Mia stood in solitude in the archives under the Silverpine lodge, the dancing torchlight casting gentle shadows on the stone walls. Scrolls and weathered leather-bound volumes lined the shelves around her — the documented history of the pack. Lineage documents. Laws. Wars. Bonds.
She wasn't here for study.
She had come here to face what had previously shaped her.
In the farthest corner, behind glass, rested the Book of Rank — an old book inscribed with the names of every wolf born at Silverpine from the very start. Following each name came a title: Alpha. Beta. Omega.
It had always seemed like a sentence, rather than a record.
She opened it slowly
Her name appeared there.
Mia Thompson. Omega. Unbonded.
She looked at the plain line for an extended period of time.
Then, in a moment of silent defiance, she pulled out the charcoal stylus Ember had hidden in the folds of her cloak and wrote in a new word next to her name.
No rank, just reality
She did not require approval for that.
Up above, Lucas received visiting ambassadors from the outer ridge packs. News of Silverpine's revolution had spread quicker than expected. What had once been considered weakness in letting an omega ascend was now regarded as progress.
"I won't deceive you," Lucas told the three guest alphas. "There was opposition. There is still opposition. But the transformation is real."
"Too real," growled the hawk-eyed Alpha of Mossveil. "Half our elder leaders are already demanding 'councils of inclusivity.' What you've unleashed here is. contagious."
Lucas smiled faintly. "So is truth."
Ayla, the youngest of the envoys, had thin fingers that rhythmically tapped on the table. "And what about your mate? He's in charge of this movement?"
Lucas shook his head in response. "She leads, and the rest of us just learned how to follow."
Mia returned to the surface to find Ember waiting near the garden steps, arms crossed, grinning.
"You did include something in the Book, didn't you?"
Mia blinked once. "How did you realize?"
"I recognize your face," Ember boasted. "It's your 'I just rewritten history' expression."
Both of them laughed — a light, full sound that rang out across the still evening.
"Do you think the elders will notice?" Mia inquired. "Ah, they will notice that, but what are they going to do?"
A storm moved in for the evening—heavy clouds obscuring the moon. It rained in sheets through the trees, making the paths muddy and drenching the posts of the sentries.
Mia didn't mind.
She stood in the courtyard, barefoot, with outstretched arms, allowing the cold water to trickle down her skin. Her wolf moved within her, playful, free.
She had not felt so alive in years.
Lucas fell in step behind her, already soaked through in his clothes. He wrapped his arms around her from behind.
"You're going to get cold," he whispered in her neck
"I will contest it," she answered.
He laughed. "Of course you will."
Standing there in the tempest, tight against each other, nothing but water separating them, but warmth.
"I saw what you did," he spoke quietly after a pause.
Mia slanted her head back. "To the Book?"
He nodded.
She turned toward him. "Do you consider it wrong?"
"No," he replied. "I believe it was overdue."
News arrived on the following morning with the scouts: some of the old Silverpine wolves who had banished themselves following the war were coming home. Among them would be Mia's uncle.
The one who had attempted before to betray her. The one who had informed her that she would never amount to more than being a bother.
She stood atop the ridge line and looked down at the road, the very road on which she once trekked lonely with no belongings but shame.
Now she stood erect.
Her uncle dismounted his horse and lowered his hood, stunned to find her standing there, flanked by warriors.
"Mia," he hesitated. "You. you're Luna now?"
"I am me now," she announced. "That is enough."
He bent his head, his face darkening with shame.
She hadn't forgiven him. Not yet. But she had given him something else.
"Each wolf has a choice," she stated. "Yours begins now."