Chapter 1I grew up believing Declan would be my second pair of eyes.
My wolf breaks under harsh moonlight. After dark, I'm practically half-blind.
We were pups side-by-side. He swore he'd always look out for me.
Until we grew up.
Slowly, every little thing I gave him got tossed aside.
My hand-woven nameday collar? He passed it straight to another she-wolf.
People joked I was dead weight dragging him down.
And he let them.
At the pack gathering, he threw every years-long promise right back in my face.
So I left.
I walked away and built a life that fit my broken wolf.
Years later he's on his knees, desperate to make things right.
But do second chances fix years of quiet betrayal?
---
Declan looked up and talked to me like he always did.
"Why are your eyes watering again?"
I pressed the heels of my palms against my face. "Moon's pulling early."
He cursed under his breath and shoved the classroom blinds shut.
"I'll walk you back to the den tonight."
For a second I let myself believe the thing I'd heard on picture day had been my imagination after all.
After lessons, somebody came and pulled him away.
He told me to wait for him in the hall.
So I waited.
Two hours.
I wanted to call him, but my phone had died.
Finally one of the instructors passed by and spotted me.
"Sage? Why aren't you still here?"
She knew I couldn't shift after dark and offered to drive me.
I said no.
I didn't want Declan coming back and not finding me.
When she saw my phone was dead, she called him for me.
Twenty minutes later, Declan appeared in the doorway, out of breath.
"I texted you. I told you to head out."
"I didn't see it."
I held up the phone, useless in my hand.
"It died."
He looked at me for a long moment. Something complicated moved across his face.
In the end he said none of it.
"Let's go."
He barely spoke the whole way.
He spent most of it answering messages.
There was a scent on him, something sharp and faintly sweet, like pine resin and smoke.
It hadn't been there earlier in the day.
Where had he been?
When we got to the edge of pack grounds, somebody called his name.
A few wolves were standing by the trailhead. I couldn't make out their faces in the dusk.
But the same scent came off one of them.
Declan took a few quick steps toward them. I stayed where I was.
"What are you guys doing here?"
"The run we're doing is just past Ridgeline. We came to grab you."
The voice was low and smooth, and I knew it. I'd heard it leading morning drills all year.
Brielle Ashwyn. The she-wolf half the pack had their eyes on.
"Okay. Give me a second. I'm walking her in."
One of the others made an impatient sound.
"Seriously? You're already at her den. She needs an escort from here?"
One of Declan's friends jumped in to explain.
"Sage can't shift after dark."
The wolf clicked his tongue.
"She looks fine the rest of the time. Who knows if any of it's real?
"It's Brielle's nameday and he still has to make a whole trip out of this. I think she does it on purpose. Way to kill the mood."
I stood there with my hands closed into fists and nowhere to put them.
When Declan came back over, I kept my voice down.
"Go with them. I can get myself in."
He hesitated.
"You sure?"
"I'm sure."
I turned and went inside.
Their voices carried after me.
"Hey, Declan. Aren't you going to tuck your crippled little wolf in?"
"She's pack. Don't be disgusting."
My feet stalled.
In all the years I'd known him, that was the first time he'd ever snapped at anyone about it.
The path through the dens was well lit.
Even so, the lights only gave me a general sense of which way to go.
I felt my way forward. Something was closing around my chest.
He'd never bothered correcting people before, because it hadn't mattered to him.
Now it mattered.
Because of Brielle?
My foot caught on a root and I went down hard.
My palm lit up with pain, and for a second I just sat there, lost.
He hadn't always been like this.
We used to live in dens right next to each other.
He held my hand on the way to lessons and on the way home.
He asked the instructors to pair us for training.
When other pups made fun of my wolf, he got in front of me.
When had I started being a burden?
"Sage!"
Fast footsteps behind me.
Declan hauled me up off the ground.
"This is what you meant by 'I'm sure'?"
His voice was sharp.
But his hands were careful, checking me over for anything broken.
Then he took hold of me and walked me home, the way he used to.
The small flame in my chest caught again.
At least, Declan still cared.
Chapter 2
Brielle's nameday had been that day.
Declan's was two days later.
So it wasn't only the scent on their skin.
Even their namedays sat right next to each other.
The next morning I walked over to Declan's den.
His mom opened the door.
"Sage! Get in here."
Declan called something from his room but didn't come out.
"I don't understand the academy," Thalia said. "The Trials are in a few weeks and they're handing out rest days. How is anybody supposed to stay sharp?"
She tipped her head toward Declan's door.
"That one's been on his headset since breakfast."
Then she pulled meat out of the cold storage.
"Go keep him company. Tell me what you want for dinner and I'll make it."
Thalia left for the market. I stood outside Declan's door and knocked.
He had a headset on, mid-raid.
He caught me out of the corner of his eye and waved me in.
I sat behind him and watched.
I didn't understand the game.
I didn't understand half of what he was saying to the people on the other end either.
When the round finally ended, he turned around.
"Moon's high out there. Why'd you come over?"
I held out the box I'd brought.
"Happy nameday, Declan."
"Thanks."
He took it and set it down beside him without opening it.
His phone went off right then.
He glanced at the screen and picked up.
"Dec, get back in.
"Brielle says she'll carry us. We got slaughtered all morning. This is our shot."
He said okay and pulled the headset back on.
Then, like he'd just remembered I was in the room, he glanced over his shoulder.
"I got some new field guides. They're on the shelf. Take whatever."
He turned back to the monitor and didn't look at me again.
I sat there a while, watching him laugh with people whose world I couldn't get into.
It was the first time it really landed.
