Chapter 15 Toward the Moon Pool
Dawn came too soon.
Tria stood at the edge of Ironwood’s eastern path with one hand low over her stomach and the other curled around the food bundle Doctor Wervin had shoved at her.
“Eat before you pretend not to be hungry,” Wervin said.
“Is that a medical order?”
“It is a warning.”
A fragile smile touched Tria’s mouth.
Wervin’s eyes narrowed. “Do not look pleased. I have packed enough ginger, feverleaf, and emergency bandages to shame an army.”
Across the path, Ravin paused.
He had heard.
For one brief second, his mouth almost curved.
Then his gaze dropped to Tria’s hand over her stomach, and the almost-smile vanished into something quieter.
Concern.
Restraint.
He stood a few paces away with the escort gathered behind him, calm beneath his dark cloak, his wolf watching everything.
The trees.
The road.
Her.
Tria looked away before the steadiness of him made her want to lean.
Wanting was dangerous.
He did not come closer until she looked at him.
“Ready?” he asked.
No command.
No pressure.
Just the question.
Tria inhaled. The air snagged on the bare place at her throat where Delvan’s necklace no longer rested.
Her skin still felt too exposed.
But lighter.
She tightened her grip on the food bundle. “Ready.”
The mare Wervin had chosen was small, patient, and apparently more trustworthy than most wolves. Tria mounted with help she hated needing and pretended not to notice that Ravin stepped close only long enough to steady the saddle before moving back.
They left Ironwood in a narrow line.
Two warriors ahead.
The old elder behind them.
Wervin beside Tria’s horse.
Ravin slightly to the left, close enough to reach her if she slipped, far enough not to make her feel guarded like a prisoner.
At the last turn, Tria looked back.
Ironwood stood quiet beneath pale morning. Smoke lifted from roofs. Children clustered near the well. Nessa waved both hands over her head until Wervin muttered that children had no sense of stealth.
Tria lifted her hand once.
Then the trees swallowed the village.
For a while, the land belonged to Ironwood.
Dark trunks. Mossy stones. Clean water running over black rock. Ravin’s pack scent lay steady beneath everything, like roots under earth.
Then the forest changed.
Not all at once.
A thinner stand of pine.
A familiar bend in the ridge.
A breeze carrying resin, cold rain, and old ash.
Tria’s stomach tightened.
Silvercrest.
Her wolf went utterly still.
She had known this would happen. The Moon Pool could not be reached without brushing the edges of the land she had fled.
Knowing did not stop the scent from hurting.
Silvercrest pine slid into her lungs like a memory sharpened into a blade.
Twelve, racing Delvan down a deer trail with mud up her calves.
Sixteen, hiding honey cakes in her sleeve after a kitchen raid.
Luna, walking these paths with patrol reports in one hand and winter supply notes in the other.
Exile, running blind through the dark while blood marked her paws.
Her fingers tightened around the saddle.
The mare shifted.
Ravin’s hand lifted.
Not touching.
Ready.
Tria forced her grip to loosen. “I am fine.”
Wervin snorted.
Ravin said nothing.
His silence let her keep the lie without agreeing to it.
By midmorning, Tria could not bear the saddle.
“I need to walk.”
Wervin turned on her. “No.”
“My legs are stiff.”
“Your legs are pregnant.”
“That is not how legs work.”
“It is how your legs work while I am in charge of them.”
Tria looked at Ravin.
He had the audacity to look thoughtful.
“If she walks,” Ravin said, “we slow the pace.”
Wervin glared. “Do not encourage her.”
“She knows her body.”
“She abused her body across half a forest.”
Tria’s cheeks warmed.
Ravin’s gaze stayed on her face. “A short walk. Then she rides.”
Wervin muttered something about Alphas and stubborn women deserving each other, but she allowed it.
Ravin helped Tria dismount.
His hands closed briefly around her waist.
Warm.
Strong.
Careful.
The babies fluttered beneath her ribs.
Tria’s breath caught.
Ravin released her immediately. “Pain?”
“No.”
His eyes searched hers.
“No,” she said softer. “Just them.”
His gaze dropped for one heartbeat to her stomach.
Wonder crossed his face so quickly it almost seemed private.
Then he looked away first, as if even witnessing that joy required permission.
Tria’s throat tightened.
She began walking before either of them could say anything that would make the moment harder to survive.
The path narrowed.
Silvercrest markers began appearing in the trees.
Old patrol cuts. Three slashes angled into bark. A flat stone half-buried beneath fern. A strip of faded red cloth tied high where only shifted wolves would catch its scent.
Tria knew every sign.
