The storm rolled in without warning.
No shift in scent.
No slow, gathering weight of clouds.
One瞬 the sky above Moonshadow was a clear blue shell, the next it was veiled in a strange, luminous gray that was not quite cloud, not quite mist.
Luna felt it first in her bones.
A deep, low hum that was not the ache of the Moonstone, not the throb of her overworked heart, but a *summoning* chord struck on some unseen instrument.
She stood at the edge of the Moonstone Grove, hand resting lightly on the cool pillar of crystal, listening to Kerran read out a letter from Greenwood, when the hum hit.
It was like someone plucked a string inside her chest.
Her mark flared, a bright, sudden pulse that swallowed the softer daylight.
Her knees wobbled.
"Luna?" Kerran's voice snapped off mid-sentence.
She steadied herself on the stone.
"Do you feel that?" she asked, voice thin.
Kerran blinked.
"Feel... what?" he asked, wary.
Luna's answer was cut off by a single, clear tone ringing out across the grove.
It was not sound in the ordinary sense.
The trees did not shiver.
The birds did not scatter.
But every hair along Luna's arms rose.
The Moonstone under her palm vibrated, a high, bell-like resonance that set her teeth on edge.
All at once, the sky darkened.
Not with night.
With *presence.*
A circular patch of the strange gray mist thickened directly above the grove, swirling slowly, edges fraying into faint, silver threads.
Kerran swore softly.
"This is not on the weather schedule," he muttered.
Luna's lips twitched despite the tension.
The hum in her bones intensified.
Her second heartbeat stuttered, then pounded in time with the ringing tone.
Something was coming.
Not the Moon.
Not in the way She usually came.
Something... older.
Or parallel.
The mist churned faster.
Then, like a curtain parting, it tore.
Out of the rent stepped a woman.
She did not descend.
She did not fall.
She *crossed*, one瞬 not-there, the next thereness so solid the air around her seemed to buckle.
Luna's first thought was: not goddess.
The newcomer carried no overwhelming, all-directions force like the Moon.
The land did not bow under her.
The elements did not reach for her.
But they *recognized* her.
The wind that had been still stirred, tasting her scent.
Water in the grove's pool lapped gently at its stone rim.
Fire from the small offering brazier at the grove's edge flared, brightening, then steadied as if checking itself.
The woman stood on the moss with bare feet, robes grazing the ground.
Her hair, dark and shot with silver, fell in thick braids wrapped with small, dull stones and what looked like teeth from creatures Luna did not recognize.
Her skin was the rich, deep brown of old earth, lined at the corners of her eyes and mouth.
She wore no crown.
Around her neck hung a single pendant carved from something that was not quite bone, not quite crystal, shaped like a crescent cupped within a circle.
Her eyes—
Luna's breath caught.
They were not like the Moon Goddess'—vast, silver, swallowing.
They were not like Selene's had been—cold, smooth, reflecting nothing back.
They were... *ancient.*
Not in the sense of age alone.
In the way they held layers.
Amber circled with a ring of faint moonlight, pupils vertical for a瞬, then round again, as if shifting between forms with each blink.
Kerran dropped to one knee without seeming to choose to.
His mouth moved soundlessly.
The woman's gaze slid over him and settled on Luna.
She smiled.
It was not wide.
Not particularly soft.
But it carried the weight of recognition.
"Luna of Moonshadow," she said.
Her voice was low.
Textured, like a riverbed full of different stones.
Luna swallowed.
"Priestess," she said, the word leaving her mouth before her mind caught up.
Not Moon's voice.
Not ancestor ghost.
Not rogue witch.
Something in between, braided from all three.
The woman tilted her head.
"Close enough," she said. "You may call me Seris."
Kerran's kneeling form jerked.
"Seris?" he blurted. "As in Seris of the First Circle? Seris of the Stonehowl? Seris who—"
Seris sighed.
"Wrote more on cave walls than was strictly necessary, yes," she said dryly. "Stand up, scribe. You are embarrassingly reverent for someone who has argued with my etchings in the margins."
Kerran flushed scarlet.
Luna shot him a quick look.
"You... know her work?" she asked.
He nodded, wide-eyed.
