The crimson light faded, taking Luna's voice with it.
I stood alone in the courtyard, heart hammering against ribs that shouldn't exist anymore. The ghost wolves had vanished back into the archways, leaving only the hum of static and the weight of being watched.
The stone beneath my feet began to crack.
Not breaking. Growing. Black lines spread across the white surface like ink bleeding through paper, branching and curling in patterns that looked almost deliberate. Almost alive.
I jumped back as the cracks widened. Something dark pushed up through the gaps, unfurling in the space where stone had been.
Petals.
Black roses bloomed where I'd been standing, their stems thorned and twisted, their flowers the color of midnight. They spread rapidly, consuming the courtyard in seconds. More sprouted in the silver fields beyond, dotting the landscape with darkness.
The air changed. The static hum shifted frequency, becoming almost musical, like wind chimes made of broken glass.
I spun in a circle, watching the transformation accelerate. The bone-white trees were sprouting leaves now, black as the roses, rustling with movement I couldn't see. The twilight sky darkened further, stars pulsing in rhythm with the crimson moon.
Everything here was alive. Not in the way forests were alive back home, where life was messy and chaotic and followed rules I understood. This was different. Deliberate. The Veil itself was breathing, reshaping, responding to something I couldn't name.
"What is this place?" I whispered to the empty air.
The roses nearest me turned their blooms in my direction like they were listening.
I backed away from them, skin crawling. The weightless sensation from before had intensified. Each step felt like I was walking on water, the ground solid enough to hold me but only barely. Time felt wrong too, stretching and compressing in ways that made my head spin.
I'd taken three steps but the archways were suddenly farther away than they'd been. Or closer. Or both at once.
A figure materialized between one blink and the next.
Not a ghost wolf this time. This was human-shaped, or had been once. It stood twenty feet away, watching me with eyes that glowed faint silver. Its body flickered at the edges, transparent enough that I could see the roses growing behind it.
"Hello?" My voice still died too quickly, but the figure tilted its head like it had heard me.
It raised one hand and pointed past me, toward the fields beyond the courtyard.
I turned to look. The silver grass had transformed into a forest of black roses and bone trees, paths winding between them that definitely hadn't existed before. Other figures moved through the shadows now, dozens of them, all flickering with that same translucent quality.
Strange wolves, the outline had said. Moving like ghosts.
When I turned back, the first figure was gone.
"Wait!" I started toward where it had been standing, but the space warped around me. One step forward became three steps sideways, then suddenly I was facing a different direction entirely.
The Veil was folding in on itself. Distances meant nothing here. Direction was a suggestion at best.
I closed my eyes, trying to center myself. My wolf should have been helping me navigate, using instinct and pack bonds to orient in unfamiliar territory. But she was gone, and I was alone in a realm that didn't follow any rules I understood.
When I opened my eyes, I was somewhere else.
Not the courtyard anymore. I stood at the edge of a vast lake, its surface black as oil, reflecting the crimson moon and nothing else. The shore was lined with more black roses, their thorns long as fingers.
The flickering figures surrounded the lake, standing at intervals like sentries. Watching the water. Watching me.
I took a cautious step forward. The ground here was soft, almost spongy, like walking on moss or flesh. Each footfall released a faint luminescence, pale blue light that faded quickly.
One of the figures turned fully toward me. This one looked more solid than the others, its features almost clear. A woman's face, young, with eyes that held recognition.
"You're new," she said, and her voice was layered, like three people speaking at once. "Freshly fallen. We can always tell."
"Fallen?" I kept my distance, not trusting anything here. "What does that mean?"
"Dead." She gestured at herself, at the other figures. "Rejected. Judged. Sent to the Veil to face what we couldn't face in life."
The words hit like physical blows. "We're all dead?"
"Dead enough." Another figure drifted closer, this one male, his form even more transparent than the woman's. "The Veil exists between heartbeats. Between the world of the living and what comes after."
"Some of us have been here for years," the woman continued. "Others for centuries. Time doesn't work the same way here. A day could be a decade. An hour could be a lifetime."
I looked around at the gathered figures, at their flickering forms and hollow eyes. "What happened to you? Why are you like this?"
"We failed." The woman's voice carried no emotion, just fact. "The trials broke us. Now we're stuck here, caught between dissolution and existence. Not quite gone, but not quite here either."
My chest tightened. "How many trials did you survive?"
