Chapter Four: Ma Erene

The days bled into one another like ink on soaked parchment, colorless, murky, indistinct.  Zara has been given her daily task, and after her second day, she started with the job.

So just like today, she scrubbed until her fingers turned stiff, and her knees ached from crawling on the stone floor. Her body had learned to move very fast within these few days. 

The training pit was the worst of all places, the scent of sweat, and blood soaked into the walls and floor. From morning until late noon, the warriors howled and slammed into each other like beasts in heat, growling dominance, marking territory, living violence. 

But Zara was not permitted inside the pit. Her place was around it, always barefoot, and she stayed quiet, brushing dirt from the floor as if her effort would wipe away the blood stains. No one looked at him because they already known what she was. A forgotten offering, a shameful gift from a lesser pack. A symbol of surrender, and not a soul.

The sun burned harshly that day, making the stones hot and cruel under her knees. She’d long since stopped shaking at the cracks in her skin or the soreness in her spine. She worked through it all, not because of obedience but because no one noticed the quiet things until they rose up. 

And Zara wasn’t ready to rise, at least not yet. Her head was bent low, her clothes soaked in water and vinegar, scrubbing where dried blood clung stubbornly to the floor, when the voice broke through the heavy stillness like a whisper sliding down her neck. 

“You scrub like a ghost.” Zara froze. And slowly, she looked up, expecting to see a guard, or worse, one of the mistresses smirking from a shaded corner. But what she saw instead was an old woman with skin like river stone and eyes as ancient as the mountains beyond the borders. Her robes were mismatched, patched with symbols Zara didn’t recognize, and her gray hair fell in long coils down her back, twisted with bone charms and feathers. She leaned on a crooked wooden staff, watching Zara with a smile that wasn’t unkind, but wasn’t entirely sane either.

“I don’t know you,” Zara said quietly, unsure if she was even allowed to speak. The woman tilted her head, sharp teeth flashing in the sunlight.

 “That’s because you haven’t learned how to see yet. You’re looking with your wounds, not your eyes.”

Zara didn’t answer. There were many strange ones in the pack. Shaman, healers, the wolf-touched. But this woman didn’t carry herself like a servant or a warrior. She stood like someone the earth itself had grown tired of hiding. 

“Who are you?” Zara asked.

“I am Ma Erene,” she said, tapping the end of her staff against the stone with a rhythmic knock.

 “You can call me a witch, a healer, or a seer of threads.” She knelt with difficulty, her bones creaking like dying trees, until she was crouched beside Zara, her face only inches away. 

“And you, little ghost, are the girl without a shadow.”

Zara blinked, unsure if she had misheard. “What does that mean?”

Ma Erene leaned closer, her breath smelling of herbs and ash. “You don’t belong here, not like this. The bond in your blood, it doesn’t settle. It snarls.” Her voice dropped, rasped like wind against old bark. 

“The bond will burn you before it binds you. You must learn to bleed on your terms.”

A tremor passed through Zara’s limbs. She didn’t understand what this woman saw, but it felt like she had been peeled open and read aloud. For days, Zara had felt the strange heat in her chest, the prickle along her spine whenever Hunter passed too close, the pull that was not love but something more violent, and felt ancient. 

It was more like a magnetic ache that confused her more than it frightened her. She had tried to ignore it, convinced herself it was just trauma wearing a mask. But Ma Erene’s words dragged it into the light. Was it a bond or a curse? But whatever it was, it was real.

“I’m not like you, I’m not a wolf,” Zara whispered, still scrubbing.

“Not yet,” the woman murmured. “But something is awakening in you. Something with teeth.” She paused, then tapped Zara’s wrist with her knotted fingers. 

“Let me teach you, the power of seeing before the strike. No one will notice, not if we keep to the shadows.”

Zara’s heart thudded in her chest, slow and disbelieving. It was the first offer she’d received that wasn’t wrapped in humiliation. This was an opportunity, a dangerous and reckless one. But it felt like a doorway cracked open in a world made of locked ones. She stared at Ma Erene, at the eyes that saw through masks and names, and then… just like that, she nodded. 

That night, the wind howled like something feral had been let loose. Zara curled in her corner of her dark quarters, the sour blanket barely offering warmth, her fingers twitching as sleep dragged her under. But it wasn’t restful.

She dreamt of dozens of wolves. They circled her in a clearing of ash and bone, their eyes glowing silver and blue and gold, none of them resembling the Alpha who haunted her waking thoughts. These wolves were wild, mangled, and beautiful in their defiance. And not a single one approached her. 

They watched her as if waiting for something to shift. One opened its mouth and let out a guttural sound, it sounded more like a half growl, and half warning. The ground cracked beneath her feet. Fire licked up her arms, and when she looked down, her palms were bleeding, a crescent of claw marks engraved in the flesh as if something had tried to burst free from within her own skin.

She woke up gasping, the mark was still there, it was real and very visible. Her blanket was soaked through with sweat. Zara stared at her palm, then curled her fingers into a fist. Something was waking, Ma Erene wasn't lying. And this time, she wasn’t going to run.