Her gaze flicks over my shoulder toward the other side of the room, where the younger versions of Rennick and me are still wrapped up in each other, frozen in that tender pocket of memory.
I follow it but force myself to look back at her.
“What do you mean?”
Mom’s hand drops from my face, but she stays close. Doesn’t leave me.
“You returned home to Rennick,” she tells me, her eyes falling to my throat now. “And you repaired what I broke when you took him as your mate.”
My fingers rise without conscious thought, brushing over the raised ridges that now live there. Rennick’s claiming bite. Fragments of memory surface at the edges of my mind.
I remember floating, suspended in nothingness, as I slowly lost my grip on myself. It was peaceful there, my body weightless, but Rennick found me in the darkness and held fast. He was my anchor to life when I had nothing else to cling to. No heartbeat. No air. His bite pulled me back into myself before I could slip somewhere he couldn’t reach. In that fragile, half-aware state, driven by an instinct I couldn’t ignore, I sank my teeth into his neck. Our mate bond snapped into place and what was left of the darkness released its hold on me.
“Yes,” I manage. “We claimed each other.”
Mom nods once, unsurprised, but there’s relief etched into her expression too. “You wouldn’t be standing here otherwise. The spell I wove into you both was only meant to hold until your bond was complete. I made sure of it.”
Her words from a previous dream rise to the surface. “The key,” I say softly. “You told me Rennick was the key.”
“Yes,” she says gently. “But it was your bond to him that was the true cure. The one force strong enough to undo the damage and make my magic fail.”
My head shakes slowly, questions piling up faster than I can count them.
Behind me, movement draws my attention. The younger versions of Rennick and me finally pull apart, still smiling as they head for the front door together. I watch them leave, the memory closing as the door does.
I turn back to Mom
“What is ‘here’?” I force myself to sound steady. “Why am I here?”
And where the hell is Rennick?
The same magic that had latched on to me in the nest caught him as well. I heard the pained sounds he made through my own. I know when I went under, but I don’t know if he fell into the dark alongside me. Is he experiencing his own version of this? Whateverthisis.
She reaches for me again, fingers smoothing through my hair in a way that makes my chest ache with longing and grief. Her voice shifts, growing heavier. “This is where you learn the truth, my girl,” she tells me. “It’s where I give you back everything I stole.”
The world around me doesn’t offer a chance to respond before it starts to pull apart.
It starts at the edges. The cabin’s walls soften, the lines of the room blurring as if someone swiped a wet paintbrush through it. The air vibrates and fills with magic, enough that my hair lifts from my shoulders and whips around my face. The floor beneath my bare feet slide, and my stomach lurches as my balance is nearly stolen from me. My body gears up for what I know comes next, but it’s impossible to brace against something when it isn’t solid.
I look to Mom and find her standing steady in the middle of our violently changing surroundings. An immovable pillar in the storm. She acts as if this is nothing more than a breeze. The calm on her face is the only fixed point I can find, and I latch on to it.
The world snaps into place with a suddenness that makes my body pitch forward. My feet stumble on damp earth and I barely manage to right myself before I go down.
Panting, I lift my eyes and find the healer cabin gone.
I’m standing off to the side of a pack gathering taking place outside the lodge. Once again, the realness of the scene feels wrong. Torches line the edges, casting a warm, flickering glow across the pack members in attendance and the tables piled high with food and drinks. The hum of conversation and the occasional easy laugh fill the early evening air.
Mom stands beside me again, watching the scene unfold with those all-knowing eyes of hers, the ones that always seemed to catch things people hadn’t realized they were giving away.
I follow her gaze.
The same younger versions of me and Rennick that had left the cabin walk up into view through the crowd. A group of young pups race in front of them, wearing crowns made of woven flowers and vines.
It’s the clue I need to recall what this is.
“The spring equinox celebration,” I breathe, years’ worth of this very party clicking into place. It always fell on or the day before my birthday.
My mother’s mouth curves with something wistful. “When you were younger, you believed this party was for you. For years I had to remind you we were celebrating the sun and the moon, and the end of the cold, dark months.” Her gaze follows movement through the festivities to where my younger self still stands with Rennick, now talking animatedly to a small group of pack members around my age. “You would smile and tell me it was okay. That you were willing to share your birthday with the earth and sky.”