"Three." She held up three fingers that phased in and out of visibility. "The fourth one shattered my mind. I've been fading ever since."
The male figure spoke again. "I made it to seven before I fell. Been here so long I barely remember my name anymore."
More figures emerged from the rose forest, drawn by our conversation. Each one flickering, fading, trapped. Some were barely visible at all, just suggestions of shapes that had once been wolves.
"Is there a way out?" I hated how desperate my voice sounded. "If I survive the trials, can I leave?"
"That's what they say." The woman smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Complete all nine, and Luna grants you life again. But no one's succeeded in my time here. Maybe before. Maybe never."
"You're wasting your breath, Sera." A new voice cut through the conversation, deeper and colder. Another figure pushed through the crowd, this one more solid than the rest. Male, tall, with eyes that burned silver instead of glowing faintly. "The new ones always think they'll be different."
Sera stepped back, her form flickering more rapidly. "She deserves to know the truth."
"The truth?" The male figure laughed, bitter and sharp. "The truth is Luna doesn't want anyone to succeed. The trials are designed to break you, not save you. We're all just entertainment for a bored goddess."
"That's not true." But Sera's protest sounded hollow even to my ears.
"Isn't it?" He turned his burning gaze on me. "What did you do to end up here? What sin did Luna judge you for?"
"I..." The words stuck in my throat. "I was rejected. By my mate. In front of the pack."
"And you think that's rare?" He spread his arms, gesturing at the gathered figures. "Every wolf here has been rejected in some way. Cast out. Judged unworthy. That's what Luna feeds on. Broken hearts and shattered bonds."
The other figures murmured agreement, a susurrus of layered voices that made my skin crawl.
"So what do I do?" I looked around at their fading forms, my future written in their hollow eyes. "Just give up? Let myself fade like you?"
"You fight." Sera's voice was quiet but firm. "Even if you lose, you fight. It's the only thing we have left."
The male figure scoffed and turned away, his form melting back into the shadows between the roses.
The others began to disperse as well, drifting back to their posts around the lake. Sera lingered a moment longer.
"The first trial begins at moonset," she said. "You'll know when. The Veil will call you."
"How will I know where to go?"
"You won't." She smiled sadly. "The Veil takes you where it wants. Where Luna wants. Just try to hold on to who you are. That's the hardest part."
She flickered once more and faded, leaving me alone on the soft shore.
I stood there for a long moment, watching the crimson moon's reflection ripple across the black water. My reflection should have been there too, but the surface showed only the sky.
Like I'd already stopped existing.
A chill ran down my spine that had nothing to do with temperature. The Veil was cold, yes, but not in any physical way. It was the cold of absence. Of being erased one piece at a time.
I turned away from the lake and started walking. The rose forest swallowed me immediately, paths appearing and disappearing as I moved. The flickering figures watched from the shadows but didn't approach.
Time folded around me. One moment the crimson moon hung low on the horizon. The next it blazed directly overhead. Then it was setting again, casting long shadows that pointed in directions that made no geometric sense.
I realized with growing horror that I couldn't remember how long I'd been walking. Minutes? Hours? The Veil was already eating at my sense of time, making everything blur together.
Keep moving. That was all I could do. Keep moving and try to hold on to myself like Sera had said.
The forest opened suddenly into a clearing I recognized but couldn't place. Silver grass, bone trees, the same twilight I'd first woken into. Had I gone in a circle? Or was the Veil showing me something deliberately?
The static hum intensified, making my teeth ache.
Something moved in the darkness between the trees.
Not a flickering figure this time. Something solid. Real. Alive in a way nothing else here had been.
I froze, every instinct screaming danger even without my wolf to guide me.
A pair of eyes caught the crimson moonlight and threw it back, glimmering in the dark. Not silver like the ghost wolves. Not hollow like the fading figures.
These eyes were pale gray, almost colorless, and they watched me with an intelligence that made my breath catch.
They weren't just looking at me.
They were seeing me.
All of me.
The darkness around those eyes shifted, and I caught the impression of something large. Something predatory. Something that didn't belong to the dead and fading things that populated this realm.
The eyes blinked once, slow and deliberate.
Then a voice rolled out of the shadows, deep and rough, carrying across the clearing with perfect clarity despite the way all other sounds died in the Veil's oppressive quiet.
"So. You're the new one."