When The Luna Broke Her Chains novel Chapter 10

Chapter 10 The Black–gold Omen

[XENA]

Long after the carriage disappears through the trees, I’m still standing there–half hidden behind the trunk, half exposed to the wind–feeling… strange.

I don’t understand why I can’t move. Why I’m rooted here like the moss beneath my feet. Why the image of him–turning back one last time before stepping into his carriage–won’t stop replaying in my mind.

Why am I still thinking about a man whose name I don’t even know?

A part of me regrets declining his offer. I could’ve stayed longer. Asked him why he came to the temple that night. How he healed me with such ease–like it cost him nothing. Like life and death meant different things in his hands.

He healed you because he could, a small, sharp voice in my head says. He healed you because you saved his child. Nothing deeper than that.

His child. Right.

I pinch the bridge of my nose, heat creeping up my neck as I remember everything I said to him. How defensive I sounded. Suspicious. Ungrateful.

Goddess… I acted almost rudely to the man who pulled me out of a hydralith’s jaws.

He gave me his sister’s clothes–a ridiculously expensive set, heavy with embroidery that only highborn families can afford–and I behaved like he was trying to swindle me. I didn’t even give him my name. Nor did I ask for his.

And now I have no way to return the clothes. No excuse to see him again. Frostfang might be influential, but we are nowhere close to the kind of wealth that creates clothing like this. I ruined his shirt, too. Bled all over the fabric.

I lift my arm, studying my skin. Smooth. Smoother than before the burn ever existed. I raise my leg–my calf is untouched, unmarred by the creature that chewed and nearly tore it apart.

There was so much blood. How is there not a single scar

He has to be connected to the Guild. Perhaps someone of high rank–those who have mastered restorative magic. That would explain the clothes, the carriage, the escort… and the way the lake split beneath his hand like the water knew him.

But then again, healers–even Guild healers–cannot part water.

I sigh and walk toward the forest’s edge. My eyes drift to the lake.

The hydralith’s carcass floats on the surface, having stained the water a bloody red, its sharp–teethed mouth torn and limp.

I shudder. He did that. With one strike. With nothing but power I’ve never seen before. Healers can’t do that.

But changelings can.

A cold ripple moves down my spine. Changelings wear skin as disguise. They mimic faces and voices. Once they mark a person, they don’t stop until all the blood–all the life—is drained. Only then do they take the victim’s appearance.

A horrifying thought forms.

Did I just doom myself? Did I draw a curse upon myself by looking into his eyes at the temple, like Kasumi said?

What now, Moon Goddess? What fresh cruelty is this?

I take careful steps toward the sound. Then quicker ones when I see the movement more clearly.

A small bundle of fur.

I drop to my knees, brushing my fingers along its tiny spine.

A wolf pup.

Here. In this forest. All alone and trembling.

It lifts its head. Golden eyes stare back at me–huge and radiant in its dark face.

Wolves are sacred to my kind, but these? Golden–eyed black wolf. They’re cursed. Every elder in my pack says so. There’s no evident proof I’ve found regarding this, however. Despite all the texts I’ve read.

I scoop it into my arms anyway. I cradle it close, wanting to care for it because of how helpless and fragile and sad it seems. Somehow, we’re alike, the thought strikes without warning. Unwanted and thought to be cursed. Perhaps we were meant to find each other.

Its warmth presses into me like a heartbeat, breathing life into my hollow, heartbroken soul.

And then, somehow–without memory of the journey I’m standing in Frostfang’s keep again. Back in my chamber. Alone, with the pup curled in my arms.