The next evening, Gareth waited at the bottom of the stone staircase in the pack hall. His hand stretched out, as he always did, expecting me to take it. But I didn’t.
For the first time in three years, I walked past him without a word. Gareth froze for a moment, surprise flickering in his sharp wolfish eyes, then quickly regained his calm, predator’s mask. He followed me in silence, sitting across from me in the carriage like a stranger I had never known.
Tonight was mine. It was the ceremony to celebrate my mother as the late Luna of the Silverfang Pack. I celebrated it by showing my hobby, knitting gowns. Six gowns I had spent years preparing.
Each stitch carried a memory of pain, of love lost, of a mother who had died broken.
The collection was my message to the world. It was a message no one could ignore. To the eight-year-old girl who watched her mother give up life while the pack ignored her cries.
One by one, the gowns appeared under the full moon’s silver light. The Ariadne gown was a soft pink, echoing my mother’s young love for my father. The Descent gown was shaped like a trapped bird, the moment she realized he had married her for power.