Semua Bab Beneath the Silver Moon : Bab 41 - Bab 46

Sticking around isn’t free. I feel the cost before I can name it—before anybody says a damn thing, before the trees even bother whispering or the silver starts its little dance under my skin. It creeps in, quiet as a headache, like that weird off-balance feeling when you step somewhere that looks solid but tries to swallow your foot.Sun’s up, looking all warm and harmless over the packlands. Gold and green everywhere, dew catching on the leaves like a painting somebody actually tried on. From a distance? Looks like peace, textbook. But nah, peace doesn’t hum like this. It doesn’t hover over you, threadbare across your lungs, not asking if you’ll pay, just sizing up how much it’s gonna take.Caleb’s hand is still wrapped around mine on the balcony, solid and steady. That steadiness has become its own language. I lean into it more than I’ll ever admit out loud. Below us, wolves are doing their thing—patrols trading off, healers hauling baskets, kids zipping around like chaos incarnate,

The choice settles inside me, slow and heavy, like iron cooling in water. Not gone. Just changed—tempered.By the time I leave the convergence stones, even the air feels different. Not lighter or heavier—just alive. The land is watching, old and patient, the way something ancient watches: no eyes, no judgment, just a patience that doesn’t care how long you fight. It expects me to move forward. It expects me to do what the last anchor did. And honestly, it’s not wrong. But it’s not exactly right, either.Word moves faster than I do. Wolves sense it before I say a thing—like they feel tremors before a quake, through their feet, straight to the bone. By midday, the pack house hums with quiet tension, all of it disguised as routine. Doors close too softly. Conversations die when I walk by. Hope and dread twist together in every look.They think I’ve made my choice. They don’t get it yet—choosing isn’t the same as surrendering.Caleb finds me outside the southern courtyard. He doesn’t ask

This place didn’t smell like home.The air was thick with pine resin and the tang of iron, and underneath, thinner and more insidious than either, was fear—stretched so taut it seemed ready to snap. The western pack had chosen their ground with meticulous care, far from their dens, far from the main road, far from anywhere a passing stranger might catch a glimpse and carry away stories they shouldn’t. This was a place for secrets, for things best left unspoken.Evie stepped into the ring they’d marked out, pine needles crushed underfoot, and the sensation shifted instantly. The world seemed to pull tighter around her. The hollow here didn’t roar or rage; it simmered just beneath the surface, uneasy and raw. Not wild—no, not that. Wildness had a pattern, a pulse you could find if you listened hard enough. This was different. This was restlessness, a caged thing scraping at the walls, breathing shallow beneath the skin of the earth.Behind her, Caleb stood silent, his presence a steady