Lyra's POV:

The forest was a tapestry of shadows and moonlight. I didn't run. I moved between the trees, my feet barely touching the ground as I used the Moon Shadow Step Silas had taught me. One moment I was in the shadow of an ancient oak, the next I was twenty feet away, appearing in the darkness cast by a cluster of pines. It was an old magic, a gift of the Moon Goddess to her children, and it kept me safe.

My senses were sharp, tasting the scents of damp earth and pine needles on the air. Then, another smell cut through the night, sharp and wrong. Blood. The hot, coppery tang of it. The acrid stench of burnt steel. And beneath it all, the bitter scent of fear.

I paused, my silver eyes turning toward the source of the disturbance.

*Trouble,* my inner wolf whispered, a soft presence in my mind. *Go around.*

*The path is that way,* I answered simply, and continued forward.

I emerged from the dense woods onto a dirt road. A large, black car, grand and old-fashioned, was overturned on its side, smoke billowing from its mangled front end. Several werewolves in fine-looking guard uniforms were frantically trying to pry open the crushed passenger door.

A small crowd of pack members had gathered at a safe distance, their whispers carried on the wind.

"It's a Vance family car!"

"Goddess, that's the Luna's sister!"

"Alpha Gideon will lose his mind!"

My gaze locked onto the bent metal door. I could hear a woman's faint, pained moans from inside.

One of the guards, a big man with desperation on his face, put his shoulder into the door and heaved, but it was jammed tight.

A female attendant beside him was sobbing. "Lady Elara! Are you all right?"

The moans from inside grew weaker. The scent of blood grew stronger.

I stepped out from the treeline. My small form immediately drew their attention.

The big guard, Cody, scowled at me. "Get out of here, kid! It's dangerous!"

I ignored him and walked directly to the overturned car.

I reached out my small hand, placing it on the hot, twisted metal of the door.

"Don't touch that!" the female attendant, Faye, gasped, expecting me to be burned.

But a faint, silvery shimmer coated my skin, insulating me from the heat. I closed my eyes, sensing the life fading within the wreckage.

My voice was quiet, but it carried in the tense silence. "Her left arm is broken. Three of her ribs have pierced her lung. In ten minutes, she will die from the bleeding inside."

Cody and Faye stared at me, then at each other, their faces a mask of shock. They knew she had hurt her arm, but they couldn't possibly know the extent of the internal damage.

"What's this, some kind of little curse-sayer?" a voice scoffed from the crowd.

I paid them no mind. My small hand rested on a join in the door frame. I looked at Cody. "Here. Pull here."

He hesitated, his eyes wide with disbelief. But with the woman inside dying, he was out of options. He placed his large hands over the spot I indicated.

He pulled with all his might. A deafening screech of tearing metal filled the air. The door, which hadn't budged an inch before, ripped away from the frame.

Everyone fell silent, staring in stunned disbelief. Cody looked at his own hands as if they belonged to someone else. He didn't know that my power, a whisper of moonlight, had severed the internal locks he couldn't see.

The opening revealed the woman inside. She was pale, unconscious, and bleeding. And in the stunned silence, all eyes turned to the tiny, silver-haired child who had made it possible.

Lyra's POV:

Cody and Faye carefully lifted the unconscious woman, Elara, from the wreckage. They laid her gently on a patch of grass by the side of the road.

Her left arm was twisted at an unnatural angle. A trickle of blood seeped from the corner of her mouth, and each breath she took was a ragged, whistling gasp.

Faye frantically tried to use her mind-link to contact the pack doctor, but her face was tight with panic. The signal was weak here, distorted by the mountains.

"The doctor... he says it's too late..." Faye's voice broke, thick with despair.

A murmur of pity and horror rippled through the crowd. Everyone knew what that meant. The noble lady was going to die right here on this roadside.

I walked over and knelt beside Elara, ignoring the blood that stained her fine clothes.

Cody reached out to stop me. "Don't touch her, child!"

I lifted my head and met his gaze. My silver eyes held the weight of centuries, and the seasoned warrior froze, his hand hovering in mid-air.

My small hand came to rest on Elara's shattered arm.

"Stop!" Faye shrieked. "You'll make it worse!"

I ignored her. A soft, silver light, like liquid moonlight, bloomed from my palm.

As everyone watched in horrified fascination, a series of sickening cracks and pops echoed in the quiet. Elara's twisted arm began to move, the bones shifting and aligning under the silver glow.

The sound of the bones knitting back together was unmistakable. Someone in the crowd gagged, but most were too stunned to make a sound.

