The afternoon light slanted through the tall windows of the pack house living room, casting long golden rectangles across the floor. Vessara sat cross-legged on the oversized sofa, her sketchbook balanced on her knee, ink smudged across her fingers in dark streaks that matched the stains on her cuff.
Around her, the coffee table had become a battlefield of festival documents, yellowed pages from previous years, budget ledgers with columns of numbers that blurred together, and handwritten notes from elders whose looping cursive she was still learning to decipher.
Vessara bit her lower lip, studying her latest sketch. A grand archway woven from moonflowers and silver ribbon, the traditional centerpiece of the Moon Festival's opening ceremony. But she wanted something more. Something that would catch the eye of every wolf who walked through it. So it would make them feel the shift in the air and the beginning of something sacred.
