Chapter Forty-Four
Calista
The Lupherium almost felt alive. Not like a living thing with lungs, but like the tide, steady and inevitable, as if the temple drew in moonlight and exhaled it into stone.
I pressed my hand to the wall along the corridor where I’d stumbled in.
My heart was slowing in stubborn increments, my breath no longer tearing, but every muscle in my body trembled from the run.
Outside, the howls rose and fell like waves breaking on rock. Inside, Selraya’s hush pressed close.
I told myself I was safe for two hours like I could stitch my nerves back together.
My ankle throbbed in furious pulses. My palms were scraped raw from stone and snow.
My ribs ached from too many nights of cold air and too little rest. When I leaned my shoulder against the nearest pale column, my eyes burned and my head dipped.
I was a second away from sleep taking me standing.
I should have stayed right there. I should have curled up in the first patch of stillness and let the temple swallow me until the two hours ran out and I was forced to move again.
Instead, as I stood there in the vast temple to the goddess who’d abandoned me, something tugged at my darkest depths. A pull, subtle as a thread tightened beneath my skin.
My gaze drifted along the corridor, following the moonlight that spilled from openings above and painted the walls in ghostly silver and blue.
The architecture flowed in soft arches and spirals, so smooth it felt carved by water.
My weary legs compelled me forward. The farther I went, the quieter it became, the world outside fading to a distant memory of fangs and frost.
The tug deepened the further I moved.
My breath fogged in front of me. I limped forward, one careful step at a time, the ache in my ankle made dull by adrenaline’s slow retreat. My hand trailed along the shimmering stone for balance, and the surface pulsed faintly under my palm. The gentle thrum matched my heartbeat.
At the end of the corridor, the path narrowed, curving into an alcove carved into the rock. The moonlight here was brighter, more concentrated. And there, set into the stone, was a mirror.
Its frame was midnight silver, dark and sleek, catching the light in shifting waves.
The glass itself moved as if it were water under moonlight, a surface that refused to settle into one reflection for long.
When I stepped closer, the image warped.
It wasn’t my face anymore but flashes of pale sky, shadowed water, a wolf’s eye, and then nothing at all.
What in all the realms was this? The magic of Elysira, goddess of the Spellbinders? Or was this Selraya’s work?
As if answering my unspoken question, a sliver of moonlight illuminated a line of inscription. It curved along the stone beneath it, the letters etched deep and precise.
To walk the hidden path, you must confront the truth within. One truth. Blood for sight.
My throat went dry.
The tug inside me tightened, and another, colder pressure sat behind it: the feeling that if I didn’t look now, I might never get the chance again. That maybe this was why the Lupherium had called to me.
My hand hovered over the crescent at my back. I had to know. I heaved in a breath and dragged the weapon free. The sound was small in the vast stillness.
My fingers shook as I turned the blade and pressed it to my palm. Another steadying breath, and I sliced the sharp edge across my skin. It stung for only a second, then the blood welled, dark.
I lifted my hand to the mirror and pressed it against the cool surface. The glass rippled.
The moonlight around me sharpened as if the moon itself leaned closer. The mirror’s face pulled at my blood like thirst, and the moment the first drop touched, the glass greedily swallowed it up.
The temple tilted, and the silver-blue corridor vanished.
Warmth hit me first. It was a humid, salt-heavy warmth of the south, thick enough to cling to my skin. I blinked, disoriented, and my breath caught on a scent I hadn’t smelled in years: brine and crushed herbs, smoke from a small hearth, and wet wool hung too close to a flame.
Saltspire. I barely remembered it.
The house was larger than our cottage beside the Alpha’s manor in Hollowcrest. The walls were newer, and the table was less worn. The air carried the faint sweetness of summer rather than the sharp bite of winter.
And there was Pa. Younger. His hair darker and his shoulders less bowed by years. He stood in the center of the kitchen with his hands braced on the table as if he might collapse. His chest rose and fell too fast. His eyes were wild with fear.
Across from him, Ma sat on a stool. Except, she wasn’t the Ma I knew now, soft around the edges from years of worry and work.
She was bright and fierce, her hair longer, her posture stiff as if she refused to let anyone see weakness.
Her hands gripped the edge of the stool so hard her knuckles were white.
