THE REJECTED LUNA
And it hit my hands and white claws came out, longer than this morning, sharp, and white fur ran up my arms to my elbows.
Mara gasped. “You— you did not drink. You anointed. No one has anointed since the First—”
The Oak shuddered. The whole dead tree shuddered like a living thing waking up.
A sound came out of it, deep, like roots moving underground.
And the crack that was the door, the crack I came in through, slammed shut behind me, cutting me off from Jax and my mother and Harlan and the Council trucks.
And another crack opened in front of me, on the other side of the trunk, showing not woods, but snow, deep snow, and a sky full of northern lights, green and pink, and far away, lights of