Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Zane
Pain was the only thing I could feel.
It started from that damn wound in my chest and spread like tree roots through every inch of me. With each breath, those roots dug deeper. I felt the blood leaving my body—warm, sticky, reeking of rust—trickling down my ribs and pooling beneath me.
I lay on the damp moss at the bottom of the cave. Above, the opening we'd fallen through looked distant as another planet. Moonlight leaked down, cutting a pale blade through the darkness.
Mia knelt beside me, fingers pressed against my chest wound, trying to stop the bleeding. I felt her hands trembling—not ordinary trembling, but the kind when you're fighting for control and your body won't cooperate.
"Zane," she said, voice hoarse but clear. "Don't sleep. You hear me? Don't sleep."
I wanted to say "sure, no problem, whatever you say," but my lips wouldn't obey. They felt leaden, impossible to lift. After struggling, all I managed was a muffled sound like a drowning man's last breath.
The feeling was familiar. Five years ago in Moon Valley, I'd opened my mouth like this too, unable to make any sound. Except back then, I'd only lost the ability to howl. Now—I might be losing everything.
"Zane!"
Her voice sharpened with an edge I'd never heard from her before. That edge pierced through my sinking consciousness like a needle, dragging me up slightly.
I forced my eyes open. Her face hovered above mine, backlit by moonlight, silhouetted in silver. Her hair fell around us, creating a private space that belonged only to us.
"Don't you dare die on me here," she said, each word squeezed through clenched teeth. "You hear me? You owe me too much to die. You haven't seen Lily grow up. You haven't—"
She stopped, drew a deep breath like she was suppressing something.
"You haven't made it up to me."
I wanted to laugh. Really. Because when she said "made it up," she sounded like she was discussing an investment she wasn't sure she'd recoup. But my mouth only twitched, probably looking more like a grimace.
"Mia..." I started, voice rough as sandpaper on wood. Each word required all my strength, like drawing water from a dry well. "I—"
"Don't talk," she cut me off, voice commanding. "Save your strength."
"No," I said, stubborn as a mule. "Let me speak. I'm afraid—there won't be another chance."
Her expression cracked for an instant—tiny fractures, barely noticeable, but I saw them. Her eyes reddened, but she didn't let the tears fall. She just bit her lip until it went white, then nodded.
"My whole life," I said, voice breaking up like a radio with bad reception, "I've made a lot of mistakes. The biggest—was not believing you."
She didn't speak. But her fingers pressed tighter against my wound, as if saying, I hear you.
"Those songs you wrote," I continued, each word like pulling nails from my throat, "those lyrics—I should've known the first time I read them. That feeling—that soul-struck feeling—only you could give me that. Not Leah. Never her."
"Zane—"
"Let me finish," I interrupted, feeling my consciousness blur from the edges like someone shutting off lights in my brain from the outside in. "I'm afraid if I don't finish now, I'll never get the chance."
I drew a deep breath. My lungs burned.
"I have regrets. Every day, every night, every minute. Regret not believing you, regret putting you on that path, regret not discovering Lily was my daughter sooner—" I paused, gasping for air. "Regret missing the moment she was born, her first smile, her first steps, the first time she said mama—"
My voice finally trembled.
"I missed too much. Too much."
Something warm dropped on my face. Not my blood. Her tears.
She was crying. That woman who never showed weakness in front of me, who wouldn't shed a tear even when pushed to the edge—she was crying. Tears fell silently, landing on my face, mixing with my blood until I couldn't tell which was hers and which was mine.
"So you can't die," she said, voice hoarse but firm. "You owe me, and you have to live to pay it back. You owe Lily, and you have to live to pay it back. You hear me?"
I looked at her. At her stubborn, undefeated eyes. At the tear tracks on her face. At her fingers covered in my blood.
I wanted to say I heard. Wanted to say I'd try. Wanted to say I'm sorry.
But my eyelids were too heavy. Like someone was stacking lead weights on them, one after another, heavier and heavier. Darkness crept inward from the edges of my vision like a slow but unstoppable tide.
"Zane!" Her voice grew distant, like it was behind thick glass. "Zane! Don't sleep!"
I heard her. But I couldn't respond.
Then—
I heard a sound.
Sharp. Like stones striking together. Once, twice, three times—rhythmic, like some ancient beat.
The sound pierced the darkness, pierced the pain, pierced the consciousness swallowing me, driving like a thin needle into some sleeping region deep in my brain.
I forced my eyes open.
Mia sat beside me, holding several different-shaped stones. She was striking them together, creating clear, varying pitches—like a crude xylophone made of stone. Her movements were focused, brow slightly furrowed, like she was searching for a specific tone and rhythm.
Then she began.
No lyrics. Just a low, humming melody. But that melody—
I knew it.
That song. The one she'd written, that Leah had stolen half of, that had been sung in the square. The song about chains and freedom. The song that made my soul resonate, made me think I'd found my soulmate, made me sick with pain when I learned the truth.
But now, sung from her lips, complete, uncut, unchanged—
It felt completely different.
