The Twelfth Moon || ✔️

4. Farewell

The night had consumed me completely. I stayed in my house the entire day that followed, not ready to face the outside world. My stomach gnarled at me again, empty. But I couldn't care about my hunger, I couldn't bring myself to look for food.

My hand had started healing, but it had a long way to go still. The wounds on my last finger had started to close already, but through the gaping flesh, I could still see bits of the bone I'd put back into place mere hours ago. I still felt the pain pulsing in each of my fingers, in the back of my hand. I deigned to think about how many bones in the entirety of my hand had been broken or shattered. The swelling had made some of my fingers double in size, and with each movement I tried to make, however small, a shooting pain passed through my hand, rushing through my arm.

I could not go out with my hand like this, not when it was too painful to be hidden or concealed. People would see the horrors that had happened to me, Benjamin would see. But more importantly, they would see how quickly it would heal--way quicker than it was supposed to. And that would lead to questions that weren't allowed to be asked. Or answered. So I stayed inside, away from curious eyes.

I thought I'd need about a week for my hand to be fully healed, but I did not have that time. My Ascension was now only one full night away; tomorrow I'd have to arrive at the Castle in the Middle.

I remembered the stories father had told me about the Middle and about the Castle that graced it; our Holy Grounds. Rumored to be the very place where our Moon blessed the first Moon Wolf. It was a place of peace and worship, of calmness and serenity. No Alpha of the eleven packs would ever have the powers to rule over it, to claim those lands as their own. The Castle had once belonged to the Moon Wolf, but now only priests and priestesses reside there, honoring our Moons and keeping their sacrifices alive. 

But only wolves who were blessed with the powers of our Moons could become priests or priestesses, leaving me out of the equation. My only salvation for leaving Fire Moon would be to join another pack. 

Every five years, the priests in the Castle would host the Ascension there, symbolizing the freedom and peace of our people. The Middle, however, was now the only place in the entire land where all the packs were at peace.

Or at least where they were forced to be. No one dared disrespect our Moons by soiling our holy lands. No one dared entice their wrath.

I had only heard stories of it, descriptions of the Castle's beauty. I had never been there, and I had no idea how to get there. I was once again dependent on Beckett to come to get me when it was time. Usually, I would have hated this dependency, I would have hated it with every fiber of my being.

But today, everything was numb. I didn't hate, I didn't care. I didn't feel, other than the pain coming from my hand. And even that pain felt numb, as if it wasn't really present. But I quickly realized it was me who wasn't present. I was here, but I wasn't. I had no sense of time, of my own body.

I wasn't sure how much time had passed when I was brought back into the present, when my thoughts were disturbed by a firm knock on the door, followed by a concerned voice. "Sari, are you there?"

Benjamin. What was he doing here? In all my life, he had only come here once or twice, not risking being seen in my house. My visits to The Dancing Wolf were tolerated by Beckett, but Benjamin coming to my house posed a whole new risk. 

As I opened the door, I wasn't greeted with his usual warm smile. Today, he wore a face of concern. He didn't wait for me to invite him in; he came in as soon as I opened the door, not risking standing in the public outdoors of my street for a moment longer than required.

"I'm sorry I didn't come sooner, the bar got busy and I couldn't leave. Are you okay, Sari?" I wasn't able to talk, feeling new tears and sobs starting to form. Words were too much. Benjamin looked me up and down when he continued, "Word floated around the streets that you were running crying yesterday, you came from the direction of the Central-"