Chapter 4 The Mark of Betrayal

The smell of war hung on the air, but even as the Undercity trained in silence. Every blade honed. Every darkness called upon. Selene braced herself against the railing of her command balcony, arms crossed over her chest and mind raging.

Blood Moon Cliff.

Where she'd ever only glimpsed the true shape of herself.

On the evening before their journey, she summoned a secret meeting of her closest friends-Lucian, Nyra, and a huntsman named Gavik, a half-faerie warrior whose loyalty never wavered.

The ghostlight torches cast flickering shadows upon walls of darkness.

Selene spread a map upon the stone table.

"The Cliff is accursed earth," Gavik declared. "The land weeps there. Blood seeps into the earth with each full moon."

"I know," Selene breathed. "Where Kael cursed me. Where he accused me. Shamed me. Exiled me."

Lucian's fists curled. "Then it's time he learns about betrayal."

Selene ran a finger along the southern ridge. "There's a trail across the Briar Ravine. Hidden. Unstable. But it will bring us to the border unseen."

Nyra nodded. "Our shadows will follow both edges."

"And what then?" Lucian taunted. "What do you hope to find?"

Selene's voice went cold. "A memory. or a monster."

They rode at twilight. Walled in shadows, they rode swift-brained wolves along empty trails, moving through crevices in the woods where even light begrudged to pass. Each breath made the air thick. Each leaf snapped like bone.

On the third night, they came to Briar Ravine.

Thorns caught at their cloaks like clutching hands, draining the innocent. Selene strode on, unaware, the earth underfoot nearly second nature.

As if her very soul recalled.

When they arrived at the glade on the cliff's edge, the moon shone full down, casting bloody light across the glade.

The smell struck her first.

Ash. Smoky wood. Silver.

She staggered.

Lucian caught her. "Selene?"

"I remember...?" she breathed.

The recollection hit her like the wolf's attack.

Ten years earlier.

The same meadow. The same blood moon.

Kael faced the pack, towering and outraged.

"She betrayed us!" he bellowed. "She turned on us! She commodified our secrets for the sake of power!"

Selene's throat was parched, her voice rough from screaming her innocence. "It isn't true! I was framed! Reina can vouch for me-" Five thousand soldiers converged to watch him die.

"Reina is gone!" Kael barked. "Ran off after your betrayal. How convenient, isn't it?"

Gasps ran through the assembled wolves.

"I would never betray my people," she wailed, darting glances towards the elders, hoping to see a spark of faith.

But they simply turned their faces away.

The chains locked around her wrists.

Silver. Scorching. Confining.

Seared into her back was a searing pain as the mark of exile was seared just beneath the left shoulder blade-a crescent cut in two by a dagger.

The mark of treachery.

Her scream shattered into the forest, grief-scented and soul-voiced.

Back in the now, Selene fell to her knee, her air caught in memory.

Lucian fell to his knee next to her. "What went on here?"

"This is where Kael marked me," she panted. "Where he issued the command."

She pushed the cloak away, baring the scar. The pale lines still glowed with a silver color, a bitter reminder of shame.

Lucian stroked it softly, his cold fingers on the injured skin. "He used silver. That brand. it was intended to prevent you from ever returning."

Selene gave him a savage glare, fury blazing. "But I did. I returned. And I'll scorch the truth into the heavens if need be."

Gavik moved forward, his fae eyes burning warmly. "There is something amiss with the earth here. It's. haunted."

Before they could ask, the earth beneath them pulsed.

A scream ripped through the trees-not an animal's, but the earth's.

Then a woman stepped from the shadows.

A woman in frayed robes, eyes vacant, hair in strands of misty silver.

Selene's heart twisted.

"Reina?"

The ghost titled her head.

"Selene." she breathed, voice distant, ethereal. "You came."

Selene stepped closer. "What did they do to you?"

The ghost's mouth opened-but it was not her voice that spoke.

It was Kael's.

"She paid the price for her silence."

Reina's body twitched.

"Chains. Fire. Silence."

Lucian flashed out his sword. "It's a spirit-binding. Someone bound up her soul here."

Nyra's voice was icy. "Kael?"

"No," Gavik gasped. "Not just Kael. There's another. I feel old magic."

Selene balled her fists. "How do we release her?"

The ghost's hand lifted and pointed to the rock where she had knelt in chains.

"There," it gulped. "The dagger. Under the stone."

They went towards it. Nyra and Gavik pushed the colossal boulder aside. Underneath, wrapped in tattered velvet, was a ceremonial dagger-half-moon-shaped, covered in the patina of age.

Selene dropped to her knees. The whispers grew as her fingers touched the hilt.

Abruptly-

A flash.

Blood.

A room she had never entered-Kael in secret consultation, talking with a hooded stranger.

"She's too powerful," the figure hissed. "If she mates with Lucian's kind, the packs will fracture."

Kael's eyes gleamed. "Then we'll destroy her first."

Selene gasped, yanking her hand back.

"A blood memory," Lucian said. "That dagger-Reina must have used it. It witnessed the betrayal."

The spirit flickered.

"I tried to warn you," Reina whispered. "But they came. Bound me. Silenced me."

Selene gritted her teeth. "Then let me speak now."

She stabbed the dagger into the earth.

A burst of silver light exploded from the blade.

The mark on her back burned-and then, began to fade.

Reina's spirit exhaled, her form growing clearer.

"The truth is yours now, my Queen."

Selene reached for her, but the spirit was already dissipating, drawn upward in soft, shining threads.

"I'm sorry," Selene whispered. "I should have known."

The ghost smiled.

"You know now."

And then she was gone.

The ride back to the Undercity was in silence.

The narrator perched on Selene's lap, covered in its velvet cloth again.

No longer a relic.

It was proof.

Proof that Kael had conspired against her. Proof that another-hidden and powerful-feared what she would become.

Lucian ended the silence. "The mark is fading."

Selene nodded, tracing over the newly smooth skin on her back. "Because I reclaimed my name."

Nyra smiled. "About time."

Selene gazed out among the trees as they rode.

The wind had shifted.

No longer did it bear whispers of shame.

Now it bore warning.

And war.