The days after the stillness at Moonstone Tree felt as calming as a gentle breeze drifting through a field of tall grass. Silverpine finally relaxed and reshaped its breath.
Mia started to write.
No scrolls or reports for council records. Instead, letters were being written.
Starting with a page next to her breakfast of the day, Mia wrote letters for the versions of herself she had never been. She didn't want to soothe the girl she had once been, but to state something fundamental.
The girl was never the problem. She was always the beginning.
Again, she wrote. This time to the next Luna she wished to meet, who she wished never showed up.
Do you ever call yourself this? You are not obliged to owe anyone such perfection. You ought only to owe yourself the truth. Would that not be enough?
The pages have now been bound into a collection, and the collection rests in a box made of cedar, twined by rope.
When a summer drizzle was softening the sky, Lucas saw Mia sitting. He joined her at the rail and read the pages that were resting in her lap."You keep a journal?"
Mia smiled, shaking her head. "No. I'm leaving fingerprints."
He looked at her quizzically.
"For the ones who come after us," she said. "They won't remember every fight. Every speech. But maybe they'll find these and know they weren't alone."
Lucas took her hand as he sat on the floor next to her.
"You think it'll matter?" he asked.
There wasn't a pause. "I know it will."
Then, the Archive of Names is what opened this chapter for the pack that week.
Neither a library nor a building in the traditional sense, the archive is a series of open chambers constructed beneath the roots of elder trees. Each alcove tells a story, a voice, a truth once feared or suppressed.
It has scrolls, but it also has songs carved into stone. Necklaces hung from beams tell a story. Some pieces are torn tunics from fallen scouts, journals from midwives, and a burned Ferrowind blade. The ferrowind blade is tarnished and wrapped in cloth, displayed not as a threat but as a lesson.
Mia exchanged thoughts about the archive with Renna, who had been appointed to help assemble the archive.
"Artifacts don't feel like these," Renna folded her fingers around the oath stone, whispering.
"They are not dinner cards," Mia answered. "They are calls to arms."
"To what exactly?"
"A call to complete the tale."
"To continue the story."
On the fifth evening, I observed that the initial envoy was now Glenshadow.
Mia did not have the impression that Lucas, Cade, and Ember were with her because the group finally got off at the main trail. The riders rode with no crests, signifying war or an alliance. Instead, they bore small bundles in open hands.
A young alpha, perhaps only a few years older than Mia had been when Lucas first took his place, approached with a bowed head.
"We do not come to follow an order," he said. "Rather seek to unveil an ancient secret."
Mia, a young woman now, headed towards him.
"So make a choice. Stop. Speak only if you have something of great value, but if you do not have anything of interest, use your one useful asset, your ears."
The answer came with a smile. "We haven't been treated with such hospitality in a long time."
The Glenshadow wolves are the permanent residents of the southern wings of the castle. Not as guests, but as family. Slowly, so did the other packs.
Not to genuflect.
Not to bow.
But to acquire wisdom.
But to learn.
It happened once, as the sunset swept to the horizon, Mia sat at the west wing with an empty book and was still trying to think of what to write.
"Another letter?" Lucas asked
"Yes," she replied.
He was standing still, and then she changed her mind and said, "This one's the most tricky one."
"Have someone in mind?" he said.
"To my father."
And she was thankful for that.
With a lengthy pause, she began to write:
To the man who gave me my name and left me with silence. I don't write to forgive you. But I want you to know… I found something better than your approval. I found a life that didn't need your echo in it. I found a voice stronger than your absence. And I used it to build something you'll never get to erase.
She stepped back, not because she was done but because this was enough.
Lucas grasped her palm and held it as is.
She relaxed against him, and together, they started witnessing the stars gradually fill the sky, watching the stars emerge one by one.
__
The next morning, a small group of wolves from the newly named Hollowreach pack arrived at the border, requesting entry.
One of them was a girl, young, smaller than Mia had been when she first stepped into the Moon Banquet all those months ago. Her voice trembled as she introduced herself.
"I was told… that here, even omegas can lead."
Mia stepped forward, offering her a hand.
"You were told right."
"Looks like you came to the right place."
Mia came back to the Archive later that same night alone, her cedar box of letters clutched in her hands.
She put it on the shelf labeled Voices Unwritten–a place left for the unnamed, forgotten, or even the fearful.
Next to her box sat an unmarked but polished stone.
With her hand resting on it, she softly spoke.
May those who come across this understand that a legacy isn't merely what we set in stone. Instead, it's what we dare to ignite.
After that, she walked into the night.
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Silverpine slept peacefully.
There were no alarms or howls.
Just breaths and the gentle, rhythmic pulse of roots delving deeper into the earth.