She had helped update them.
The bond pulsed.
A warning.
A pull.
A grief.
She pressed one hand to her chest.
Wervin saw. “How bad?”
“Manageable.”
“Do not lie to your healer.”
“Then do not ask questions with answers you already know.”
Wervin’s mouth tightened, but she let it pass.
Ravin lifted one hand.
The escort stopped instantly.
Tria froze.
The forest had gone too quiet.
No birds.
No small paws in leaves.
Only wind threading through pine needles.
Then a voice called from ahead.
“Step clear and name yourselves.”
Silvercrest.
Three wolves emerged from the trees in human form, bows lowered but ready. Silvercrest leather. Silvercrest blades. Silvercrest scent.
Tria’s heart kicked hard enough to hurt.
She knew them.
Not well.
Enough.
One had been a boy with a broken wrist years ago, crying because he thought warriors did not cry. Tria had wrapped his arm herself and told him pain made no wolf less brave.
Now he stared at her as if the forest had returned a ghost.
“Luna?”
The whisper came from the youngest warrior.
His eyes dropped to her travel cloak, then to her hand over the slight curve of her stomach.
Shock widened them.
The patrol leader inhaled.
His entire body went still.
Pregnancy had a scent among wolves.
Even hidden beneath herbs. Even wrapped in Ironwood air.
Tria felt Ravin shift beside her.
Not forward.
Not unless she needed him.
But his Alpha presence deepened, quiet and ready.
The Silvercrest warriors felt it. Their shoulders tightened.
Tria lifted her chin. “Not anymore.”
The words hurt less than they once would have.
Perhaps because her throat was bare now.
Perhaps because Ironwood children had tied charms for her babies.
Perhaps because Ravin stood beside her and did not speak over her.
The young warrior’s face crumpled.
The patrol leader lowered his bow.
Then, slowly, he sank to one knee.
“To him, maybe,” he said.
The forest seemed to stop breathing.
Tria stared at him.
The other two warriors followed.
One knee to the damp earth.
Heads bowed.
Not to Ravin.
Not to Ironwood.
To her.
Pain rushed up behind Tria’s eyes.
“You cannot do that,” she whispered.
The leader lifted his head. “We can.”
“If Delvan hears—”
“Then he hears we honored the woman who held our pack through winters he never noticed.”
Her breath broke.
Wervin moved closer, sharp-eyed, but Tria lifted a hand to stop her.
The leader’s gaze flicked to Tria’s stomach again.
Not greed.
Not calculation.
Grief.
“Does he know?”
“No.”
The answer came before she could soften it.
The youngest warrior shut his eyes.
The leader’s jaw tightened. “Then we did not see you.”
Ravin spoke at last. “Your Alpha sent scouts.”
The leader looked at him.
Respectful. Wary. Afraid, but not for himself.
“I know.”
“You risk punishment.”
“The Moon Pool belongs to the Goddess before it belongs to any Alpha,” the leader said. “Silvercrest guards it. We do not own it.”
Tria pressed a trembling hand to her stomach.
The leader stood. “Take the north hollow after the split cedar. Avoid the lower ravine. Blackridge scent has been crossing there.”
Ravin’s eyes sharpened. “How recent?”
“Two nights.”
One of Ironwood’s warriors cursed softly.
The patrol leader looked back at Tria. “Go quickly.”
“I cannot ask you to hide this.”
“You did not ask.”
The kindness nearly undid her.
So did the old loyalty.
So did the fact that Silvercrest could still wound her and shelter her in the same breath.
“Thank you,” she said.
The young warrior swallowed hard. “Luna—”
Tria’s chest tightened.
He stopped himself.
Then he bowed his head. “Be safe.”
Not come home.
Not forgive him.
Just be safe.
Tria nodded because her voice would not hold.
They moved past the patrol in silence.
Only when the Silvercrest scents faded did she realize Ravin had kept himself between her and the lower ravine the entire time.
Not obviously.
Simply there.
Her legs began to shake.
This time, she did not argue when Wervin ordered her back onto the mare.
The forest climbed.
The air thinned.
Silvercrest pine grew thicker, older, sacred. Stones appeared along the path, carved with crescent moons and worn smooth by generations of praying hands.
The bond began to burn.
At first, a thread of heat beneath her ribs.
Then a hook.
Then a blade.
Tria bent forward in the saddle, one hand gripping the pommel and the other pressed hard to her stomach.
“Tria,” Ravin said.
She could not answer.
The trees parted ahead.
Silver light shimmered through the pines.
The Moon Pool.
The bond pain became unbearable.
And Tria screamed.