CHAPTER 4

ZARA

My breath came out in white puffs against the cold morning air as I swung my blade through the silence. Again. And again. My arms ached, but I didn’t stop. Pain was just proof I was alive. Each swing cut through the empty space of the clearing like I was carving my place into the world.

“Faster,” I muttered to myself, driving forward until sweat dampened my neck. “Again.”

The blade clattered against the wooden post I’d set up, splinters flying everywhere. I stepped back, my chest rising and falling. My muscles screamed, but my wolf inside purred at the discipline. Training was all I had now.

I bent to wipe my blade and sheathed it at my side. My little cabin was nestled deeper in the woods, nothing more than four walls of timber, smoke-stained roof, and shelves of jars and herbs. It wasn’t just home at this point. But it was survival.

I grabbed my basket, slung it over my shoulder, and set off. Herbs grew in stubborn patches beneath trees, and my fingers knew them well now: feverleaf, starroot, wolfsbane, though that one I handled carefully. I plucked a handful and tucked them neatly inside the basket.

Next came food. I crouched low, my ears pricked, and sure enough, a twitch of fur caught my eye near the underbrush. 

Rabbits. 

My hand slid to my knife, and in one fluid motion I flung it. A squeak and then silence. I retrieved the kill and went after another. By the time I was done, two rabbits dangled by their feet from my basket. Enough for stew.

“Not bad,” I whispered, brushing snow from my lashes.

The sky rumbled then, dark clouds swelling like bruises. A storm. I tilted my head at the heavens, unimpressed.

“Here we go again,” I sighed. Storms didn’t scare me anymore. Not after everything.

But this storm wasn’t like the others. Lightning forked down so close it split the ground in front of me. I jumped back with my basket clutched to my chest and then…through the crackling light…she appeared.

A tall woman, draped in rags that looked too stylish to be rags, with a durag-like scarf framing her sharp features. She looked like she’d stepped straight out of one of the bedtime stories my mother used to tell me.

She raised her chin, her voice booming like thunder. “Bow to me, filthy peasant!”

I blinked, froze for one heartbeat… and then bowed. Just for the drama of it. But when I lifted my head, a snort slipped out. Then another and then I was laughing, full-bellied and helpless.

Her lips twitched and then she laughed too, tossing her head back. “Oh, you brat! You ruined my grand entrance!”

“Every time you do this,” I said, giggling so hard I almost dropped my basket, “You’re dramatic Vera, utterly ridiculous.”

She swept her tangled hair like it was spun gold. “I deserve the drama, pup. Because I am the drama.”

I rolled my eyes, still smiling. “Yeah, yeah. Keep telling yourself that.”

Her laughter faded, though her eyes still glimmered with mischief and in that moment, I remembered the very first time I’d seen her. The memory hit me like an arrow.

______

Snow. Blood and Pain.

I had been lying in it, my breath shallow and my body broken. Caelum’s blade still burned through my chest. I had closed my eyes, certain my last breath had left me. The world was dark. My parents gone. My mate…my mate…had killed me.

But then…

Through the haze, I saw a shadow, tall and strange, moving toward me. I couldn’t lift a hand or move. If they wanted to end me, I would let them. I had nothing left.

But instead of a killing blow, I felt something else.

A pull. My body was lifted, not by hands, but as if the air itself carried me. I was floating, gliding through snow and silence, until warmth pressed against me. My wounds burned, then cooled, then burned again. Herbs. Paste. Magic.

When I woke, sweat drenched me. I sat up with a gasp and found her there. A tall woman with grey -blue eyes. She watched me calmly from beside a cluttered cupboard.

I jolted, my heart hammering, and scrambled back so fast I hit my shoulder on the wood. That’s when I realized, my body was smeared with herbs and leaves, nearly bare…no literally naked.

“What the hell—?!” My eyes darted for a weapon and found a knife near the bed. I snatched it up with trembling hands. 

“Who are you? And what did you do to me?”

She didn’t flinch. She only tilted her head, her lips curving in amusement. “That’s no way to speak to the one who saved your life, little pup.”

I hesitated with the blade still raised. My arms shook. But she wasn’t attacking. Slowly and very shamefully, I lowered the knife. “You… saved me?”

She rose to her full height. And oh, she was tall. Towering over me like the stories said witches did. My throat went dry.

“Vera Rune,” she said simply. “The wolf witch. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?”

The name jolted me. My mother’s voice echoed in memory: A witch who walks both wolf and spell, feared and revered, dangerous as night itself…

“You’re real?” I whispered.

Her smirk widened. “As real as the scars you carry.”

My grip on the knife loosened until it clattered to the floor. My chest tightened, hot tears suddenly burning my eyes. “Why… why did you save me? You don’t even know me.”

Something softened in her gaze. She stepped closer, knelt in front of me, and brushed a strand of my hair back. “Because you’re not cursed, Zara. And don’t you dare let anyone make you believe otherwise.”

At her words, the dam inside me broke. Images flooded me, my father’s broken body, my mother’s last words, the sound of their screams. My knees gave way and I collapsed forward. The knife slid useless from my hands as sobs tore out of me.

“There, there,” Vera murmured, wrapping her long arms around me. She smelled of herbs and smoke, strong and grounding. “Cry, little pup. Cry until the world hears you.”

I buried my face against her, trembling. For the first time since my parents’ deaths, someone was holding me. And not to hurt me. Not to use me. But to keep me standing.

From that night on, I stayed with her.

She became my teacher, my sparring partner, my shield. She showed me how to fight sharper, move faster, wield herbs as weapons and balms. She patched the holes inside me piece by piece, though she never called it healing. She called it survival.

Now, as I walked beside her again, carrying rabbits and herbs in my basket, I realized how far I had come. I wasn’t the broken child left to die in the snow anymore. I was still broken, but I was learning how to use my shards as blades.

“Come on, pup,” Vera said, swinging her ragged cloak dramatically over her shoulder. “A storm’s coming. Let’s see if your stew can impress me this time.”

I snorted, bumping her arm with my basket. “It’s better than your dramatic entrances, witch.”

She laughed, and for a moment, the storm didn’t matter. For a moment, I almost believed I wasn’t cursed at all.