"She is—was—one of the oldest recorded Moon-priestesses," he said hoarsely. "From before the High Council. Before Selene. Before... almost everything." He swallowed. "Her teachings are in the oldest rituals. The First Alpha rites."
The hum in Luna's bones turned to a low, insistent buzz.
Her mark burned.
"Why are you here?" she asked Seris quietly.
She meant: Why now?
Why me?
Seris' gaze sharpened.
"To fulfill a promise I made a very long time ago," she said. "And to tell you what your goddess has not. Yet."
The Moon's presence prickled at the edge of Luna's awareness.
Tense.
Watching.
Not interfering.
*Be polite,* the Goddess murmured, a hint of wryness over strain. *She is... older than My first name. And very stubborn.*
Luna almost choked.
"Older than—" she began to think back.
*In some ways,* the Moon amended hastily. *Time is... complicated. Listen.*
Seris moved past Kerran, who shuffled aside, still staring.
She approached the Moonstone, stopping a respectful distance away.
She did not touch it.
Her fingers hovered, feeling the air around it as if testing the heat of a flame.
"Still humming," she murmured. "Even after all that upheaval. Stubborn little heart."
Luna blinked.
"You... know the Moonstone," she said.
Seris' mouth curved.
"I bled for it," she said simply. "Of course I know it."
Her gaze flicked to Luna's chest, to the place where stone and star and flesh met.
"And I see it knows you," she added.
She watched Luna for a heartbeat longer, then stepped back, turning to face her fully.
"How much do you know," Seris asked without preamble, "about the First Alphas?"
Luna hesitated.
Images rose:
Half-legends Kerran had translated from old cave etchings.
Whispers from the Moon in dreams.
Flashes from the Lunar Trials.
"They were... the earliest leaders," she said slowly. "Born in the time when wolves first shifted upright. Chosen by the Moon. They held the packs together in the dark between ages. Their blood carried something... extra."
Seris' eyes glinted.
"Poetic," she said. "Inaccurate, but poetic. And what do you know of their end?"
Luna thought of the visions she had had in the Moon Temple.
Of a great circle of wolves around a blazing stone, their shapes fracturing, dissolving, reforming as something new.
"They... merged with the Moonstone," Luna said. "Gave themselves up to become its... matrix. Anchors. So the rest of us could channel safely. Their bodies died. Their spirits became... part of whatever web holds this world together."
Kerran made a small, impressed sound.
Seris inclined her head.
"Closer," she said. "The songs about them are part truth, part comfort. Wolves do not like to think about their leaders *ending*."
She stepped around the Moonstone, motioned to the ground.
"Sit," she said, not unkindly. "You look like you may fall over if I take too long."
Luna bristled on instinct.
Then swayed slightly as a wave of dizziness brushed her.
She sat.
Kerran hovered awkwardly until Seris flicked her fingers, and he sank down as well, cross-legged near Luna's shoulder.
Seris remained standing.
"Your goddess," Seris began, eyes flicking briefly up at the strange, still-misted sky, "was younger then, in some ways. More... direct. Less cautious. There was a rift opening. A tear between what you would call worlds. Power poured through. Unshaped. Hungry. Wolves were changing without guidance. Shifting erratically. Magic flaring where there was no frame."
Luna listened, breath shallow.
This matched what the Moon had hinted at in fragments.
The time before law.
Before structures.
"Selene was not the first to invite Shadow," Seris went on. "She was only the most talented at it. In the earliest days, many reached for things beyond their understanding. Some wanted to protect. Some wanted to dominate. Some wanted to survive. The results were... ugly."
She closed her eyes briefly, as if seeing it.
"When the First Alphas rose," she said, opening them again, "they were not chosen because they were the strongest fighters. Or the most devout. They were the ones whose *blood* could carry both chaos and shape without shattering. They were... bridges. Between wolf and wild magic. Between the Moon and the land. Between packs and whatever lay beyond the veil."
Luna's mark pulsed, a low echo of the Moon's own ancient ache.
Seris' gaze found hers.
"Some say they were the first children of the Moon and Earth," she said, voice softer. "Born from a union older than any pack. Some say they were simply mutants whose oddness proved useful. Stories dress truth in different skins. What matters is this: their blood carried a pattern that made it easier for the Moon to work through them without burning the world."
