The crimson moon touched the horizon.
The moment it did, the amphitheater dissolved.
Not gradually. Not with warning. One breath I was standing on black stone surrounded by hundreds of marked wolves, the next I was falling through space that had no up or down, no beginning or end.
The silver thread connecting me to Ethan yanked taut, dragging me sideways through the void. I caught a glimpse of him tumbling through the darkness nearby, his face twisted in shock that probably mirrored my own.
Then light exploded around us.
I hit solid ground hard, the impact driving the air from my lungs. For a moment I just lay there, gasping, waiting for the world to stop spinning.
When I finally managed to push myself up, my breath caught.
A hall stretched before me. Vast didn't begin to describe it. The ceiling soared so high it disappeared into shadow, held up by columns carved from silver that pulsed with inner light. The walls were mirrors, reflecting the space back on itself infinitely, making it impossible to tell where the room began or ended.
And the tables.
They ran the length of the hall in perfect parallel lines, each one draped in white cloth that looked like it was woven from moonlight itself. Place settings appeared at regular intervals, silver plates and crystal goblets that caught the light and threw it back in fractured rainbows.
But the cloth wasn't white. Not really. As I watched, dark stains began to spread across the fabric, seeping up from beneath like the tables themselves were bleeding.
Wine.
It dripped from the edges of the tables, pooling on the floor in puddles that reflected the ceiling above. The smell hit me a moment later, metallic and thick, making my stomach turn.
Old blood.
The wine smelled like old blood.
"What is this place?" The voice came from beside me. I turned to find the young girl from the Gathering, the one who'd asked me what was happening. Her face was even paler now, her eyes too wide.
"The first trial." My voice came out steadier than I felt. "The Drowning Table."
More wolves were appearing now, materializing out of nothing to land on the floor in various states of panic. Some screamed. Others curled into balls, hands over their heads. A few stood frozen, staring at the bleeding tables with expressions of absolute horror.
I searched the crowd for Ethan and found him twenty feet away, already on his feet. The silver thread between us glowed brighter here, pulsing with each heartbeat. He met my eyes for a brief moment, his jaw tight, then looked away.
"Welcome, children of broken bonds."
The voice echoed from everywhere at once. I spun, trying to locate the source, but saw nothing except mirrors and bleeding tables.
Then the Moon Priestess materialized at the head of the hall, standing on a raised platform I was certain hadn't been there a moment ago. Her white eyes blazed like twin stars, her robes shifting between solid and translucent.
"You have entered the Moonlit Feast Hall," she announced, her voice carrying Luna's divine resonance. "The first trial of the Reckoning. Here, memory becomes sustenance. Pain becomes wine. Truth becomes the only thing that can save you."
She gestured and the tables responded. The bleeding intensified, wine flowing faster now, filling the goblets at each place setting until they brimmed with dark liquid.
"The rules are simple." The Priestess's smile was sharp enough to cut. "You will sit. You will drink. You will relive your greatest heartbreak with perfect clarity. Show no emotion, and you may continue. Break, and the wine drowns you from within."
"That's insane," someone shouted. "You can't force us to drink that."
"I don't have to force you." The Priestess raised one hand. "Your marks will compel you. Luna's will is absolute here."
The crescent on my wrist blazed hot, then cold, then hot again. Pain lanced up my arm, so intense I gasped. Around me, other wolves were crying out as their marks activated, driving them toward the tables.
My legs moved without permission. I tried to resist but might as well have been trying to stop the moon from rising. The mark controlled my body now, puppet strings made of divine will.
I found myself standing before one of the tables, a goblet directly in front of me. The wine inside was almost black, thick as syrup, moving with a life of its own.
Ethan appeared on my left, forced by his mark to the seat beside mine. The silver thread between us shortened until we stood close enough to touch, though neither of us reached out.
"This is your fault," he hissed.
"Shut up." I couldn't deal with him right now. Not when I could feel the wine calling to me, promising to show me things I'd swore to forget.
All around the hall, wolves were being driven to their seats. The young girl ended up directly across from me, her hands shaking as she stared at her goblet.
"I don't want to," she whispered. "Please, I don't want to remember."
The Priestess's voice rang out again. "You have no choice. The first cup is mandatory. After that, you may choose to continue or withdraw. But know this: those who withdraw before completing seven cups will fade immediately. No second chances. No mercy."
"Seven?" Horror rippled through the assembled wolves. "We have to drink seven times?"
The Priestess descended from her platform, moving between the tables like a ghost. "Most of you won't survive the first. Those who do will wish they hadn't by the third."
She stopped beside my table, her white eyes boring into me. "You, Haven Willow. Scentless. Wolfless. Rejected by fate itself. What memories hide in your cup, I wonder?"
I didn't answer. Couldn't. The mark on my wrist was burning so hot now I could smell my own flesh cooking.
"And you, Ethan Vale." The Priestess moved to him. "Alpha's son. Breaker of bonds. Destroyer of the weak. Will you drink your sins, or will they drink you?"
