Chapter 20

Chapter 20: Aneira

“No.”

Darius looked entirely unbothered by my refusal, which somehow made it worse.

“The deal—”

“Was for the scroll,” I interrupted. “The scroll did not mention sneaking into the most heavily watched ceremonial grounds in Ashfang.”

“It implied danger.”

“It implied manageable danger. This is suicide with extra walking.”

Beside me, Lyra folded her arms, watching us like she was trying to decide which one of us to strangle first.

Darius gave me a patient look, which was offensive considering this was entirely his fault.

“The crest matters.”

“So does living.”

His jaw tightened slightly. It was the first real crack I’d seen in his usual easy grin.

For a second, I remembered the way his voice had shifted when he spoke about his father. That almost made me feel bad.

Almost.

Lyra exhaled sharply beside me. “What exactly is this crest?”

Darius glanced at her like he was deciding how much to say.

“It belonged to my family before the rogues were scattered.”

That caught my attention.

Most rogues didn’t come from nowhere. Packs broke, territories collapsed, wars scattered survivors, and wolves who no longer belonged anywhere became what everyone else called rogues.

But family crests?

That meant old blood. Pack blood.

Lyra seemed to realize it too.

“That’s not rogue custom.”

His mouth twitched. “Didn’t say I was born one.”

That explained some things. The way he carried himself, the way he fought, the way he spoke like he had once belonged somewhere.

I hated understanding him slightly more.

He stepped closer and handed me the folded parchment.

“The markings are clear. The crest is hidden beneath the western ceremonial stones. You won’t need to search long.”

I stared at him.

“You say that as if wolves don’t swarm those grounds.”

“They won’t tonight.”

That made Lyra narrow her eyes.

“Why?”

Darius smiled, and I immediately distrusted it.

“Because there’s a border dispute near the eastern ridge. Most patrols got shifted there.”

My stomach sank.

“How do you know that?”

His grin widened.

“That feels like an unnecessary question.”

Lyra muttered something under her breath about criminals.

I pinched the bridge of my nose.

This had somehow become my life: living alone in a mountain cottage with a rude cat, healing strangers, and occasionally committing crimes for men I barely liked.

Progress.

“Fine,” I said.

Lyra turned to me so fast I nearly flinched.

“Fine?”

“It’s one retrieval.”

“It’s the Full Moon Grounds.”

“Yes. I heard him.”

“That place is sacred.”

“It’s also apparently a storage unit for stolen jewelry.”

Darius laughed.

Lyra did not.

I adjusted my bag higher on my shoulder and looked toward the darkening treeline.

The Full Moon Grounds sat deeper inside Ashfang territory, carved into the oldest basin of the mountain where the first wolves had settled generations ago. Every major ceremony happened there: rank ascensions, mating blessings, blood oaths. The Moon Goddess was said to have touched those stones herself.

Personally, I had always thought that sounded suspiciously convenient.

“Get your crest,” Lyra muttered. “Then we leave.”

Darius inclined his head once.

“For what it’s worth,” he said, “I appreciate this.”

I frowned.

“That’s unsettling.”

“It should be.”

He vanished back into the trees before I could regret agreeing.

Lyra stared at the place he disappeared.

“I don’t like him.”

“You just met him.”

“That was enough.”

We started walking.

The path toward the ceremonial grounds was older than most roads in Ashfang. The deeper we moved into the forest, the more the trees changed. Pines thickened around us, their trunks wider and darker, roots twisting through stone like veins. Ancient wolf markers were carved into the bark—blessings, warnings, old territorial claims.

The snow here felt untouched, wrapped in the kind of silence Ashfang reserved for sacred places.

Even as children, we had been warned not to wander too close.

The Moon watched here.

That was what the elders always said.

Personally, I suspected they simply wanted fewer screaming pups near important ceremonies.

Lyra walked beside me in silence for a while before speaking.

“You know where we are, don’t you?”

Of course I did.

The path curved left, opening into a shallow basin between stone ridges, and my stomach twisted the moment I saw it.