Kerran scribbled furiously on a scrap of parchment, then stopped when Seris shot him a look.
"Do not write this down yet," she said. "You will twist it trying to make it neat. Let it sit crooked in your head first."
He gulped.
Nodded.
Luna swallowed.
"If the First Alphas merged with the Moonstone," she said slowly, "their bloodline ended. That is the story."
Seris smiled, thin and sharp.
"Stories lie," she said. "Or rather, they simplify for wolves who do not want to chew on complexity. The First Alphas *as a council* gave themselves to the Stone. But not all of them. And not all of each of them. Bloodlines are stubborn things. Some branches were cut. Others... wandered."
She fixed Luna with a steady, measuring stare.
"Their direct heirs were hunted," she said. "Feared. Used. Revered. Depending on the age. Your histories mention this only in passing, if at all. Because those who rose after them—High Councils, warlords, later Moon-priestesses—had little interest in sharing influence with living relics."
Anger stirred in Luna.
"Erased," she said.
"Folded into other tales," Seris corrected. "Called demigods in some stories. Monsters in others. Rare gifts reframed as curses. Until, eventually, few remembered that the First Alphas had ever had... children."
Her eyes softened, just a fraction.
"Until now," she said.
Luna's heart stumbled.
Her Moonstone pulse flared.
"What are you saying?" she asked, voice barely above a whisper.
Seris stepped closer.
For the first time, she reached out and took Luna's hand.
Her grip was warm.
Callused.
Shockingly *human.*
"I am saying," Seris said quietly, "that you, Luna of Moonshadow, carry their pattern in your veins. That the bloodline of the First Alphas did not vanish into legend. It hid. It thinned, scattered, wove itself into other packs, other families. It endured. And in you, it has... awakened."
The world narrowed.
Luna felt Kerran's sharp inhale beside her.
She registered Orion's presence at the grove's edge—he had arrived silently, drawn by the strange sky, now frozen, eyes blazing.
The Moon hummed in her mind.
Not with surprise.
With a weary, resigned sort of *finally.*
Luna's first coherent thought was not awe.
It was fury.
"You knew," she said inwardly to the Goddess. "You knew, and You did not tell me."
*I knew some,* the Moon replied. *Not all. Blood remembers in ways even I cannot fully chart. I felt the pattern in you. I did not name it because names become cages. And because I wanted you to stand first as yourself, not as echo.*
Out loud, Luna said, "No."
Her voice shook.
"I am a runt," she went on, more to herself than to Seris. "I could not shift for years. I was called weak. Useless. I scraped and bled and clawed for every scrap of respect. If I carry some grand, divine bloodline, it did a very poor job of protecting me."
Seris did not flinch.
"Good," she said.
Luna blinked.
"Good?" she echoed, half a laugh, half a snarl.
"Yes," Seris said simply. "If your life had been easy, you would be insufferable right now. As it is, you have enough scar tissue to handle what I am telling you without throwing it in others' faces."
Luna stared.
Kerran made a strangled sound that might have been an aborted laugh.
Seris squeezed Luna's hand once, then released it.
"Divine blood," she said, more gently, "is not a shield. It is a *shape.* A predisposition. A tendency toward certain kinds of connection. It made you more likely to feel the Moonstone without being consumed. To call elements. To survive what would have shattered another. It did not spare you being born small. Or into a cruel pack. Or under Selene's shadow. That was... circumstance. That is where your own choices—and the choices of those around you—came in."
Luna's throat tightened.
"So this is not some... destiny script," she said. "Written before I was born, with every choice preordained."
Seris' eyes flashed.
"No," she said, firm. "Do not hand your will to blood and call it reverence. Your lineage is a road *behind* you, not a leash ahead. It explains why certain doors responded to your touch. It does not excuse. Or dictate."
Orion moved then, stepping fully into the grove.
His scent, rain and pine and faint metal, cut through Luna's spinning thoughts.
"What does this *mean*?" he demanded, voice tight. "Beyond fancy words. What changes, for her? For us?"
Seris regarded him over Luna's head.
"Mate," she said, something like approval in her tone. "Good. You are a needed counterweight."
Orion's jaw twitched.