Ethan's face had gone pale but his jaw was set. "I'll survive this. I'll survive all of it."
"We shall see." The Priestess drifted back to her platform. "The first cup is always the hardest. It shows you the moment your heart truly broke. Not the moment you think it broke. Not the obvious pain. The real one. The wound that never healed."
She raised her arms and the hall responded. The mirrors began to glow, each one showing a different scene. Wolves in various stages of heartbreak. Rejections. Betrayals. Deaths. Abandonments. All of it playing out in silent, brutal detail.
"Drink," the Priestess commanded.
The marks flared. Every wolf in the hall reached for their goblet at once, compelled by magic too strong to resist.
My fingers closed around the crystal. It was cold, so cold it burned. The wine inside rippled, and for just a moment I saw something moving beneath the surface. A face. My face. But younger. Smaller.
Before I could process what I was seeing, my hand lifted the goblet to my lips.
The wine tasted like copper and salt and something else I couldn't name. Bitter beyond belief, coating my tongue, my throat, sliding down into my stomach like liquid ice.
The hall disappeared.
I was somewhere else. Someone else. No, not someone else. Still me. But younger. So much younger.
The memory hit like a physical blow.
I was seven years old, standing in my childhood home. My mother knelt before me, her hands on my shoulders, her face streaked with tears.
"You have to understand, Haven." Her voice was breaking. "You're different. Special. But the pack won't see it that way. They'll only see what you lack."
"But I have a wolf." My child-self's voice was small, confused. "She's inside me. She talks to me sometimes."
"I know, baby. I know." My mother pulled me close. "But she doesn't have a scent. And without a scent, the pack will never accept you as one of them."
I felt my younger self begin to cry. "Why? Why am I broken?"
"You're not broken." My mother held me tighter. "You're just different. And different scares people."
"Will you leave me too? Because I'm different?"
The question hung in the air. I watched my mother's face, saw the moment of hesitation before she answered. Just a fraction of a second. Just a flicker of doubt.
But I'd seen it then. And I saw it now.
"Never," my mother said, pulling me close again. "I'll never leave you."
But she had left. Three months later. Dead from an illness the healers said shouldn't have been fatal. An illness that wolves with strong pack bonds could have survived.
An illness my scentless presence had somehow made worse.
The memory shattered. I was back in the hall, the goblet falling from my nerveless fingers to shatter on the floor. Wine, or blood, or whatever the hell it really was, spread across the white cloth.
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. The pain of that memory was fresher than it had been in years, sharper, like it had happened yesterday instead of fifteen years ago.
That was my real heartbreak. Not Ethan's rejection. Not my death. The moment I'd realized my mother doubted me. The moment I'd understood that even the person who loved me most wasn't sure I deserved to exist.
Around me, other wolves were breaking. Some screamed. Some wept silently. Some just stared at nothing, lost in memories too painful to bear.
The young girl across from me had her hands pressed over her mouth, tears streaming down her face. Her goblet lay shattered beside mine.
Ethan sat frozen, his goblet still full. Whatever he'd seen in the wine had left him rigid, his golden eyes wide and unseeing.
The Priestess moved through the hall like a predator, studying each wolf's reaction. Where she passed, some wolves began to fade, their forms flickering like the dying ones outside.
"The first cup reveals the foundation of your pain," she announced. "The crack in your soul that everything else built upon. Most of you are already breaking. Good. Luna delights in watching hearts shatter."
My vision blurred. The mark on my wrist had gone cold again, so cold it felt like my hand was encased in ice.
I looked down at my place setting. Another goblet had appeared where the first had been. This one was already full, wine swirling inside, waiting.
Seven cups. Seven heartbreaks. I'd barely survived one.
The Priestess's voice echoed through the hall. "Those who wish to continue, drink. Those who choose to fade, simply sit still and wait for dissolution."
The young girl was staring at her new goblet with absolute terror. "I can't," she whispered. "I can't do this again."
"Then you'll fade." The words came from somewhere to my right. I turned to see an older wolf, his face grim. "We all will if we don't drink."
"But it hurts," the girl sobbed. "It hurts so much."
"That's the point." Ethan's voice was rough. He'd finally moved, reaching for his new goblet with shaking hands. "Luna wants us to hurt. The only way out is through."
I looked at my own goblet. At the wine that promised more pain, more memories, more breaking.
Then I looked at the silver thread connecting me to Ethan. It pulsed with our shared heartbeats, our shared damnation, our shared determination to survive.
He was right. The only way out was through.
I reached for the goblet.
The surface of the wine rippled, and I saw my reflection looking back at me. But it wasn't me as I was now. It was me on my last night alive. Standing outside Ethan's house, holding a gift wrapped in silver paper.
The reflection smiled.
Then the wine began to rise on its own, filling the goblet higher and higher until it overflowed, spilling across the table like blood from a wound that wouldn't stop bleeding.