Rags of Ash and Silver

Emery

The heat from the ceremonial bonfire licks at my skin, even from the very edge of the circle where I stand. It’s a heat I’m not entitled to, a warmth meant for them. For the pack. My fingers curl into fists behind my back, nails digging into my palms. I keep my head down, my gaze fixed on the dirt, on the worn leather of my boots. Be invisible. Be silent. Survive. That’s the mantra I’ve lived by for sixteen years.

“Look at her,” a voice like poisoned honey cuts through the sacred chanting. Bianca. Of course, it’s Bianca. “The kennel girl, hiding in the shadows. Does the dirt make you feel at home?”

A few sycophantic giggles ripple through the younger wolves near her. I don’t look up. Looking up is an invitation. It’s an acknowledgment that her words can touch me. They can’t. They’re just sounds, air shaped by a cruel mouth. The same air I breathe. The same air that carries the scent of pine and burning oak and the electric tang of the full moon.

Alpha Marcus, her father, stands before the roaring flames, his arms raised to the sky. His voice booms, a deep baritone reciting the ancient oath of allegiance to the Moon Goddess. He’s the center of their world. I am a dust mote floating at the furthest orbit, just barely caught in his gravity.

“She probably can’t even feel it,” Bianca stage-whispers, louder this time, deliberately pitching her voice to carry. “Can you feel the moon, mutt? Or is there nothing inside you for her to call to?”

My breath hitches. Wolf-less. The word hangs in the air, an old and familiar wound. In a world defined by the beast within, I am an empty vessel. An outcast permitted to live among them only because I clean up after their true forms. I tend to the pack's wolves when they are not wearing human skin, mucking out their dens, tending their injuries, my hands perpetually smelling of fur and antiseptic.

I risk a glance, not at her, but across the circle. My eyes find him instantly. Asher. Head Warrior. He stands like a statue carved from mountain granite, his arms crossed over his massive chest. He isn’t looking at the Alpha. He isn’t looking at the moon. His gaze, intense and unreadable under a heavy brow, is fixed on Bianca. His jaw is a hard, unforgiving line. It’s not protection, not really. It’s… something else. A silent condemnation that only I seem to notice.

He caught me once, years ago, trying to steal a loaf of bread from the kitchens. I was seven, small and starving. He didn’t drag me to the Alpha for a whipping. He just watched me with those same dark, quiet eyes, then broke the loaf in half and gave me the larger piece. He never said a word. He never has. But sometimes, when Bianca’s cruelty gets particularly sharp, I see that look on his face. And for a moment, I feel less alone.

“Bianca, silence,” Alpha Marcus growls without turning around. His focus must remain on the ceremony. The command is soft, but it carries the weight of absolute authority. Bianca falls silent, but I can still feel the burn of her glare on my skin.

The chanting swells, the pack’s collective energy rising to a fever pitch. It’s a raw, primal thing, a song my soul yearns to join but has no voice for. They feel their wolves stirring, the imminent shift a joyous agony. For me, it’s just another night where I am reminded of what I am not.

“A toast!” the Alpha proclaims, raising a ceremonial goblet. “To the Goddess! To the pack! To our strength!”

“To our strength!” the pack roars back, a single, thunderous voice. I flinch at the volume, my lips moving around the words I have no right to say.

Bianca chooses this moment, this crescendo of pack unity, to shatter my world. She steps away from her friends, her silver gown shimmering in the firelight, and walks directly toward me. The crowd parts for her like water for a shark. My heart hammers against my ribs. This is new. She has never been this bold during a sacred rite.

She stops a few feet away, a perfect, predatory smile on her lips. The chanting has faded, replaced by a low, curious hum. Every eye is on us.

“Father speaks of strength,” she says, her voice ringing with false sincerity. “But how can we be strong when we harbor weakness? When we allow the wolf-less to stand in our sacred circle?”

My blood runs cold. I finally look up, meeting her triumphant, malicious eyes.

“She eats our food. She sleeps under our roof. Yet she contributes nothing. She is a parasite. A flaw in the Bloodmoon lineage.”

I want to shrink, to disappear into the ground. But I am frozen, pinned by the collective stare of the pack. I see pity on some faces, contempt on others, and cold indifference on most. This is my place in the world. A thing to be pitied or scorned.

“Tell us, kennel girl,” Bianca presses, taking another step closer. I can smell her perfume, something cloyingly sweet, like dying flowers. “What is it like? To be so empty? To look at the moon and feel nothing? To be a disgrace?”

Something inside me flickers. Not anger. Not fear. It’s an ancient, unfamiliar thing. A spark of defiance in a place I thought was only ash.

“I am not a disgrace,” I whisper, the words tasting strange on my tongue.

Bianca’s eyes widen in mock surprise, then narrow with glee. She wanted this. A reaction. “What was that? Did the mutt speak?”

“Leave her be, Bianca,” a low voice rumbles. Asher. He hasn’t moved from his spot, but his voice cracks across the clearing like a whip. Every head turns to him. Challenging the Alpha’s daughter during a ceremony is unheard of.

Alpha Marcus turns fully now, his expression thunderous. “Asher. You forget your place.”

“And she forgets her honor,” Asher replies, his gaze never leaving the Alpha. The audacity of it steals the breath from my lungs.

Bianca scoffs, emboldened by her father’s presence. “My honor is not in question. I am merely cleansing our circle of filth.” She turns back to me, her face a mask of pure hatred. “You are nothing. Less than the lowest omega. You are a hollow shell, and you will die that way, alone and forgotten in the dirt with the animals you serve.”

Her words are the final blow. They don’t just hit my ears; they strike something deep inside me, a place I never knew existed. A pressure begins to build behind my eyes, in my chest. It’s like a dam cracking, a thousand years of held back tears and silent screams pushing against a fragile wall.

The bonfire roars, casting dancing shadows that make the trees look like grasping claws. The moonlight feels impossibly bright. Bianca’s face twists in a triumphant sneer, and in that moment, the dam doesn’t just crack. It shatters.

It’s not a sound. It’s a feeling. A silent explosion originating from the very core of my being. A wave of energy, cold and brilliant and overwhelmingly powerful, erupts from me. It’s not red like rage or black like shadow. It is pure, liquid silver.

The energy hits the bonfire like a tidal wave. The twenty-foot pillar of flame vanishes in a single, violent hiss. Steam and smoke billow into the night sky, plunging the clearing into the stark, cold light of the moon. The sudden silence is absolute, broken only by the shocked gasps of a hundred wolves.

Everyone is frozen, staring at the smoldering, blackened logs where a mighty fire once stood. Then, a collective gasp makes me look down at my own body.

A searing heat, more intense than any fire, burns on my right wrist. I push back the sleeve of my worn tunic. There, etched onto my skin in lines of glowing silver light, is a crest I have never seen before. An intricate, ancient symbol of a crescent moon cradling a blooming nightshade flower.

The light from the mark pulses, a soft, silent heartbeat of power. My power.

The strength drains from my legs. The world tilts, the shocked faces of the pack blurring into a meaningless smear of color. Bianca’s face is a perfect portrait of disbelief and horror. Alpha Marcus looks like he has seen a ghost. And Asher… Asher is no longer across the clearing. He is already moving, pushing through the stunned crowd, his eyes wide and fixed on me with an expression I can’t decipher.

My vision tunnels. The lunar crest on my wrist flares one last time, a brilliant silver nova, before the world dissolves into a quiet, welcoming darkness.