moon-mark Kerran had found in an old kit.
"I don't know yet," she said, more to the Goddess than to Elia. "If I can give you back what You wrote, Orion. I don't know if I can place my heart in hands that once dropped it."
She set the letter on the small altar.
The Goddess's stone eyes watched her steadily from the half-cleared niche.
"But I can," Luna went on slowly, "choose not to spend the rest of my life defining myself by the night you said no. I am... more than your rejection. More than your regret. More than this bond."
It felt dangerous to say.
Freeing.
"I can stand beside you," she whispered, "without giving you everything back at once. I can forgive in pieces. Testing them. Seeing if they hold. Not for you. For me. Because I am tired of carrying that hurt like a second skin."
Something eased in her chest as she said it.
Not all.
A fraction.
"Do you want him?" Elia asked quietly.
Luna's head snapped up.
"Want is... complicated," she said, throat tight.
Elia just watched.
"Yes," Luna hissed, finally. "Yes. I do. I want his hands. His warmth. His stupid, earnest apologies whispered into my hair. I want to know what it would feel like to have him at my back and *not* be wondering when he'll step away. I want the bond that should have been ours before he broke it. And I hate that I want it. I hate that it still feels like... home."
Tears burned her eyes.
"We don't get to pick who feels like home," Elia said softly. "Only what we build inside that feeling. A cage. Or a hearth."
Luna stared at the altar flame.
It flickered.
Steadied.
"I can't promise him anything more than what I said," she murmured. "Ally. Maybe more. Someday. I can't *rush* this. Not for him. Not even for Her." She nodded faintly toward the carved moon.
"Good," Elia said. "Too many wolves think forgiveness has to be dramatic. All at once. You don't owe him a grand gesture. He had that night already and he threw it away. If this is going to happen, if you're going to love him with your eyes open this time, it will be in a hundred small choices. Each one yours."
Luna exhaled.
"I chose him once because the moon told me to," she said. "If I choose him again, it will be because I want to. Knowing *exactly* how much it could cost."
"Spoken like a true fool," Elia said fondly. "And a true wolf."
Luna wiped her cheeks with the heel of her hand.
She felt wrung out.
Empty.
A space, small and aching, had opened in her chest.
Not a crack.
A clearing.
Room.
For fury.
For love.
For something yet unnamed.
"I'll let him stand beside me at the council," she said. "I'll watch. I'll listen. I'll see if his 'I choose you' holds when other Alphas sneer and Selene smiles."
She swallowed.
"And if it does," she whispered, "maybe I'll let that 'maybe' grow teeth. Into *mate* again."
Elia squeezed her shoulder.
"That's all the Goddess—or anyone with sense—could ask," she said.
When Elia left, the shrine felt different.
Not less heavy.
Just... realer.
Luna sat for a long while, watching the candle's slow drip, the letter on the altar, the shadows on her own skin.
"Goddess," she said finally, voice soft but steady, "You wrote my bond. He broke it. You didn't force him back to me. You let him come crawling on his own knees. That means this choice is mine now, not Yours."
She laid a hand over her heart.
The bond there fluttered faintly.
Not sealed.
Not whole.
"I won't forgive him for *You,*" she said. "Or for the pack. Or to make a prettier story. If I forgive him, it will be for *me.* Because I want the life that comes after more than I want to keep bleeding on the memory of what he did. Until then, hold me steady. So I don't confuse pity with love. Guilt with change. Habit with fate."
The air in the shrine warmed a fraction.
The candle burned a little steadier.
A quiet, amused whisper brushed her mind.
*At last, child,* the Goddess murmured. *You pray not for him. For yourself. This is the kind of selfish I bless.*
Luna almost smiled.
Almost.
She rose.
Her legs felt surprisingly solid.
At the doorway, she paused.
Looked back one more time at the altar, at the letter, at the place where her life had cracked and mended and cracked again.
"Tomorrow," she said under her breath, "I'll walk into a room full of Alphas who would happily see me broken. I'll let him walk beside me. Not in front. Not behind. We'll see if he can bear that."
Her wolf huffed softly in her chest, tail flicking warily.
*We will watch,* it said. *We will bite if needed. We will... listen.*
Luna nodded.
"To him," she agreed. "To them. And to us."
She stepped out into the hall, the den humming faintly around her.
Behind her, the shrine's door swung shut, the sound soft but decisive.
Forgiveness, she decided, would not come in one grand, shining moment.
It would be a slow uncoiling.
A choice, again and again:
To let new days mean more than old nights.
To weigh the warmth of his hand against the memory of it empty.
To live as Luna—not as a wound that walked.
Whether she ever called him mate again or not, that was the forgiveness that mattered most.