After a while Emma decide to move, but the forest didn't let her go.
The ground changed beneath her feet—soft moss became slick mud, roots curled like veins. Tree trunks began to pulse slightly, as if alive, as if breathing.
She heard laughter.
Celeste. It was her voice, that venomous laughter.
"Oh, darling, you think you're special just because he touched you?"
Emma's hands clenched.
"I'm not here for him," she spat to no one, to the forest.
The silence wasn't empty—it was listening.
Emma felt it first as a chill across the back of her neck. Then came the whispers, slipping through the trees like wind—but no wind stirred the leaves.
Not anymore.
"Emma Duskborne."
The name slithered through the fog, clear and deliberate.
Then again, closer.
"Emma Clarisse Duskborne."
She froze.
No one knew that name. Not the full one. Not even Sebastian. The middle name her mother hissed only when furious… the one carved into the back of an old birth certificate long burned.
Emma turned slowly.
The trees had changed.
Their bark twisted and groaned, warped with grain that pulsed like veins beneath skin. When she blinked, faces emerged—vague, warped, sorrowful. Eyeless but not blind. Watching.
The fog curled up her arms like fingers brushing her skin.
"Stop it," she whispered, voice shaking.
"Why?" the trees seemed to ask, in a hundred creaking breaths.
"We remember you."
The forest darkened. The ground beneath her feet softened—moss turning to ash. She stumbled, catching herself on the side of a tree that felt… warm. Too warm.
She looked.
There, in the bark—a face. Her own, much younger. Eyes wide and terrified.
Then came the voice.
Clear. Cold. Familiar.
"Emma."
She turned—and the fog shaped her mother's form from shadow and smoke.
Tall. Regal. Hair in that same tight braid she always wore when angry. The sharp line of her cheekbones, the thin mouth never softened by a smile.
"Mama?" Emma choked.
The figure didn't smile.
"You were not born to be loved."
The words hit like a slap.
Fog thickened around Emma's chest, pressing into her lungs, weighing her down.
"No…" she shook her head.
The figure stepped closer. Her mother's scent—lavender and cold steel—clung to the fog like perfume.
"You ruined me," the figure said. "I gave up everything. And for what? A child with no wolf. No power. Nothing but a cursed name."
Emma backed away. "You're not her. She's dead—"
"She lives in you," the voice snapped. "In every doubt you taste. In every time you flinch from kindness. I made you. I warned you. You were never meant to be normal. I kept you from others so they wouldn't see what I saw."
A memory burst forward—too vivid to fight.
She's ten. Pressed against the window glass, watching the neighbor's children laugh in the yard. The sunlit air is filled with giggles and chasing feet.
She lifts her hand, waves once.
Then the yank—her mother's hand pulling her away roughly.
"No more staring out like a little mutt!" her mother snarled. "You think they'd want you around their children if they knew what you are?"
"I just wanted to play—" she'd cried.
"You were born cursed. I only kept you so no one else would suffer."
The memory snapped like a rubber band.
Emma staggered, choking on air that no longer felt like air. Her scream rose in her throat—but nothing came out.
The forest had stolen her voice.
The mother-figure circled her now. "You're still that girl. Still looking out the window. Pretending someone will come save you. That you can be loved."
Emma dropped to her knees.
Hands clutched at her chest. Her heart thudded like it wanted out.
"I'm not…" she gasped. "I'm not her anymore."
"Then why do you still carry her shame?" the voice asked. "Why do you still flinch when someone touches you too gently?"
The fog closed in. It was inside her ears, her head, her veins.
And the trees whispered again:
"You were never meant to be Luna. You were meant to be alone."
Emma curled in on herself, tears burning hot down her face.
But then—something else stirred.
A memory.
Small.
Faint.
Her own hand, years ago, touching the edge of a drawing she made.
Two wolves under a full moon. One silver. One black. She'd hidden it under her bed so her mother wouldn't tear it up.
She had dreams.
She always had.
Even when the world told her she didn't deserve them.
She opened her eyes.
The fog was still there.
But the voices had stopped.
The trees were silent. And her mother's shadow… gone.
Only the ache remained.
But it was hers. And she was still standing.
The Wolves in the Trees
The fog thinned just enough for breath to return.
Emma wiped her face with the back of her hand, her palm trembling as if her bones remembered the weight of her mother's voice.
But then—something shifted in the air.
The wind stopped completely.
Branches overhead creaked—not from movement, but from presence.
And then she saw them.
Dozens of eyes opened in the dark.
Golden. Blue. Silver. Piercing.
Wolves. All around her.
Silent. Spectral.
They stood between the trees, not quite touching the fog—as if it recoiled from them. Massive forms, their fur brushing bark without sound. They made no move to approach.
They only watched.
Judging? Protecting? She couldn't tell.
Then, from the fog to her left, stepped the silver wolf.
The one from the garden.
Its presence silenced everything else—like the forest itself bent around its weight.
It didn't growl.
It didn't lower its head this time.
It simply walked up beside her—its shoulder nearly level with hers—and paused. Their eyes met.
In that moment, something passed between them. Not words. Not thoughts.
Recognition.
A question unspoken.
Are you still you?
Emma's throat tightened, but she managed to breathe. She didn't nod. She didn't break eye contact.
She simply stepped forward.
And the wolf walked beside her—matching her steps, slow and deliberate. Together, they crossed a bend in the path where the fog parted—just for a heartbeat—before swallowing the trail again.
And then… it was gone.
No howl. No goodbye.
Just absence.
But Emma felt it in her bones—something had marked her. Something older than the packs, deeper than blood.
She was not alone.
Not anymore. Maybe because no one knows what this ground hold and what happened just now was a trap or reality but that wolf has somwthing in his eyes and that something gave her hope.