The stone boundary rose from the mist, as rough and unmoving as the memory of my exile. I kept to its shadow, heart pounding a quick, traitorous rhythm. My palm burned with an old ache—the moon-mark that cost me a home. I pressed it against the cold stone, as if I could bargain back a life. Not tonight, I reminded myself. Tonight was for my missing brother. I’d promised I’d never return, but blood debts have their own gravity.
A copper tang cut through the wet fog. I straightened. Movement—shifting shadows, a muffled footfall. My mark flared, sudden and sharp, and I hissed under my breath. Someone else was close. The old stories flitted at the edge of my thoughts: trespassers, moon-mad, the border never empty for long.
From the pale gloom, a figure staggered into view. Clothes torn, one arm wrapped around their ribs, the other hand dripping red onto the frostbitten ground. Dark hair plastered to a familiar face.
I knew them. Everyone in the valley did, even if I’d never spoken a word: Lira, the rival clan’s heir. Their gaze fixed on me, wary and wild.
A strange, silvery light threaded through the fog, casting both of us in uneasy brilliance. My mark, half-moon shaped and pulsing, answered an identical burn on Lira’s wrist, only hers was the missing half. Together, they’d form a whole.
My throat dried. A soundless plea hung in her eyes, threaded with something fiercer—a warning, or a challenge. Every tale I’d ever learned told me to run, to treat this as the omen it was. But I was already past the point of no return.
Behind her, footsteps thundered in the fog—more than one. Lira lurched closer, blood trailing behind. "Help me," she whispered, voice hoarse with pain but edged in command. "Please."
My mark burned as the footsteps closed in. I could see shadowy shapes taking form in the mist, and I realized my next move would decide more than just my own fate.