Exchanging Vows: The Swapped Wife Is a Top Shaman novel Chapter 12

Chapter 12: Chapter 12

Ivy’s Point of View

I was seven years old when I first discovered I was different.

The library of the Crescent Moon Pack was old and dusty, tucked away in a forgotten corner of the main estate. Nobody went there. Nobody cared about the crumbling books and faded scrolls gathering cobwebs on the shelves.

But I did.

I’d snuck in one afternoon, hiding from Seraphina and her friends who had made a game of chasing me through the halls. The library seemed like the perfect hiding spot. Dark. Quiet. Forgotten.

I pulled a random book from the shelf, expecting nothing. Just something to pass the time until they got bored and left.

But the moment I opened it, something sparked inside me.

Ancient symbols stared back at me. Diagrams of the wolf body. Lists of herbs and their properties. Incantations written in the old tongue that hadn’t been spoken in centuries.

It was a shaman’s book. A healer’s grimoire.

And I understood it. All of it. Like the knowledge had been sleeping inside me, waiting to be awakened.

That was the day everything changed.

I started spending every free moment in that library. Reading. Studying. Memorizing. The shamans of the Crescent Moon Pack caught me once, huddled in a corner with three books spread open around me.

"What are you doing here, child?" The head shaman had looked down at me with a mixture of confusion and annoyance.

"Learning," I’d said simply. "This incantation here, the one for drawing out infection. What if you combined it with moonpetal extract? Wouldn’t that amplify the—"

"You’re too young for this." He’d snatched the book from my hands. "Run along and play with the other children. Healing arts aren’t toys for little girls."

They never took me seriously. No matter how many times I tried to discuss theories with them, no matter how many questions I asked, they always dismissed me. Too young. Too inexperienced. Too presumptuous.

A Beta’s daughter thinking she could understand the sacred healing arts? Laughable.

But I didn’t stop.

I set up a small workspace in my bedroom. Grinding herbs in secret. Mixing powders. Testing combinations. The warriors who came back injured from border patrols became my unwitting patients. I’d slip them healing salves disguised as common medicine. Watch from a distance as their wounds closed faster than they should have.

Simple things. Basic remedies. Nothing that would draw attention.

But I knew I was capable of more. I could feel it. A power coiled inside me like a sleeping serpent, waiting for the right moment to strike.

That moment came when I was fourteen.

The border skirmish with the rogue wolves had been going on for weeks. Small attacks. Hit and run tactics. Nothing the pack couldn’t handle.

Until that night.

I was in my room when the commotion started. Shouting. Running footsteps. The heavy thud of the main gates being thrown open.

Then someone screamed my father’s name.

I ran.

The healer’s hall was chaos. Warriors covered in blood. Shamans rushing between patients. And at the center of it all, my father lying on a stone table, his body broken and bloody.

His neck had been torn open, the wound so deep I could see the white of bone beneath the mangled flesh. Blood pooled beneath him, dripping onto the floor in a steady stream.

He wasn’t moving. Wasn’t breathing.

The shamans surrounded him, their faces grim. The head shaman pressed his hands to my father’s chest, then pulled back with a heavy sigh.

"There’s nothing we can do." His voice was flat. Final. "The wound is too severe. His wolf spirit is already fading. Take him to his quarters and prepare for the funeral rites."

No.

The word echoed in my head like a war drum.

They carried my father to his private chambers. I followed, staying in the shadows, waiting until the shamans finished their preparations and left. They placed candles around his bed. Laid out the ceremonial cloths. Everything ready for a man they expected to die before morning.

When the last shaman closed the door behind him, I slipped inside.

The room was silent except for the shallow, rattling sound of my father’s breath. Each inhale seemed weaker than the last. Each exhale might be his final one.

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