The Unforgiving Moon

1.

Moons know how I made it back alive to Rahas, but I did.

Moons know how long Aven had still lived, before falling to his merciless end at Beckett's hands.

Moons know how many Fire Moon wolves Lotta had taken down with her, when she vanished into that alley and never made it out.

Moons know whatever wolf had brought down Feytan, blessed by Ayatti.

Moons know all, but share nothing in that endless silver glow. Moons see all, but show us nothing in the echoes of the night. They leave us grasping at dry ends—choking, trembling, paralyzed, and all alone.

Our Moons do not bless us. Our Moons do not curse us. They simply do not care. They care about nothing and no one. Maybe they are not real.

How could they be? How could they be real, yet so cruel to their Creation? How could they be so vicious, sending us all to our dooms?

Why would they create us, only to let us end it all?

Maybe our Moons do not know. Maybe they are blind to this, to us. Maybe in that silver glow, there is only room for good, and not for this death and destruction and war and dishonor.

Maybe our Moons do not want to know.

I only wished I had that luxury. But I knew.

I knew Lotta and Vince were dead. I knew Feytan was dead. I knew Aven was dead. I knew so many, many more lives were lost.

And I also knew it was because of me. Because of him. Because of them.

The image of them together, still never failed to make my stomach churn. It haunted me while I was awake, and it plagued my dreams, too.

I was sleeping alone again. I was sleeping alone, because he betrayed us. Me.

He had cost this pack so incredibly much. He had ruined us. He had ruined us all. He had ruined me as well, in every way possible.

Sometimes, the only reminder my heart was still beating, was the sharp pain I felt whenever I thought of him. When I missed Lotta's laughter, when I couldn't hear Vince's drunken brambles, when my muscles ached to train.

When I walked into the dining hall, to be greeted by brown eyes, instead of the silver ones. To have a wrinkled face stare at me with a grey head, instead of that night-black terror that chilled me to my core.

I missed them all. I missed them terribly. I missed my life as it had been, and as it could be.

I missed me.

But I had died, too.

Spitta had sunken its teeth in me once again, had injected me with its poisonous truths, and was now still shredding me apart. Every day I felt it—they were all dead because of me. They had died because I could have, should have saved them.

I should have been the one to know. I should have seen it. I shouldn't have trusted him—none of us should have.

But he had played his game, and he had played it well.

Upon our return, at first, no one believed that Jerr had been the one to betray us. All blame fell on me—though I did not disagree. I had played my role in it, as well.

The truth soon became clear, when Jerr did not come back and some survivors kept insisting on the truth of what had happened.

Though their acceptance of Jerr's betrayal didn't lead to the end of mine.

I was alone here, more than ever. More alone than I had been in Spitta. More alone than I had ever been, and ever would be.

I had absolutely no one—I was a curse of Death. Everyone steered clear of me, because everyone who got close, somehow ended up dead. Dead, at the hands of Agni.

I started believing that Beckett had been right in a way; our Moon had cursed me twenty-two years ago. Beckett just hadn't realized he had utterly misunderstood the curse; I would not bring him to his end—I would bring ends to him.

I looked up at our Moon, and I no longer felt that consolation that had kept me upright all those years. I felt damnation, mockery, taunting, isolation. And I felt that our Moon felt nothing; she felt nothing, she knew nothing, she showed nothing, she was nothing. She was but a figure in the sky, lighting the darkness of the night.

She was merely something we had made up. An imaginative goddess shaped by our fermentations—because how easy is it to conquer everyone, when you have the Goddesses of our creation on your side?

It had just been a smart wolf all those Moons ago—one who knew how feeble we were to believe in them, to believe that silver glow was something more than just that. We had all been fooled; blind to the truth though it shined upon us every night.

But they had to exist—if they didn't, who had cursed me? And who had blessed so many others?

Lotta had even been blessed by two Moons—they had to be real.

But how could they be? How could any of this be real, how could any of this have happened?

How could they all be dead? Just... gone, forever. I'd never see them again, I'd never smell them, touch them, laugh with them.

I even missed Aven. At his very end, he had accepted me. He had seen me for who I was—he had saved me, once again.

Run, he had told me, when Beckett lay on the ground and my heart stopped beating when I realized who stood in front of me, who was in that room.

Run, he had ordered, in a short breath that was filled with blood and groans.

And that is what I had done. I had run. I had run, and run, and run, until I had found my way out of that dreaded town.

I had run past alleys, covered in mud and blood. I had passed nothing but death, and still, the battle grew. No one seemed to notice their Alpha had been taken—no one yet realized what Jerr had done.

The realization soon came, when my paws hit the forest ground and started running to salvation. Soon, I was surrounded by pained howls and screams, and the smell of blood and hunger haunted me.

We were only few to reach Rahas safely. From what I had gathered afterward, it seemed that Strong Moon had sent reinforcements that unfairly turned the tides of the war, and had reached us before Cailean or Dell's troops had arrived. The battle had gravely been underestimated—the calculations had been completely wrong. Aven had gambled his attack on Spitta without waiting for our allies, so Beckett couldn't wait for his either.

Or had it been Jerr, planting the seeds he needed to play his game?

Our people were forced to run, to flee with their tails in between their legs. Some had tried to bring back the wounded men and women with them, but they were slowed too much and soon also perished under the forces of Agni and Ayatti.

The pack quickly realized the night-black wolf wasn't there with them; that their Alpha had been left behind. They first blamed themselves, until the stories came out about Jerr and Aven entering the Central Building, and Jerr doing other things, and all the pieces fell together.

I was blamed—all they knew was that I had disappeared with Jerr for four Moons before he betrayed us.

I was to blame, too. Not in the way they aimed it at me, but I had played my part.

This time, I deserved the treatment my pack was giving me. This time, I had no one to thank for it but myself.

Moons know how I made it out.

But Moons also know how I didn't.