Chapter 7 A Blade Between Us

Elara's POV

The world was water. Heavy. Slow. She floated inside it, warmth tugging at her skin like silk sheets, but beneath it, beneath the weight and heat, it was something older.

Calling her. Pulling her back. "Elara."The voice was close. Gentle. Familiar. "Elara, child. Wake up."

Her eyes were snapped open.

The stars above were cold and distance, framed by pine needles and mist. She blink hard, vision swimming.

Her body returned to her slowly: first her breath, then the ache in her chest, then the burning mark beneath her collarbone.

The Alpha's Mark. And next to it... still glowing... the crescent moon.

She gasped. "Elara." A hand pressed to her forehead.

"Thank the gods."

"Mira?"

she whispered. The old healer knelt beside her, weathered face drawn tight with concern. His silver-threaded hair fell over his brow, and his robes were soaked from the forest mist.

"What!, what happened?" she asked, pushing herself up. The ground tilted slightly. "You collapsed," Mira said.

"The curse reacted to something inside you. Something old." "Kalen?" she asked immediately, heart spiking.

"He's alive, For now." She looked past him, and saw Kalen kneeling at the edge of the clearing, blood on his hands, face pale.

His shirt was torn, and his eyes were locked on Mira... and the blade in Mira's hand.

"What is that?" she asked, her throat dry. Mira didn't answer. "Elara," Kalen said, rising slowly, voice tight. "Stay behind me. "What is going on?" she asked, rising her feet unsteadily.

Mira sighed.

"I never wanted it to come to this," he said. "But you've seen too much. The curse is active. The mark is formed. And you," he looked at her, pain in his eyes, "you're no longer the girl I raised."

His words struck like a slap."I'm still me," she said. He shook his head. "No. Not anymore. You are the Moon's vessel now.

The fire inside you, if it left unchecked, it could bring ruin to every living wolf. Including yourself."

"You don't got to decide who I am," she snapped."I don't," he said softly. "But I swore to protect you. Even from yourself."

He raised the dagger. Kalen moved instantly, placing himself between them. "You'll have to go through me." Mira's voice turned colder.

"You think I won't?" The two wolves stared each other down, one young, wounded, and fierce. The other old, heartbreakingly calm.

That moment, Elara felt the crack in her world wider.

"Mira," she whispered, "why are you doing this?" He looked at her. "Because I made a promise to your mother." The air left her lungs.

"What?"

"She was moonborn too. Hunted. Broken. Before she died, she gave you to me. Told me to keep you hidden. Unawakened." He paused. "You were never meant to find him."Elara's legs nearly buckled.

"My mother... She was one of them?"

He nodded. "Then why lie?" "Because her power consumed her. Drove her mad. She begged me to shield you from it.

To give you a chance. "You think lying to me gave me a chance?"

"No," Mira said.

"But loving you didn't i." Her heart cracked. "Mira, please," she whispered. "Don't do this. "I have to," he said. And then he lunged.

Kalen met him mid-charge, steel ringing as the dagger struck his shoulder. Blood spray. kalen snarled, grabbed Mira by the wrist, and twisted, sending the blade clattering to the ground.

Elara stepped between them before either could strike again.

"Enough!" she screamed, eyes glowing silver. The air trembled. A pulse of moonlight rippled outward from her chest, throwing both men back.

Silence fell. Elara stood alone in the clearing, her breath ragged, hair wild, light fading from her skin. She looked at Mira, who sat against a tree, stunned, and then look at Kalen, who clutched his bleeding shoulder.

Her hands shook. Everything she'd ever known had shattered in a single night. The man who raised her had betrayed her.

The bond that tied her to Kalen was deepening by the hour. And the fire inside her, it wasn't stopping.

"I need answers," she said, voice shaking. "Real ones."

Mira coughed, blood staining his lips. "Then go to the Moonwood," he rasped. "Find the Moondust Sisters.

They will tell you what I couldn't."

"Why couldn't you?" "Because if I'd told you the truth," he whispered, "you would've gone looking.

His eyes closed.

Kalen stepped forward, catching her arm. "We need to move. More Bloodshadows will come." Elara stared at Mira, her heart torn in two.

"Do we... Do we leave him?"

Kalen hesitated.

"He'll live.

For now." She nodded and turned away. As they vanished into the forest, the wind carried Mira's last words to her.

"Don't trust the Moon. Elara."

The runes exploded in a flash of silver fire, knocking us all off our feet.

I shielded Elara with my body, feeling the magic bite through flesh and bone. It wasn't just power, it was memory. Ancient, broken, and hungry.

When the light dimmed, the chamber had changed.

No walls. No Mira. No Ashen.

Only Elara and me, alone beneath a moonlit sky that shouldn't exist underground.

Elara slowly stood, the crescent mark on her wrist glowing like fire.

"This is not real," she whispered.

But it was.

The stars above us were shifting, forming symbols I recognized from my father's scrolls. Warnings. Prophecies.

"Elara," I said quietly, "this is a test."

She turned to me, eyes wide. "A test for what?"

"For your blood. For our bond."

The moon above began to bleed, turning from silver to crimson.

"Elara," I said, step closer, "whatever happens, don't let go of me."

But she was already slipping away.

Her eyes rolled back. Her body lifted from the ground, caught in a beam of moonlight.

The air trembled with her scream.

And when her eyes opened again... they weren't hers anymore.

That night, as Elara dreams, she sees a vision of the Moondust Sisters waiting in the snow, with silver eyes and blackened hands. And one of them whispers: "You've already begun the end of the world."