He and I didn't live in the same one anymore.
"I'm heading out."
I thought he hadn't heard.
But I got as far as the door and he called after me.
"You're still going to Cliffside, right?"
Cliffside had always been his academy. And it was the one we'd promised each other, years ago.
I nodded.
"What about you?"
"Okay. Got it."
I wanted to ask what that meant.
He was already back in the game.
My eyes went to the gift he'd shoved onto the shelf because it was in his way.
It was the hand-braided collar she'd been talking about for months.
I'd worked through every craftsman in the northern hills, a dozen of them, one at a time. It took me two full weeks to find someone who still knew the old knotwork, and then I had to beg them to teach me.
Now it was sitting in the corner where he'd dropped it.
Nobody was going to touch it.
That was about how I felt too.
I was pulling my boots on by the door when I heard his voice from the bedroom.
Somebody in the game had apparently asked him something.
"Cliffside? I don't want to go. I hate that territory, it's way too cold.
"I'll figure it out when the letters come."
My hand went unsteady on the laces.
Then why had he asked whether I was still going?
So he'd know what to avoid?
The door opened from the other side.
Thalia came in with the market bags.
"Sage, you're leaving already? Stay and eat."
I made myself smile.
"No, thank you. I want to get some training in."
She didn't push. She turned and aimed her voice at Declan's door instead.
"Declan! Still on that game? You could at least see Sage out!"
I came out of the den into the sun.
It was warm all the way through.
Inside, I was hollow.
So much for going to Cliffside together.
He'd stopped caring about that a long time ago, which meant I didn't have to keep my end of it either.
The night before the Trials, I got a text from him.
"I'll pick you up in the morning."
I looked at it for a long time, then typed back.
"No need. My family's taking me."
The next morning, I walked through the gates by myself.
For the first time, at something that actually mattered, Declan wasn't next to me.
I found my arena on the posting board and turned to go.
Somebody slammed into my back.
Chapter 3
Supplies went everywhere.
My trial pass skidded a few feet away.
"Oh, sorry. Didn't see you."
A wolf I didn't know. I couldn't place him.
I didn't bother with him and went straight for the pass.
My fingers had almost reached it when a boot came down on top of the paper.
He bent close to my face, his voice thick with mockery.
"Are you actually moonblind, or do you just play it up? Your eyes really do look off."
"That's not your business."
I tugged at the pass. It didn't move.
"Real or fake, you're still dead weight. So quit hanging off Declan.
"Don't be so selfish. Yeah?"
I looked up at him. The face was vaguely familiar.
"Move your foot. Whatever's between me and Declan has nothing to do with you."
"Wow, you really—"
He twisted his boot. The thin paper tore straight through.
Before he could finish, somebody shoved him hard enough to knock him sideways.
Declan stood there with his face gone cold.
"What is wrong with you?"
That stopped him for a second.
"What's wrong with you?
"It wasn't on purpose. I already apologized."
Declan picked up the torn pass and the scattered supplies and pushed them into my hands.
"I'm walking you to your arena."
I kept my head down and followed him, holding the bag against my chest.
As we passed the wolf, he muttered it under his breath.
"Crippled little wolf's such a drama queen."
I knew that voice.
He'd been outside my den that night, with Brielle.
Declan walked me all the way to my arena before he went to find his own.
For a few minutes it felt like it used to.
But the coldness hadn't been in my head. Neither had the impatience.
I really didn't understand him anymore.
The Trials were finally over.
The whole pack felt lighter.
That evening I finished sorting my gear and picked up my phone.
Brielle had posted a photo of the collar.
The caption read: "A surprise with perfect timing. Still wearing it. Thank you for the gift."
It was the exact collar I'd given Declan, right down to the nameday blessing I'd woven into the knots myself.
His nameday present, from me. And he'd handed it to Brielle.
The hurt came up so fast my eyes burned with it.
I called him.
"You gave Brielle the nameday present I got you?"
He made a small, careless sound. "Yeah.
"Brielle and I were talking and it turns out she likes the old knotwork too, so I brought it over for her to see."
My grip closed hard around the phone. My voice came out scraped raw.
"It took me two weeks to make that.
"You handed my present to somebody else and didn't even tell me. You don't think that's too far?"
Declan sounded irritated.
"It's a collar. You seriously called me to put me on trial over a collar?"
"It's not about the collar."
My voice shook.
"You threw away what I meant by it."
"You gave it to me, so it's mine. What I do with it is up to me.
"You don't get a say."
I opened my mouth. Nothing came.
"This is exhausting."
He hung up.
I sat there holding the phone with my chest aching.
The exact words he'd said on picture day.
After that, we stopped talking altogether.
Until the pack put together a gathering that spring.
I didn't want to go.
But it was the first thing anyone had organized all year.
My parents pushed me to.
Thalia even told Declan to keep an eye on me.
It was the first time Declan and I had seen each other since the fight.
He was in a mood the whole way there.
I tried a few times. He gave me "mm" and "sure" and nothing else.
So I stopped, and we rode the rest of it in silence, like two strangers who happened to know everything about each other.
The hall was loud. Everybody talked over everybody.
I drank my water and listened.
My eyes don't let me track fast movement for long.
I stay out of harsh moonlight when I can.
After dark I'm most of the way to blind.
Running, sparring, hunting. There wasn't one conversation at that table I could get into.
We'd barely sat down and I already wanted to go home.
Then somebody suggested truth or dare.
The bottle went around a few people and landed on Declan.
He picked truth.
Somebody grinned.
"Declan, you take such good care of Sage. Do you like her?"
