Chapter 8

As night fell, the Redridge pack left the territory in groups for the solstice prayers on White Moon Mountain.

Delia knocked on Celine's door before she went. "Your sister had a bad shock today. There will be another draining after the prayers. Do not wander off."

Celine stood in the empty room and called back once.

No one opened the door to check her wounds. Hearing her answer was enough; they assumed her wolf soul would remain exactly where it had always been.

Scent images kept arriving through the pack network from the mountain road. Warren wrote, May the Redridge heir never suffer another eclipse. Delia wrote, May my daughter Cassandra know peace all her life. Gavin wrote, May my sister inherit the pack seal without trouble.

Rafe's prayer tablet was the shortest. One line. May C always be at peace.

In her last life, when Celine found that tablet, she held it and cried for a long time. She thought C was Celine, until she saw the full name on the back: Cassandra.

She had fooled herself for four years on one shared initial.

Celine shouldered the tidesalt case containing everything she owned and climbed through the side-wing window. The moonbinding chains had left her wrists raw and bleeding. She followed an abandoned hunting trail to the ruins of the Ancestral Fire and laid her renunciation of Redridge citizenship on the stone altar.

She laid the obsidian bond ring beside the signature.

Though the old pact's public ceremony had never taken place, it had already left a faint pull inside her. If Rafe concentrated, he could still sense her approximate direction. Celine took the packet of moon salt that came with the Greytide deed and poured it over the Redridge mark on her wrist.

The grains touched skin and burned up at once in silver-blue flame.

The mark tightened like a living thing. Warren's commands, Delia's scolding, Gavin's taunts, and every one of Rafe's promises to make it up to her afterward pressed through the scent network. Her inner wolf howled in agony, begging her not to sever the bond it had known since birth.

Celine emptied the whole bag of moon salt over it.

"From this day forward, I renounce Redridge citizenship and revoke every authorization over my wolf soul."

The mark went out in the fire, inch by inch.

An emergency summons came down from the mountain. Cassandra had collapsed at the prayer altar, vomiting black blood. Warren's Alpha command slammed into Celine's mind along the final thread of scent between them.

Come back. Get to the healing den now.

Delia's and Gavin's messages came right after.

Your sister cannot hold on.

Where are you?

Do not make us come and drag you back.

Rafe issued no command. He only called her name again and again. "Celine, answer me. Whatever this is, come back and save her first. One last time. Name your terms, and we'll meet them—whatever they are."

Celine did not slow down.

At the edge of the coast, gray-white tide fog parted to either side. A door made of water stood among the rocks exposed by the receding tide. Beyond it waited no Redridge scent and no Alpha command—only the distant rush of surf.

The gatekeeper witch checked the deed. "Once you cross, all local pack marks stop working. Do you confirm?"

A wolf howl went up in the woods behind her. Rafe had felt the pull fading and was already coming with others.

Celine tore the last thread of Redridge scent out of her chest and stepped through the Tide Gate.

When Rafe burst from the tree line, all he saw was her back. He reached for her, but his fingers passed through the closing tide fog.

"Celine!"

She did not look back.

The Tide Gate slammed shut between them.