Chapter 1

I woke up choking on dirt, it felt cold and damp on my tongue, filling my throat, my nose…my mouth. I couldn’t scream or breathe, my chest jerked up like it forgot how to work, like it didn’t belong to me anymore.

My hands moved before my mind did, my fingers scraping at something rough, hard and…wooden, splinters sliced my skin and dug under my nails, something cracked above me and everything was too close, heavy and dark.

I was underground but I wasn’t supposed to be…was I?.

“Where…?” I croaked, my voice hoarse and broken, but barely a whisper. “Where am I?”

No answer, just the groan of the earth above me.

I pushed harder, my arms shaking, with bruised wrists, I didn’t know what I was doing, I just knew that I had to get out, I had to move from whatever this was, my legs kicked uselessly against wood, mud, and roots, but I didn’t stop, I couldn’t stop.

“Please,” I muttered, to the earth or to the Moon, I didn’t know, I wasn't sure at this point. “Please, not like this…not again.”

Then it gave way.

The world split open and I dragged myself out like a child born wrong, gasping for breath and coughing out earth that stuck to the corners of my mouth, dirt clinging to my hair and my skin. I lay there for a second, my chest heaving heavily and right above me was the moon.

So full, and bright, like it was staring at me.

Judging me or maybe… welcoming me.

I blinked, my vision blurry and my limbs shaking, the air was cold and sharp, like knives across my skin, a feeling I hadn't experienced in a while, and everything smelled like pine and frost and something older, something that remembered me even if I didn’t remember myself.

I pushed to my knees, the earth beneath me cold, the wind loud in my ears, I looked around, not sure what I expected to see, but when I saw the tree, I remembered.

The willow!.

Tall and blackened, its branches twisted like claws, like it had reached into the ground to pull me back, I stared up at it and my breath caught in my throat, because… I’d died here.

Right here.

This was my grave…and now it wasn’t.

"Why am I here?" I whispered into the night.

No answer, just the rustle of dead leaves.

I staggered forward, slowly, my bare feet sinking into the earth, each step felt heavy, the silence pressing in on me, the wind saying things I didn’t want to hear, things I didn’t understand, and still I walked.

My head spun with my memories half-formed, flashes of pain and voices and cold hands dragging me, but they didn’t stay, they slipped away before I could catch them, and all I could do was keep moving.

Branches scraped my arms and leaves brushed my skin, and every sound made me flinch, but nothing stopped me, not even the rising howl in the distance, not even the way the trees seemed to shift as I passed, bending away, almost in fear.

A scream echoed far off in the woods, it wasn't mine. But it could’ve been or I could be imagining things, the line between reality and hallucinations dimmed with every minute. I flinched again, my shoulder slamming into a tree trunk as I turned. But there was nothing.

“Did you bury me?” I asked aloud, to no one. “Did you think that was enough?”

There were no stars, just that moon, round and pale, following me and watching me. I coughed out more moss and dirt, it seemed the earth had taken habitat in my body when I died.

I didn’t know how far I’d gone until I reached the stone.

Cracked and worn, half-buried beneath moss and time, the border stone, the line I was never meant to cross again, and yet I did.

I stepped over it without hesitation, like my feet knew where they were going even if my mind didn’t, like something in me had done this before.

And the moment I did, the air changed.

The border stone, it was like stepping through a scream. The air clamped around my body, cold and wet like a hand gripping my throat. I stumbled, dizzy, with my vision hazy, the ground rippling like water beneath my feet. The wind didn’t howl. It spoke of names. Mine wasn’t the only one and none of them belonged to the living.

The air…it became thicker, colder and the scent of the packlands settling into my lungs like smoke, my memories scratching at the back of my throat.

"Kael," I breathed.

“You let this happen”, I coughed again “But I'm back…and this time I'm not going anywhere”. I spoke to the packland like it was a person, maybe it was or maybe it knew exactly who I was referring to.

A low growl broke the quiet and I stopped.

Two figures stepped out from the trees, one tall, broad and older, the other younger, slimmer, and barely more than a boy, both dressed in black with the pack’s crest stitched into their sleeves.

They stared at me like I wasn’t real, like they were trying to make sense of what they were seeing.

I stood still, my hair hanging in tangled ropes down my back, my nightgown shredded and dirt-streaked, my arms limp at my sides.

The younger one raised his weapon, his hands shaking, his voice sounded unsure as he spoke, “Stop right there.”

I didn’t move.

“I said stop!” he shouted, but his voice cracked like he didn’t believe his own command.

The older guard took a step forward and then his eyes locked on mine, his mouth parting slowly, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

Then he dropped to his knees.

His weapon hit the ground with a thud.

"Eva?" he whispered, with a cracking voice, wide eyes, and shallow breaths, "Moon help me… she’s back.”