In less than ten seconds, her arm was perfectly straight. The skin was smooth and unbroken, without a single scratch to show it had ever been injured.

Faye and Cody stared, their mouths hanging open. This was impossible. Not even the most powerful Healer in their pack could do something like this.

I moved my hand from her arm to her chest, where her life was bleeding away into her lungs.

The silver light intensified, brighter than before.

Elara's body convulsed. She coughed violently, spitting up a mouthful of dark, clotted blood.

Then, her ragged breathing smoothed out, becoming deep and steady. A touch of color returned to her deathly pale cheeks.

Slowly, her eyes fluttered open. They were weak, but clear.

"What... what happened...?" she murmured, looking around in a daze.

Faye burst into tears of joy, throwing herself forward. "My lady! You're alive!"

Every single person was now staring at me. Their expressions were a mixture of awe, fear, and something akin to worship.

I drew my hand back, the light fading. My face felt a little pale from the expenditure of energy.

Elara's gaze found me. She struggled to speak. "Thank you, child... Who are you?"

I looked at her, my expression calm. Then I said the words that made the blood freeze in their veins.

"Your bones are mended, and your lung is whole," I stated, my voice flat. "But you will still die. Your soul is rotting."

Lyra's POV:

The flicker of life that had returned to Elara's face vanished. Her skin went pale again. "Soul... rotting?" she whispered, her voice trembling. "What does that mean?"

Faye and Cody looked completely lost. It was a term they had never heard. In the back of the crowd, an older werewolf gasped, his eyes wide as if he was remembering some dark, forgotten legend.

I extended a small finger and pointed to the center of her chest. "Here. There is a sliver of black energy. It is eating your life force. It is the foul breath of a Rogue."

At the word "Rogue," the faces of the guards hardened. The car crash was no accident. It was an ambush. Rogues, the fallen and corrupt, were known to use dark magics that left cursed wounds no normal Healer could mend.

Fear flooded Elara's eyes, followed by raw desperation. "Can you... can you save me? Please." All her noble pride was gone, replaced by the simple, primal need to live.

I looked at her calmly. "A full cleansing takes time. I have other duties to attend to."

Elara's face fell. Faye rushed to speak. "Whatever you want, the House of Vance and the Crestwood Pack will provide! Gold, power, land—anything!"

I shook my head. Those things meant nothing to me.

"I can give you a mark," I said, my gaze steady on Elara. "It will hold back the darkness for three moons."

Elara nodded without hesitation. "Yes! But where do I find you after? Please, tell me where to go."

I was quiet for a moment. My vision was already beginning to blur at the edges. The healing had drained me more than I wanted to show.

"When the time comes, you will find me," I said. "That is all I can give you."

It was not an answer. Elara opened her mouth to press further, but I was already moving.

I raised my index finger, and a bead of silver light gathered at its tip. In the air just above her chest, I drew a complex, glowing sigil of the crescent moon.

The rune solidified, radiating a holy light that pushed back the shadows and the lingering scent of death.

With a gentle push of my hand, the glowing mark sank into Elara's chest and vanished.

A warm, pure energy flooded her body. She gasped as the feeling of being gnawed on from the inside instantly disappeared. She felt better than she had in years, stronger and cleaner.

The effort left me feeling drained, my small face paler than before. A wave of exhaustion rolled over me. I had spent too much today. I needed food. I needed rest. My thoughts were growing sluggish, a fog settling over my mind.

I stood up to leave.

Faye scrambled to her feet, pulling a heavy pouch of gold coins from her belt. "Little... Little Mistress, please, take this for your trouble..."

I walked past her without a glance.

I went to my backpack and swung it onto my shoulders with ease.

Cody, the big guard, stepped forward out of instinct, wanting to help me with the seemingly heavy load. He reached out to lift it for me.

The moment his hand touched the strap, his face contorted in shock. It was like trying to lift a boulder. He grunted, putting all of his warrior's strength into it, but the bag didn't even move an inch.

He stared at me, dumbfounded, as I stood there with it on my back as if it were filled with feathers.

I ignored his astonishment and walked away, my small form quickly swallowed by the shadows of the forest.

Left behind on the road was a crowd of shell-shocked werewolves and a noblewoman who had been given a second chance at life, but whose fate still hung by a thread.

Elara clutched her chest, feeling the warm power of the sigil. She turned to Cody and Faye, her voice raw with frustration and hope.

"She didn't tell me where to find her. She gave me nothing."

Faye's face paled. "My lady... then how will we—"

"We have three months," Elara cut her off, her voice hardening into steel. "Use every resource we have. Send word to Gideon. I don't care what it costs. Find that child before the three moons are up. We will find her."