SIXTY DAYS TO MOONFALL

The last thing I remember is snow in my mouth.

Not the cold. Because cold stops mattering once your fingers quit answering. What I remember was the taste, iron and ash, and the sound of the shelter gate grinding shut with me on the wrong side of it. A gate I had hauled stone for. A gate I had bled into, one winter at a time.

Dravik stood behind it. The last seat in the Hollow Shelter was already taken. Maelis sat in it, her pup tucked under her chin, her fingers laced through my husband's.

He didn't look back. I watched for it until my eyes iced over.

Then the beast tide came crashing through the pines, and as I went down I finally learned what the Pack had known since the day I was born. The howl that rose out of my chest was not a healer's howl. It was a queen's.

It came forty seconds too late.

Then nothing.

Then ceiling.

I surged up out of the dark with a gasp that hurt my teeth. Wooden beams. Lavender soap. Morning light slanting through the crooked window of the Hollowmere pack house, the one I had scrubbed every Sunday for six years.

I looked at my hands. Whole. Warm. No black creeping under the nails.

On the nightstand sat the little brass calendar Elder Merrow's wife had given me. Today was circled in red ink. Mate Ceremony.

My stomach folded in half.

I knew this day. I knew what came after it, too. Sixty days from tonight the moon would crack open over the coast and the world would go with it. I had lived those sixty days once, smiling, serving tea, mending other people's cuts while the sky gathered itself. I had thought the storms were weather.

Sixty days. I counted them twice, like a woman checking a stove she's certain she switched off.

The door banged open without a knock. It always did.

"Still in bed?" Orsolya Hollowmere swept in with her silk shawl and her ledger face. "The Alpha's boots need polishing, the guest trays will not carry themselves, and your sister's gown still has to be steamed. Move, girl."

Oh, I remembered this part. She had called me girl for six years, and I had thanked her for it.

"My sister's gown," I said slowly.

"Maelis is standing witness. Don't make that face." She waved one ringed hand. "It's an honor. You should be grateful anyone is willing to stand beside a healer with no bloodline."

No bloodline.

I almost laughed. It came out as a dry little breath.

Orsolya's eyes narrowed. "What's wrong with you? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"I have," I said, and swung my feet to the floor.

I'll tell you what I did next, because it matters. I did not scream. I did not throw anything. I got up, washed my face, and looked at the woman in the mirror. Twenty-six. Soft-handed. Tired in a way that had nothing to do with sleep. Under her collarbone sat a thin gold thread of light I hadn't noticed the first time, a faint pulse like a second heartbeat, and it was warm.

"Sorrel!" Orsolya snapped. "The boots!"

I walked past her, took my own dress off its hanger, and laid it on the bed. Plain white. Hand-sewn. Mine.

"No," I said.

The room went very quiet.

"I beg your pardon?"

"No. I'm not polishing his boots. I'm not carrying trays. And I'm not steaming Maelis's gown." I looked at her, calm as water. "She has two hands."

Orsolya's mouth opened and shut. In six years I had never once said that word to her. I watched her hunt for the lever, the one that always made me fold. She tried guilt first. "After everything this Pack has done for you..."

"Yes," I said. "I remember everything."

She left to find her son. I let her.

By the time the moon rose, the whole Pack had gathered in the Circle. Three hundred wolves in ceremonial grey, torches lining the stones, the sea wind combing the grass flat. Elder Merrow stood at the center with his soft, patient face, the face I had trusted with every secret I owned.

Beside the Alpha, in a silver gown I hadn't touched, stood Maelis.

My half-sister. She smiled at me the way you smile at furniture you're already planning to replace. One hand rested low across her stomach. It was a small gesture. I had never noticed it before.

I noticed it now.

Dravik waited beneath the moon. Tall. Broad through the shoulders. Dark hair tied back, jaw tight with impatience, the picture of a man being generous. He didn't look at me with love. He looked at me the way you check that a tool is still where you left it.

I walked the long stone path alone. My bare feet knew every crack. In my first life I had walked this exact path trembling with joy.

Now I was counting exits. Two guards at the east torches. Merrow's folded hands. The gap in the stones where the sea path ran down to the rocks. Old habits, from a life I had already lost, and I was grateful for each, and truly.

"Sorrel Vaneth," Merrow intoned. "Healer of Hollowmere. Come forward and receive the Alpha's claim."

Dravik held out his hand, palm up. The mark of mating waited there, a thin silver cut he'd made himself for the occasion. The whole Pack leaned in. Maelis's smile widened.

I looked at that open palm and remembered it letting go of mine. I remembered how easily he had chosen not to look back. I remembered every winter. Every tray. Every time I'd made myself smaller so he could feel large.

The gold thread under my collarbone flared hot.

"Take my hand," Dravik murmured, soft and warning. "Don't embarrass me."

Embarrass him. After everything.

I lifted my chin. My voice carried across the entire Circle without my pushing it.

"I reject you, Dravik Hollowmere, as my mate."