Luna Wolfhart's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

The duel was set for three days out. Luna had won the pack's doubt with the relic, but doubt was not skill. Nightshade had fought pack duels since she was a cub. Luna had never held a blade. She knew every custom and word of the wolves, yet none of that would stop a knife. She needed someone to show her how Nightshade fought before the fight showed her the hard way. That night a girl found her at the edge of camp. She wore a purple seer's robe stitched with pale moons, and she moved like she did not want to be seen. "The old seer's rival trains me," she whispered. "But I watched you carry the relic home. Come with me." This was Celestina Voss, apprentice to the seer who wanted Luna gone. She wanted Luna to win anyway. Celestina led her to a grotto hidden by stone and thick roots. Green light glowed off still water inside. "Nightshade always leads with her right," Celestina said. She raised her own arm to show it. "She feints high, then cuts low at the knee. Every wolf she's beaten fell for the high strike." She pressed a curved blade into Luna's hands. The handle was old, marked with faded carvings. "An ancestral fang blade. Ceremonial. But it cuts." Luna gripped the blade wrong. Celestina fixed her hands. For two nights they drilled the same move. High feint. Drop low. Guard the knee. Luna's arms burned. She missed and missed again. Then, near dawn on the second night, she caught the pattern. She read the feint and turned it aside clean. "Why help me?" Luna asked, breathing hard. Celestina looked at the water. "My teacher wants you broken. I don't serve fear." She would risk her place in the pack for this. Luna understood the gift then, and held the blade tighter. The third day, the pack gathered in the ruined coliseum. Broken arches ringed the sand. Wolves filled the cracked stone tiers. Nightshade waited in the center, her spiked collar bright in the sun, a knife loose in her hand. She smiled at Luna. "Still here, human?" They circled. Nightshade's arm rose in a high slash, exactly as Celestina had promised. Luna did not flinch back. She dropped her guard low and blocked the cut aimed at her knee. The blades rang. Nightshade's eyes went wide. Her one true trick had failed. Luna pressed in. She caught Nightshade's wrist and forced the knife down into the sand. The crowd roared. Nightshade twisted free, but she was rattled now, her rhythm broken. The duel was not won. Blood duels ended in blood. But Luna had turned Nightshade's best weapon into nothing. Across the sand, Nightshade's smile was gone. She circled slower, careful, afraid. For the first time, she looked at Luna like an equal she might lose to.