"I take that as a compliment," he said cautiously.
"It was," Seris replied.
She turned back to Luna.
"Practically," she said, "it means what you have already experienced: your body can hold more than most. Power. Strain. Connection. It also means the price you pay when you overreach is steeper. The First Alphas lived... incandescently. Bright. Brief. Many burned out young. Some... chose to step sideways into other forms rather than age in the usual way."
A cold knot formed in Luna's gut.
"Are you saying I will die young?" she asked, the words tasting like ash.
Seris' gaze gentled.
"I am saying your path wants to slope that way," she said. "Like a hill leading down to a river. You can roll with it and hit the water fast. Or you can dig your paws in, carve steps. Slow the descent. But you will always feel that pull. That is the price of carrying this pattern *and* this much active power."
Orion's hand found Luna's shoulder.
Gripped.
His fear crashed against her through the bond.
Not subtle.
Not restrained.
She curled her fingers over his.
"I am already sick," she said quietly. "The Moonstone... strains me. Are you telling me it will get worse? That my blood makes it... worse?"
"In some ways," Seris said. "In others, it is why you have not already shattered. You were a vessel made to bend around this much force. The sickness you feel is... friction. Between how much you are using and how fast your flesh repairs. You can learn to ease it. Some. But no, little wolf. You will never be... ordinary."
The word landed like both gift and wound.
Luna had spent so much of her life wanting to be *just* a wolf.
No runt.
No goddess-toy.
No element nexus.
Just Luna.
Now an ancient priestess stood in front of her and said, You never were.
Part of her wanted to howl in protest.
Another part—the one that had sat alone in the forest as a child and felt *something* listening in the dark—whispered, Of course.
"You said you bled for the Moonstone," Luna said abruptly, needing to step sideways from the looming specter of her own shortened life. "How?"
Seris' expression turned inward for a瞬.
"When the First Alphas agreed to anchor the Stone," she said, "they needed a frame. A ritual. Something to bind their sacrifice to the land and not let it simply... evaporate. I was their conduit. Their... midwife, of a sort. I stood where you sit when you touch that crystal. I opened. They poured. I cut my palm and marked the Stone with my blood to seal it. For a brief, terrifying moment, everything those Alphas were—fury, love, terror, hope—rushed through me."
A faint smile touched her lips.
"It was... unpleasant," she said. "And glorious. I do not recommend it as a daily habit."
Luna shivered.
"And you survived," she said.
"Obviously," Seris replied dryly. "Though not unchanged. The Moon twisted more tightly around my blood after that. She wove a promise into me: if any of that pattern resurfaced strongly in the world, I would know. I would be sent. To... explain. To offer choice."
"Choice," Luna repeated.
Seris nodded.
"You have already chosen much," she said. "To fight. To free. To bind and unbind. This is another layer. Now that you know what you carry, you could... lean into it. Claim titles once reserved for myth. Call yourself Alpha of Alphas. Demand deference on blood alone."
Disgust rose in Luna.
"No," she said instantly.
Seris' mouth twitched.
"Good," she said. "That path is the shortest to burning out. Power without friction. Without resistance. It eats itself. The alternative is to hold this heritage more... quietly. Let it inform without ruling. Use it to understand what you are feeling when the Moonstone thrums, when the land groans, when packs look to you. Not as proof that you *should* always answer, but as explanation for why you *can*."
Luna exhaled.
Air shuddered out of her lungs.
"What of my parents?" she asked suddenly.
She had not let herself dwell on them often.
Her mother, distant and bitter.
Her father, a name she did not know.
"Did they know?" she added, voice tight. "That this was in me? In us? Were they... part of this line?"
Seris' eyes darkened.
"I do not know all the branches," she said. "That is not evasion. It is truth. Bloodlines wind strangely. Cross. Dilute. Concentrate. I can *feel* the pattern in you. In your very marrow. But tracing each step back would require more time than these bones have. I can tell you this: your line is not 'pure.'"
Luna almost laughed at the word.
"Thank the Moon," she muttered.
Seris' mouth quirked.
"Yes," she said. "Purity is a myth wielded by those who fear change. Your heritage has passed through many hands, many choices. Witches. Rogues. Packborn. Perhaps even things that were not wolves at all. That is why you are... stable. In your instability."