And her eyes… Her eyes were wrong. They weren’t green like mine or hazel like Suri’s. A cloudy haze settled over the pale blue turning it something darker, like the night tide. Her throat worked as if she were fighting back a sound.
A low, vibrating growl. My blood turned to ice.
Her shoulders jerked, and she rose abruptly, as if the stool had burned her. Her gaze snapped to the doorway and beyond it, toward the yard where moonlight spilled.
It wasn’t quite a full moon. But it was bright enough.
“No,” Pa rasped, stepping in front of her. “No, you can’t—”
Ma’s breath came harsh, her nails digging into her palms. “I can’t…stay in this skin,” she whispered, voice frayed like cloth tearing. “It’s too loud.”
Pa’s face crumpled. “It’s my fault.”
The words hit like a stone.
Ma blinked, silver flashing, and that low sound in her chest deepened. She pressed a hand to her neck like she was trying to hold herself in.
My father grabbed a cloak from the hook and wrapped it around her shoulders, then pulled her toward the back room. “Sel, steady my heart,” he murmured under his breath as he moved, the words trembling. “Raya, spare my mind.”
Ma let him guide her, but her body fought the motion like a beast pushing at a cage. They reached the narrow doorway to the sleeping room, and Pa shoved the latch closed behind them.
I followed as if pulled on a string.
The room was dim, and the air smelled of moonveil lilies, dried lavender and salt. A small bed sat against the wall, and beside it, a washbasin with a smear of ash in the bottom.
Her breath hitched. She turned slightly, and the cloak shifted. I saw the back of her neck. Just below her hairline as faint as a bruise was a mark.
A curve. A subtle crescent-like line inked into skin, half disguised beneath a pattern of dots and swirls that looked like old Faerish.
It wasn’t Sel’s kiss, the mark all Wolvryn were meant to be born with.
It wasn’t obvious. It could have been mistaken for decoration.
But it shimmered under the moonlight like it wasn’t meant for this realm.
My stomach dropped. I had never seen those symbols on her before. And still, I couldn’t keep my eyes from dropping to the crescent engraved into my palm. The mark of Selraya, the day I’d been chosen as prize bride.
He must have sensed Ma’s movement because he reached up and pressed his thumb over the mark like he was trying to hide it from the world. His hand shook.
My mother’s head tipped back, eyes squeezed shut. “It’s getting worse,” she whispered. “I can feel it crawling into my thoughts.”
Pa swallowed hard, his voice breaking. “I never should’ve taken you and Calista south.”
Ma’s eyes snapped open, a flash of silver flaring. “Don’t—”
“It’s true,” he choked out. “I thought if we got her away from Saltspire… I thought we could protect her, cure her. And now… Look what they’ve done to you.”
The words clanged in my skull.
Her breath sawed. “It’s too late. We can’t erase the past. We must only worry about the future. That of our daughters.”
Pa’s gaze darted toward the window as if he expected eyes there, watching. “Now the Conclave will come. They always do when they smell a secret.”
Ma trembled. “They can’t—”
“I won’t let them take you.” Pa grabbed her face gently, forcing her to look at him.
His eyes were bright with tears he refused to shed.
“I’ll hide you. I’ll hide it. I’ll find a Spellbinder from Mysthallia.
We’ll do whatever it takes. No one will know.
Not the elders, not the Court members, not even… ” His voice caught.
Ma’s gaze softened for half a breath, the silver fading. “Not even Calista.”
My heart lurched.
Pa’s jaw clenched as he regarded her with a rare emotion. “Especially not Calista. She’s too much like you. Too stubborn and too loud in the wrong ways. If she knew…” His throat worked. “She’ll try to fix it when she’s grown, and she can’t. Not without drawing eyes.”
Ma’s hands fisted in her cloak. “But she deserves—”
“She deserves a childhood,” Pa snapped, then immediately softened, as if the sharpness cut him too. “She deserves not to carry this.”
She swallowed, eyes flickering again. Her voice turned small. “I don’t want to forget her, to forget them.” She pressed a hand to her swollen belly.
My father leaned his forehead to hers. “You won’t.” But the way he said it sounded more like a plea than a promise.
Ma’s breath hitched again, and for one terrible heartbeat, her shoulders arched as if something inside her tried to break free. He caught her, hauling her down onto the cot, wrapping her in his arms like he could hold her together with his love alone.
