Aria's Point of View
A branch snapped under my foot, and Luna's head whipped around so fast I thought it might fly off.
"Stop!" she hissed.
I froze mid-step, my heart hammering. "What? What's wrong?"
Luna's wolf ears were flat against her head, her glowing eyes scanning the dark forest around us. We'd been walking for maybe an hour, and every sound I made seemed to echo like thunder.
"You're walking like an elephant," Luna whispered. "In the Deep Forest, noise attracts things. Bad things."
"I'm trying to be quiet!"
"Try harder." Luna crept forward, her paws completely silent on the ground. "Step where I step. Don't touch the bushes. And for the love of moonlight, stop breathing so loud."
"I can't help how I breathe!"
Luna shot me a look that clearly said, Then you're going to get us killed.
I took a deep breath—quietly this time—and watched how Luna moved. She placed each paw carefully, testing the ground before putting her weight down. Her body stayed low. Her tail didn't even brush the leaves.
I tried to copy her, stepping exactly where she'd stepped. This time, I didn't make a sound.
Luna glanced back and gave a small nod. "Better. Keep doing that."
We moved through the forest in silence. Well, Luna was silent. I sounded like I was tap-dancing compared to her, but at least I wasn't snapping branches anymore.
The trees here were different from the ones near the Mirror Cave. These were older, thicker, with twisted roots that stuck up from the ground like claws. The fog was darker too, almost black, and it moved in weird ways—swirling around us like it was alive.
"How much farther?" I whispered.
"To the Heart of Shadows? Two days. Maybe three."
My stomach dropped. Three days? Eli didn't have three days. The healer said he had maybe four days total before the Shadowsickness reached his heart.
Luna must have seen my face because she added, "Time works differently here. Three days in the Shadowlands might only be a few hours in your world. Maybe."
"Maybe?"
"I said maybe."
That didn't make me feel better at all.
We kept walking. My legs were starting to hurt, and my throat was so dry it felt like sandpaper. I'd left home in such a hurry that I'd barely grabbed anything—just the compass, a small loaf of bread wrapped in cloth, and my dad's old pocket knife.
Dad. My chest tightened thinking about him. He'd died two years ago from the same Shadowsickness that now had Eli. We couldn't save him. But I could save Eli. I had to.
"You okay?" Luna's voice broke through my thoughts.
I nodded quickly. "Yeah. Just... thinking."
Luna didn't push it. We kept walking.
After another hour, my stomach growled so loud that even Luna heard it.
"Hungry?" she asked.
"A little."
"There's food in the Shadowlands, but I wouldn't recommend eating it unless you want to grow an extra head or something." Luna sat down, wrapping her tail around her paws. "We should rest anyway. You look like you're about to collapse."
I wanted to argue, but she was right. I was exhausted.
I sat down against a tree and pulled out my bread. It was squished and a little stale, but it was all I had. I tore off a piece and started eating.
Luna watched me with those strange glowing eyes.
"What?" I asked around a mouthful of bread.
"Nothing. Just... it's been a long time since I've seen human food."
I looked at the bread, then at Luna. "Do you eat? I mean, when you're a wolf?"
"Sometimes. Mostly I don't need to anymore. One of the perks of being stuck in a magic mirror for fifty years—you stop getting hungry." She said it like a joke, but her voice sounded sad.
I tore the bread in half and held out the bigger piece. "Here."
Luna blinked. "What are you doing?"
"Sharing. My mom always says food tastes better when you share it with someone."
"I just told you I don't need to eat."
"Yeah, but do you want to?"
Luna stared at the bread. Then, slowly, she transformed back into her human shape. She took the bread from my hand, her fingers brushing mine. The silver mark on my palm tingled where we touched.
"Thanks," she said quietly.
We sat there eating in silence. It was kind of nice, actually. Less lonely.
"Can I ask you something?" I said after a while.
"Depends on the question."
"Why were you trapped in the mirror? The stories say you betrayed someone, but they never say who or why."
Luna's expression darkened. "The stories are wrong about a lot of things."
"So what's the truth?"
She was quiet for so long I thought she wasn't going to answer. Then she said, "I was protecting someone. Someone I loved. But the person I was protecting them from was powerful. Really powerful. And when I refused to help him, he locked me away where no one could find me."
"That's horrible."
"Yeah, well. That's life in the Shadowlands." Luna stood up, brushing crumbs off her hands. She shifted back into her wolf form. "We should keep moving. We're not safe here."
"Are we safe anywhere in the Shadowlands?"
"No. But some places are less dangerous than others."
We started walking again. But this time, I noticed Luna kept glancing back at me, like she was making sure I was still there.
Maybe we were starting to trust each other. Just a little.
We'd been walking for about ten minutes when Luna suddenly stopped. Her ears went up. Her whole body went stiff.
"Luna?" My voice came out as a whisper. "What's wrong?"
"We're being followed."
Ice flooded my veins. "By what?"
Luna's lips pulled back, showing her sharp teeth. "I don't know. But whatever it is, it's big. And it's getting closer."
Then, from somewhere in the fog behind us, something howled.
It wasn't a wolf howl. It was something else. Something that made every hair on my body stand up. Something that sounded hungry.
Luna spun to face me, her eyes wide with fear.
"Run," she said.
"What?"
"RUN!"