"That is not reassuring," Orion said dryly.
"It should be," Seris countered. "Those who carried the pattern too strongly, untempered by other threads, burned bright and died loud. Those in whom it was too faint never woke to it at all. You are in the... annoying middle. Enough to matter. Not enough to excuse."
Kerran, unable to contain himself, blurted, "Are there others?"
Seris' gaze flicked to him.
"Always," she said. "Patterns rarely surface in only one place. But Luna is... central. In this age. For reasons beyond blood. Her choices drew her here. Her goddess nudged. Her enemies honed. Do not cheapen that by pretending lineage is all that matters."
Kerran ducked his head.
"Yes, Priestess," he mumbled.
Luna sat very still.
Inside, her thoughts raced.
First Alpha blood.
Moonstone anchor.
Star-Seed bearer.
Moon's Heir.
It was absurd.
Terrifying.
Like stacking too many heavy stones on a fragile shelf and waiting for the inevitable crack.
Her chest ached.
Her sickness whispered, See? You were not built for this.
Seris watched her.
"You look like you want to throw something," she observed.
Luna huffed a humorless breath.
"I want to throw *this,*" she said, tapping her chest. "All of it. Back at the sky. Back at every ancient wolf who thought it was a good idea to tie themselves into rocks and prayers and then leave their descendants to carry the echo."
Seris nodded, unoffended.
"Reasonable," she said. "Not possible. But reasonable."
"So what do I *do* with this?" Luna demanded. "Beyond... understanding my sickness better. Beyond knowing that my blood has been busy behind my back. How does this change how I lead? How I... exist?"
Seris' expression shifted.
For the first time, something like *vulnerability* crossed it.
"What I am about to say is not instruction," she said slowly. "It is... offering. Suggestion. I am not your goddess. I am a very old wolf who has made many mistakes and a few good calls."
Luna nodded warily.
"Your world is... flexing," Seris went on. "The Moon cracks. Old hierarchies crumble. New ones form. The First Alphas rose in a time like this. They held their packs not only with fear or love. With *story.* With ritual. With visible acts that reminded frightened wolves: we are not alone; we are not adrift."
She pointed at Luna's mark.
"You, with this pattern in your blood, can stand in that place more... easily than another," she said. "Ritual flows through you. Symbol responds. When you bless pups, they feel it. When you call elements, they remember. Use that not to cement yourself as irreplaceable, but to reweave how your packs understand *power.* To show them that divinity can be... participatory. Shared. Not hoarded."
Luna thought of the Council of Chains.
Of rogues sitting near the circle.
Of pups asking her for stories and learning from her mistakes.
"Live like a First Alpha who learned from all the ones who came after," Seris said quietly. "Hold the sacred not above, but *among.* When the crack in the Moon widens, your packs will look for anchors. You can be one that does not demand kneeling. That is what this bloodline can mean. If you choose."
Silence fell.
Birdsong at the grove's edge, timid at first, crept back in.
The strange gray mist above thinned, lightening, threads unwinding.
Luna's mark still burned.
Her chest still ached.
Her mind reeled.
But beneath the whirl, something clicked.
A shape she had not had words for now had a name.
Not a chain.
A *pattern.*
One she could learn to work with instead of against.
She did not feel suddenly invincible.
She felt... seen.
In a way that was both comforting and deeply unnerving.
"Why now?" she asked at last. "Why tell me this *now*, when I am sick, when the world is already... balanced on too many edges?"
Seris smiled, small and sad.
"Because waiting longer would be worse," she said. "Your sickness is not only a symptom of overuse. It is your blood loud enough to be heard. If you did not know what it was, you might fight it in ways that warp you. This way, you can... negotiate with it. And because," she added, glancing at the Moonstone, "our old bargains are coming due. The First Alphas made choices that echo still. You have the right to know you are part of that echo. And to shout back different notes."
She stepped back.
The air around her shimmered.
"Will I see you again?" Luna asked, sudden panic flaring.
Seris' eyes softened.
"In dreams, perhaps," she said. "In the footnotes of your scribe's ramblings."
Kerran made a strangled noise.
