Chapter 3 The Festival of Moons

The village of Eldergrove had been waiting all year for the Festival of Moons. It was the evening the skies became silver and the air sparkled with ancient magic. The villagers danced, drank honeyed wine, and left offerings at the edge of the forest-not for the gods, but for the eyes watching in the trees.

It was tradition. A superstition. A warning.

Aria had never liked festivals. Too many eyes. Too much noise. But this year, things were different. The air was charged, like lightning building in a storm far off.

She could feel the forest vibrating. Watching.

Waiting.

She stood in the clearing, white skirts flowing against the grass, as music floated through the air. Laughter ringed around her, but her gaze was on the tree line. A flash of movement. A shiver down her spine. No one else appeared to notice.

She reached a hand to her chest, where the crescent mark throbbed beneath her gown.

"You're going to run," Lila whispered beside her, tugging on her sleeve. Aria's younger sister grinned, flower crown slipping over her curls. "You all right?"

"I just." Aria stumbled. "It's different tonight. Doesn't it feel like it?"

Lila shrugged. "It always feels like this. Magic and moonlight. You're just nervous. The High Seer is watching."

Aria gazed out over the crowd. The Seer stood beneath the old moon-tree, her lanterns blazing and elder women wrapped in silver shrouds. Her veil sparkled with runes no one could read.

But Aria could feel them.

They pounded with power. Old, wild, to be taken.

The Seer raised a deformed hand and the music stopped.

"Tonight, we honor the moon," she shouted, her voice curling through the shadows like smoke. "We honor the dance of light and darkness. Life and death. Power and sacrifice."

The villagers murmured in agreement.

The Seer's gaze swept over the crowd-and came to rest on Aria.

"Come forward, child of the crescent."

A silence dropped.

Aria's unwilling feet strode. She felt the pull of her blood, the call of something ancient. Her bare feet brushed against the holy rock beneath the tree-of-moons.

The Seer grasped her hand.

"You dreamed of him," she said softly. "Of the wood. Of the storm."

Aria swallowed. "Yes."

The Seer nodded. "The prophecy stirs. And so has he.".

A blast of wind tore through the trees. The torches flickered. The leaves whispered secrets in a tongue only the woods remembered.

"Place your hand on the bark," the Seer instructed.

Aria hesitated, then did as she was told. Her fingers touched the tree.

There was a flash of silver light across the clearing.

She gasped, eyes wide. The tree pulsed against her skin, and in that instant, she saw-

A throne of stone and bone.

A crown of frost and fury.

Golden eyes that blazed through darkness.

Him.

She stepped back.

The Seer caught her arm, pinning her in place. "You are chosen. He will come for you soon."

The villagers broke into whispers. Lila's face was white.

"I don't want this," Aria whispered.

"Want has nothing to do with it," the Seer replied. "The moon does not ask. She commands."

The music continued, but louder this time. Insistent. As if to suppress what had just happened. The villagers danced more wildly, laughed more raucously.

But the forest did not move.

And Aria sensed-something was different.

That night, she could not sleep.

The mark on her skin pulsed more painfully. The dream returned, more insistently.

This time, she was not standing at the border of the forest-but inside.

The trees were higher than they once were, grizzled and howling. Shadows between trunks, and not men or animals. She spun around-and he was standing there.

The Wolf King.

Wrapped in fire and fur, crown glinting like steel. His eyes locked on hers, gold and burning.

"You touched the moon," he spoke.

Aria's heart beat. "What do you want from me?"

His voice was ominous and sinister. "You. As you are. As you were. As you will be."

"I'm not yours."

"You were mine long before you ever drew breath, little moon."

She stepped forward--but the forest gave way beneath her feet. Branches parted her path. As if drawing her onward.

"Run if you must," he yelled. "But you'll always come back to me."

She awoke in sweats of cold, wind howling outside.

An unfamiliar scent drifted in through her window-pine, ash, and something darker. Her mark pounded as if imprinted. She stumbled to the window, heart in throat.

In the distance, on the line of trees, was an enormous black wolf.

Staring.

Aria's breath arrested.

Its eyes glowed gold.

Then turned, vanishing into the trees.

She rested her hand against the glass, trembling.

The Festival of Moons was supposed to honor the balance.

But tonight, the scales had shifted.

And the storm was approaching.