His lips moved against her hairline, whispering prayers. “Sel, steady. Raya, spare. Sel, steady…”
Ma’s fingers clutched his shirt. And the faint mark at her neck pulsed like a foreign heartbeat.
My own breath locked in my throat. This didn’t make sense. For as long as I could remember, Ma hadn’t been able to call upon her Wolvryn at all. Pa blamed it on her illness, but what if it was something else?
And what did he mean about going south and curing me?
One thing I did finally understand: Ma didn’t inherit this sickness, it was inflicted upon her by someone or something in the south.
My mind spun, reaching for logic, for a rope ring to cling onto, but I found nothing but slipping ice. The scene blurred. The mirror’s surface rippled again, and the warmth vanished like a breath in winter.
My blood was gone from the glass as if it had never been at all. I stood there for a long moment, staring at my reflection as if it might explain something.
It never did.
I finally staggered back into the Lupherium’s corridor, knees weak, and palm still stinging where I’d cut it. The temple’s hush pressed in, and the howls outside sounded distant now like a dream that couldn’t reach me.
My hand went to the back of my own neck instinctively, fingers searching for…something. I only found my skin, my hair. Nothing unusual.
Still, the image wouldn’t leave me. The faint curved mark on Ma, and Pa’s thumb covering it like a sin. His voice, raw with guilt.
I never should’ve taken you south. The words rolled through my mind, searching for meaning.
South of what?
And why did Ma look like she was being torn apart by the moon? Like the stories I’d heard of the lunar rage…
My ankle throbbed and exhaustion slammed back into me all at once, heavier now.
The Lupherium’s central dais waited ahead, moonlight pouring down into it.
I limped back, following the curve of corridors until the space opened to the sky.
Selraya’s statue towered over the circular platform, iridescent stone glowing softly and arms outstretched in eternal command.
The wolf at her feet looked carved mid-breath, watchful and calm.
I collapsed at the base of the statue, right beside the wolf’s flank, pressing my back to the cold stone. I couldn’t help but think of Everest and the night spent curled in the warmth of his wolf.
Etched into the archway overhead, ticked a moondial. Just past one. I could still sleep… With my thoughts reeling, my body finally gave up. The last thing I saw before my eyes slid shut was Selraya’s gemstone heart pulsing faintly in her chest, steady as the tide.
My lids drooped and the temple fell away. I dreamed of moonlight. Of a sea made of silver and thread and waves woven from starlight.
I stood on the shore barefoot, the sand cold as bone. Above me Selraya’s two faces shifted across the sky, one soft and steady, one wild and merciless. Her voice came from everywhere at once like wind through tower arches.
“It is time, Calista Vale.” The words settled into my ribs like a brand.
I tried to speak, but my mouth filled with snow.
Selraya’s gaze pinned me, one eye silver, one obsidian, and the world seemed to tilt toward ruin. “Do not lose faith in me, child. I never abandoned you. It simply was not yet your time.”
I saw it then.
Towers falling like broken teeth.
Coasts burning under black-sailed ships.
Courts splintering into hungry beasts that turned on one another.
Hollowcrest swallowed by smoke and sea.
Ma’s face blank, unrecognizing.
Suri’s voice calling my name into a storm that never answered.
I tried to run but my ankle gave out, and I fell into silver water that was cold enough to steal my breath.
Selraya’s hand as pale as moonstone reached down, and her fingers brushed my forehead. Warmth surged from the top of my head down to the tips of my toes.
“Wake.” The word cracked like thunder. “It is time.”
My eyes flew open. I bolted upright with a gasp, heart hammering, palms slick with sweat despite the cold. Moonlight still poured onto the dais. The statue of the goddess loomed above me, serene and merciless, and the wolf at her feet stared at me.
For a heartbeat, I couldn’t remember where I was. Then howls vibrated in the distance, and reality slammed back into me.
Just outside the Lupherium’s sanctuary, somewhere beyond pale arches and sacred law, the Hunt still raged.
Then Selraya’s soft, melodic voice filled my mind. It is time, Calista Vale.
My hand went to my throat as the terrible images surged to the forefront of my mind. No… it couldn’t be. It had been a dream, that was all. A bad one.
A low, distant horn sounded on the wind, ripping my thoughts to the present.
Icy fear clawed across my chest.
My time was up.