The morning air is crisp, biting at my skin even through the thick coat I wear, but I barely feel it.
My jaw is locked, teeth clenched so tight I can feel the tension pulsing in my temples. I haven’t slept. Not a second. Not since the incident in the kitchen, not since the wound on my hand vanishes like it has never existed. Not since the impossible becomes real.
I have to know what is happening to my daughter. My daughter.
She is wrapped against my chest, swaddled tightly in a thick woolen blanket, her soft, rhythmic breaths brushing against the crook of my neck. Warm. Innocent. Blissfully unaware of the storm she has stirred inside me.
Every few seconds, I glance down, just to make sure she is still there. Still safe. Her little nose wrinkles now and then, and her lips twitch in dreams. Even asleep, she clings to me like I am the only thing tethering her to this world.
The cottage is still the same. Modest, ivy clinging to its sides, with herbs dangling from the eaves and strange wind chimes made from bones and feathers clicking softly in the breeze. A place older than it looks, humming with an energy that hasn’t aged.
I raise a hand to knock, but before my knuckles meet wood, the door creaks open.
She stands there in the threshold, timeless as ever. Hair streaked with silver, dark eyes sharper than glass. My mother, regal in a simple gown of deep green, the kind that flows like leaves caught in wind. She looks at me for a long moment, then offers a faint, knowing smile.
“You came sooner than I expected,” she says, stepping aside.
“I didn’t come for tea,” I mutter.
Her smile doesn’t falter, but there is something heavy in the way her eyes move to the child strapped to my chest. “No, I suppose you didn’t.”
I step inside, the air inside her home warm and laced with something earthy—burning sage, maybe. Or rosemary. Familiar smells that make something old in me ache. I sit down heavily on the wooden stool near the hearth, every bone in my body screaming from the exhaustion I’ve been ignoring for far too long.
My mother doesn’t speak right away. She kneels down in front of me, eyes fixed on Elara.
“She’s beautiful,” she says softly.
“She’s powerful,” I correct, barely above a whisper. “Too powerful. I don’t understand it.”
“She shouldn’t be able to do what she did,” I continue, my voice hoarse. “You remember what happened when I lost my wolf. I haven’t healed like that in years. And then, one moment with her and it’s like—like the Moon favored me again.”
My mother’s expression softens. She reaches out. “May I?”
It isn’t mistrust, not exactly. It’s the feeling that if I give Elara over to anyone else, even my own mother, the world might tear apart. But then I look at her eyes. Calm. Steady. And I remember she held me when I was small, just as fiercely.
She lifts the child gently, whispering words in the old tongue. Elara stirs in her arms, blinks, then giggles. Just like that.
“She likes you,” I say dryly.
“She knows me,” my mother replies. “She knew me before she met me.”
That sends a shiver through me.
I rub my hands together, palms slick with sweat. “Well?” I ask. “Is she… normal?”
She raises an eyebrow. “Lucian. She is more than normal. She’s remarkable.”
I let out a breath, though it doesn’t ease the pressure building in my chest.
She begins to sway, gently rocking Elara back and forth. The room dims as if the very air shifts in recognition. She murmurs again in the old tongue, voice lilting like wind weaving through trees. The hairs on the back of my neck rise. Something moves in the space between us—power, raw and unseen, pressing at the edges of the room.
And then Elara begins to glow.
I shoot to my feet, heart slamming against my ribs.
“What is she?” I demand. “What the hell is that?”
Elara is still laughing, tugging gently at my mother’s silver-streaked hair, unbothered by the fact that she is radiating something ancient and unknown.
My mother’s eyes darken, her expression unreadable. “She is the prophecy.”
The words hit me like a hammer. I take a step forward, my voice low and sharp. “What prophecy?”
But she doesn’t answer that. Instead, her gaze drops to the infant in her arms, and for the first time, I see something else in her expression.
“She will be hunted,” she whispers.
I don’t even realize I’ve crossed the space until my hands are on my daughter again. She hands her back without resistance. Elara curls instinctively into my chest, the glow around her slowly fading.
She shakes her head. “I don’t know. Not yet. But there are forces that watch the threads of fate. And when something this rare is born… something that’s never been seen before… they move.”
Her voice falters. Her shoulders, always held with pride, slump a little.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask. “You knew. You had to know.”
She looks up at me, eyes now rimmed with something suspiciously like sorrow. “I did.”
The words hang there, heavy.
In my arms, Elara begins to cry, not loudly, but a soft, shuddering wail that breaks something open inside me. Her glow is gone, but the air still trembles with whatever she’s left behind.
My mother touches her cheek. “She felt my fear.”
I swallow hard, my throat raw. “So what do I do now?”
My mother is quiet for a moment. Then she leans forward and presses a kiss to Elara’s forehead. “You do what every father must do. You fight. You protect. And you never, ever let the world touch her before she’s ready.”
I nod slowly, holding my daughter tighter.
Even if I have to burn the world down… I will keep her safe.