"In the way your blood hums when you stand at certain crossroads. But this—" she gestured to her solid form, her feet on moss "—is... expensive. Even for me. And my own price has been long deferred."
Regret flickered across Luna's ribs.
"There is so much I do not know," she said. "So many questions."
Seris tilted her head.
"Good," she said. "Keep them. Wear them like teeth. Let them bite your certainty when it gets too comfortable. That is how we avoid becoming the kind of 'divine' that eats its own."
She paused.
Then, almost as an afterthought, "Tell your father, when he comes, that I still owe him a drink."
Luna's spine snapped straight.
"My... what?" she choked.
Seris' smile turned decidedly wicked.
"You did not think your bloodline mystery ended with me, did you?" she said. "Patterns wind on. You will meet him. Soon enough. He is not what you expect."
Luna's heart hammered.
"Who is he?" she demanded.
Seris only shook her head.
"That," she said, "is not my secret to reveal."
The mist above thickened again, coiling down around Seris like a cloak.
She stepped backward once.
Twice.
With the third, her form blurred.
"Mourn less your lack of ordinariness," she said, voice already stretching thin. "You were never meant to be a quiet stone in the riverbed. You are the current. Learn how not to drown what you love."
Then she was gone.
The mist snapped shut.
Then dissipated.
The sky above the grove reverted to its usual blue.
The Moon, pale in daylight, hung like a smudged thumbprint on the wide dome.
Luna sat very still, the moss cool under her.
Kerran exhaled explosively.
"I am going to faint," he announced.
"Do it *outside* the grove," Elia's voice snapped from the path—Luna had not even heard her approach. "If you hit your head on this stone, I will not be able to fix the damage to your already overtaxed brain."
Kerran scrambled to his feet, swaying.
Orion stepped closer to Luna, dropping into a crouch in front of her.
His hands framed her face.
"Divine blood, First Alpha, world anchor," he muttered, half to himself. "Moon, if You are trying to give my mate a complex, You are succeeding."
A faint, tired chuckle brushed Luna's mind.
*He will cope,* the Goddess said. *He is... adaptable.*
Luna looked at Orion.
At the line between his brows.
At the worry and fierce, stubborn love in his eyes.
"I am sorry," she said, voice rough.
"For what?" he asked.
"For... becoming more and more complicated to love," she said. "For every new layer of madness you have to wrap your head around."
He huffed.
"Luna," he said. "I did not fall in love with you because you were simple. I fell in love with you because you were *you.* Runt. Rogue. Nexus. Queen. And now apparently... First Alpha throwback. It is all the same wolf to me. The labels just change the way others look at you. Not the way I do."
Something inside her cracked.
Not like the Moon.
Not like the Stone.
Like a shell she had not realized she still wore.
She leaned forward, pressed her forehead to his.
"First Alpha blood," she murmured. "Divine heritage. Price of power. It all sounds... big."
"It is," he said. "And also... you still trip over stools when you are tired. You still make terrible tea. You still snore when you are sick. The sacred and the stupid live very close together. That is what keeps us from breaking under words like 'divine.'"
She laughed, shaky.
Behind her ribs, the sickness pulsed.
But now, under it, she felt something else.
A thread of recognition.
Of pattern.
Of a long, winding story that had flowed through countless bodies to reach hers.
Divine blood unbound.
Not from responsibility.
From secrecy.
From the weight of unspoken expectation.
Now that it was named, she could choose.
How to hold it.
How not to wield it like a sword.
How to let it inform without define.
She pushed to her feet, Orion rising with her.
The Moonstone hummed under her hand when she reached back to touch it.
The note it sounded was the same as before.
And subtly different.
"First Alpha," she murmured, tasting the title.
It did not fit quite right.
Not yet.
Maybe never.
"Luna," she corrected softly. "That will do."
Above, the cracked Moon watched.
Below, the old priestess' words settled into the roots.
The world had not changed in the last few moments.
Rogue packs still plotted.
Councils still argued.
Her body was still sick, still strained.
But Luna—runt, rogue, Nexus, Queen, child of the First Alphas and the Moon—stood a fraction straighter.
Not because her blood made her better.
Because knowing its story gave her one more tool to carve out the kind of leader she refused not to be.