Lunara Silvercoat's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Lunara Silvercoat knelt in the hidden grove and knew she was about to ruin it. She was Aweined, a wolfkin healer, and she had walked three days through the Nordfrost snow to find this place. Moss covered the stones. A cold spring bubbled at the center. She wanted to consecrate it, so any wounded soul, beast or kin, could heal here under the moon. But she only knew half the rite. The other half had died with the priests who raised her. She pressed her palms to the largest stone and spoke the words she remembered. Her voice faltered at the gap. The moon rose. The grove stayed cold and silent. No warmth answered her. She had not blessed it. She had marked it wrong, and a botched rite could leave the ground unhallowed for good. Lunara sat back on her heels. Her ears flattened. If she guessed at the missing words, she might poison the grove forever. She could not guess. So she went to find the one person who might still know. Aldric Vane had kept the rites before Lunara was born. He lived alone now in a hut of black timber, far from their kin. He opened the door before she knocked. He leaned on the frame, gray beard tangled, eyes half-lidded, and looked at the frost on her coat. "You started a rite you can't finish," he said. Not a question. "I can smell it on you. Old work, only half done." He snorted derisively. “Go home.” "I need the moon-consecration verses," Lunara said. "The full ones." He snorted. "I buried those with better days. Go home, girl." "A grove is hanging half-blessed right now. If I leave it, it rots." She stepped closer. "You taught the ones who taught me. Finish what you started too." That landed. His jaw worked. He turned inside and returned with a pale moonstone tablet, etched with patterns that caught the firelight. He held it against his chest like a wound. "The lost verses are cut here," he said. "I never gave it to anyone. They'd botch it, same as you nearly did." He studied her face for a long moment. "But a half-hallowed grove is worse than none. So." He set the tablet in her hands. "Read it exact. One wrong word and you undo it all." Lunara traced the shimmering marks. The missing words were there, plain and complete. Her chest loosened. "Come with me," she said. "Read it over my shoulder." Aldric shook his head. "My knees won't cross that snow. And the rite needs more than words." He tapped the tablet. "You bring an offering to the ground. Something living, cut fresh, given freely. The tablet won't tell you what. That part you learn yourself." Lunara closed her fingers around the tablet. She had the verses now. But the grove waited a hard day's walk behind her, and she had no offering worthy of it, and the moon would not wait forever.