Not Leah's sweet, polished, carefully packaged voice. Mia's voice had a raw authenticity, like sandpapered wood—textured, warm, scarred. Every note wasn't perfect, but they were alive. They breathed, trembled, bled.
That feeling—I didn't know how to describe it. Like someone lit a lamp in my chest. Not a blinding, dazzling spotlight, but a small, warm oil lamp with a flickering flame, light faint but steady, slowly driving away the darkness occupying my body.
The pain didn't vanish. But it became—bearable. Like someone had turned down the volume from "deafening" to "just a bit loud."
My breathing steadied. My heartbeat found its rhythm. The consciousness that had been extinguishing from the edges—someone had thrown in another piece of wood, reigniting a spark.
I watched Mia. Eyes closed, completely immersed in the song. Moonlight lit her face, coating her in silver-white radiance. She didn't look like a singer, not like a star, not like Vela on stage bathed in glory.
She looked like a moon goddess.
Not the distant, cold goddess from myths. But a goddess who bled, who cried, who knelt in a damp cave striking stones for an unworthy man.
A goddess I didn't deserve.
Her voice echoed through the cave, bouncing off rock walls, creating a strange reverb. Those notes collided, wove together, merged in the darkness, like they were weaving an invisible net, wrapping me up, protecting me.
I felt something.
Something was waking inside me. Not my consciousness, not my reason, but something more primitive, more instinctive.
My wolf.
It was moving. Not that agitated, painful thrashing, but a—response. It was responding to her song. Its ears perked up, tail straightened, throat releasing a low, resonant whine.
It was humming along with her melody.
I'd never seen it like this. Never. For five years, it had curled up in me like a corpse, not eating, not moving, refusing to respond to any call. I thought it had died. I thought I'd lost it.
But it wasn't dead.
It was just sleeping. Waiting for a voice to wake it.
And now, that voice had come.
I felt power surge from deep within—not rushing, flood-like power, but slow, steady power, like underground water seeping through rock crevices. It filled the dried riverbeds bit by bit, moistened the cracked earth bit by bit.
I closed my eyes, letting that power flow through me. I felt my bones trembling slightly, muscles regaining tension, blood accelerating.
I drew a deep breath—this time, my lungs didn't burn.
Then I opened my eyes.
Mia had stopped singing. She looked at me with surprise and worry mixed in her expression. She still clutched those stones, knuckles white from gripping.
"You—" she started, voice uncertain. "Your color's better."
I didn't answer. Because my attention was completely focused on something else.
My wolf. It had stood up in my chest. It shook out its fur, lifted its head, pricked its ears, then—
It opened its mouth.
A low sound surging from deep in its throat, like the earth's rumble before an earthquake, like distant thunder before a storm. That sound vibrated through me, making every bone resonate, every inch of skin tingle.
I'd never heard this sound. But I recognized it.
It was the prelude to a howl.
Five years.
I shifted into a wolf.
The process went smoother than expected—bones breaking and reforming didn't sound so harsh, muscles stretching didn't hurt so much. Within seconds, I became a silver-gray wolf standing at the bottom of that damp cave, four paws on moss, tail swaying slowly behind me.
Mia stared at me, eyes wide.
I looked at her, then raised my head.
The cave ceiling was high, so high moonlight barely reached the bottom. But that light—that beam of pale, cold moonlight leaking from the opening—it was there, like a signal that had been waiting five years for me.
I drew a deep breath.
Then I opened my mouth and released my first howl in five years.
When that sound poured from my throat, I barely recognized it as my own.
It wasn't perfect, textbook wolf howl—it was hoarse, trembling, like rusted gears turning again, like a dry riverbed welcoming water again.
But it was real. It was my own voice. Not a substitute, not a fake, not someone else's voice for me.
It was me.
My howl echoed through the cave, bouncing off rock walls, layer upon layer of echoes, like someone lighting a string of firecrackers in the darkness, exploding one after another. That sound pierced rock, pierced earth, pierced forest, spreading toward the night sky.
Then, I heard responses.
Not one. Not two. But a whole chorus.
Wolf howls from the distance, rising and falling.
Like someone lit a match in darkness, then that flame spread rapidly, igniting the entire forest. Those voices wove together—high, low, long, short—converging into a flood, crossing the night sky, crossing the forest, crossing the cave entrance, pouring into my ears.
My pack. They were answering me.
Five years. Five years without hearing their alpha's howl, five years waiting in darkness, five years not knowing if their leader still lived—
They heard.
They were coming.
I stood at the cave bottom, head raised, listening to those approaching howls, feeling my eyes burn. My wolf released a low, satisfied whine inside me, then curled up.
Mia stood beside me, watching. Her face held an expression I'd never seen before.
"You did it," she said softly.
I shifted back to human, standing before her. The chest wound still hurt, but not that fatal pain anymore—it had become a dull ache, like someone repeatedly erasing the same spot with a rubber eraser.
"No," I said, voice hoarse. "You did it."
She looked at me. I looked at her. Moonlight poured from the opening, forming a silver-white beam between us. Dust floated in the beam like countless tiny stars.
Outside the cave, the howling grew closer.
I reached out and touched her fingers.
She didn't pull away.