Luna Greyfoot had not seen her pack in nine days, and the forest kept lying to her. Every ridge looked like the ridge that led home. She was wolf kin, born to run beside her family, but now she ran alone. Snow packed her boots. Her fur was matted with cold. She followed old marks in the dirt, sure they were her mother's tracks, and each time they thinned into nothing. She stopped at a frozen stream and knelt to drink. Her reflection showed a thin face and hollow eyes. She had traded her good knife for dried meat three days ago. Now the meat was gone. She had walked in a circle again. The same broken pine leaned over the water, marked by her own claw. She pressed her forehead to the ice and let herself shake. Then she smelled smoke, faint and old. She rose and followed it uphill. The trees opened onto a clearing, and there it stood: an ancient stone altar, taller than her, crusted with moss. Red lines wound across its surface like veins. Carved symbols ringed a shallow basin at its center. She had heard the elders speak of such a place. A bloodline altar. It could tell you whether your kin still lived. Luna climbed the last steps. Her legs trembled. She knew the ritual by heart, though she had never dared it. You gave the stone your blood. If your pack breathed somewhere, the stone answered. If not, it stayed dark, and you learned you were the last. She hesitated. To ask was to risk the worst answer. But wandering blind had nearly killed her. She needed to know which way to run, or whether to run at all. She bit her thumb and pressed it to the basin. Blood dripped into the worn channel. The red lines drank it, and the carved symbols began to glow a cold blue. Heat rose from the stone. Luna held her breath. The glow pulled to one side, all the light bending toward the north ridge. The channels pointed like a hundred arrows. Her pack lived. They were near, and the altar showed the way. Luna laughed, a broken sound. She was already turning to run when a low growl froze her. A small wolf crouched on the altar's far edge. Two tails lashed behind it. Thin wings, colored like oil on water, spread from its back. Its eyes fixed on her bleeding thumb. It bared its teeth, and she understood. The altar's blood had called it. The elders warned of such creatures, that its bite could twist a wolf kin into something else. The winged wolf gathered itself to spring. Luna had no knife now. Behind her lay the path to her pack. Between her and that path stood the thing on the stone. She raised her fists and set her feet. She had not survived nine days to die one ridge from home.

The winged wolf sprang. Luna dove aside, and its claws raked the altar stone. She rolled and came up in a crouch. The creature turned, wings snapping open, two tails whipping the air. Its bite could twist her into something else. She would not let it touch her. She snatched a broken branch from the snow and swung. The wood cracked across its ribs. The beast yelped and fled into the trees. Luna did not chase it. Her thumb still bled. She ran north, following the ridge the altar had shown her. Snow slowed her legs, but hope pushed her on. Her pack was near. She could feel it. By dusk she found the cave. Its mouth was wide and dark, framed by weathered stone and clumps of dead moss. She knew this place. Her breath caught. This was her pack's den. She had slept here as a pup, warm against her mother's side. She stumbled inside, calling their names. No one answered. The fire pit held cold ash. Old bedding lay scattered and stiff. She pressed her nose to a fur and smelled only rot. Deep in the shadows, her boot struck something hard. She knelt. Bones. A ribcage, picked clean. Then another. She counted them in the dark, and each set she named. Her mother. Her brothers. The whole pack, dead here where they had lived. But the altar had pointed north. The altar had said they lived. Her hands shook. Then she understood. The blood did not lie about direction. It lied about time, or she had read it wrong. Whatever had killed them, it had come and gone. Among the bones something glinted. She dug it free. An amulet on a leather cord, a snarling wolf carved in silver, its center glowing faint green. She knew it. Her mother had worn it every day. Luna closed her fist around the metal. It was warm, though the cave was cold. She sank to the stone floor and did not move for a long time. Nine days she had run toward this. She was the last of the Greyfoot pack. There was no home left to reach. When she finally lifted her head, she slipped the cord over her neck. The amulet settled against her chest. She felt a pull inside it, something alive and hungry, as if it wanted her to stand. Outside, a growl rolled through the trees. The winged wolf had followed her scent. It knew she was alone now. Luna rose. Her family was gone, but their killer still moved through this forest. She wrapped her fingers around the branch and turned to the mouth of the cave. She had a new hunt to begin.