The shifting grounds.

I stopped.

The place looked smaller now.

Time had changed it.

Or maybe I had.

A wide clearing stretched before us, half-buried beneath snow. Ancient rings of stone marked the places where young wolves attempted their first shifts before witnesses. Tradition said the Moon Goddess blessed those first transformations.

Tradition had not blessed mine.

Lyra’s face softened.

“Aneira…”

I looked away, but the memory came anyway.

I was sixteen, standing in the center of that circle while the whole pack watched, forcing myself through every breath and command I’d been taught, waiting for the shift to come.

Nothing happened.

The silence afterward had been worse than the laughter.

But the laughter came too—whispers, mocking smiles, pity.

An omega who couldn’t shift.

Useless. Broken. Weak.

That had been the first time I truly understood what I was inside Ashfang.

Not a wolf.

A failure.

The cold seemed sharper here, biting through my coat and sinking into my bones.

Lyra stepped closer.

“You don’t have to do this.”

I forced out a laugh.

“It’s a little late for emotional reflection.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

I knew.

But standing there, I could still feel that younger version of myself like a ghost beneath my skin—small, humiliated, trapped.

And I hated her for still existing.

I exhaled sharply.

“She’s dead.”

Lyra frowned.

“Who?”

“The girl who stood here crying.”

My voice came quieter than I meant it to.

“I left her behind.”

Something in Lyra’s expression tightened.

Then she nodded.

We kept walking.

The Full Moon Grounds rose ahead like broken teeth against the snow. Massive standing stones formed a rough circle around the center basin, each one carved with lunar markings worn thin by centuries of wind and weather. Beneath the moonlight, silver veins shimmered faintly through the earth.

That part was real.

Ashfang’s mountains were rich with moonstone beneath the soil. It was why ceremonies held here carried so much weight, why wolves believed the earth itself remembered.

Energy clung to this place.

Not magic exactly.

Something older.

Heavier.

I hated how much I still felt it.

We moved carefully between the stones.

Lyra kept watch while I unfolded the parchment.

“West side,” I muttered.

The markings led toward one of the older altar stones near the edge of the clearing.

Snow crunched beneath my boots as I crouched, brushing away the frost until my fingers caught against something uneven. A loose stone. I wedged my hand beneath it and pulled, the weight resisting for a second before giving way. Beneath the frozen earth, cold metal glinted in the moonlight. A crest.

Black iron edged in silver, marked with a wolf split by a crescent moon.

“He was telling the truth,” Lyra whispered.

Before I could answer, voices carried through the trees, it was far too close.

Patrol.

My blood froze as torchlight flickered between the trunks, growing brighter.

Lyra swore under her breath.

“Move.”

Too late.

A voice barked from the ridge.

“Who’s there?”

Panic hit fast.

I shoved the crest into my bag, but then Lyra did something completely unhinged.

She stood up, drew in a breath, and screamed so violently the sound cracked across the clearing and bounced off the ceremonial stones. It was less a cry for help and more the sound of someone actively losing their mind.

“What in the Moon’s cursed backside—” I hissed.

Lyra threw herself into the snow and began flailing dramatically.

“My leg!” she shouted. “My leg is broken!”

The patrol stopped so abruptly snow sprayed around their boots. For a second, nobody moved, not them, not me, not even the forest; as if the entire mountain was trying to understand what Lyra was doing.

She grabbed a branch and started waving it wildly.

“Help! By Nythera, someone help me!”

Three patrol wolves charged toward her immediately.

Lyra snapped her head toward me.

“Go.”

I stared.

She mouthed it aggressively while continuing her performance.

I ran.

Behind me, I could still hear her shouting.

“I slipped! On snow! Who puts snow here?!”

One of the patrols yelled, “What?”

Another shouted, “That’s Lyra!”

And then—

“Oh, gods, it’s Lyra again.”

I nearly laughed as I disappeared into the forest with Darius’s crest, and with the growing realization that my life was somehow getting worse.

Again.