Aluria Phoenixsong

Daughter of Faethana Fogwatcher and an outsider.



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CHAPTER ONE: MOON'S CHOSEN

Her mother died when she was young. She had felt the world was unfair because of it. How come it was her mother, out of all other mothers? Why hers? She knew, on some level, that it was because her mother was old and simply could not live any longer. But she hadn't cared. The pain was fresh and she wanted to lash out because of it.

Her elder sister, Lusserina, had not wanted to take over watching her, busy as she was as a hunter. Aluria had felt betrayed at that revelation. They were sisters. How could she? But Lusserina wouldn't budge no matter how much Aluria screamed at her.

"You're a dreamwalker," Lusserina said then, "the Alpha will take you in."

Aluria didn't believe her. Why would the Alpha waste her time on someone like her? But Alpha Reythyra had taken one look at Aluria and agreed to watch over her, just like that.

And so Aluria grew up under the Alpha's watchful gaze.

"You will succeed me one day," Alpha Reythyra said to her one day, after they had spent most of it roaming the vast territories that the Wildfate had claimed as their own.

Aluria had been shocked. And then she'd thought to all the lessons that the old woman had given her. From diffusing fights, to keeping stock of their food, to roaming their territory like this.

"You planned this from the start," Aluria accused her Alpha.

Reythyra gave a wry sort of smile at that. "Of course."

Aluria couldn't believe it. She shook her head. "But why me? What have I done?"

"The Moon has chosen you as it has chosen me," Reythyra said, and Aluria knew she was talking about that land they roamed in their dreams. "It is only right that the mantle of leadership be passed between us, no? Besides, you have earned it. You took to my lessons like a fish to water."

Aluria didn't feel like she'd earned it. "Surely, someone else—"

"Ah, but someone else is not you," Reythyra said, and that was that.

Now, it was a crisp autumn's evening and Aluria had just gotten back from a hunt. She could still taste the blood of the prey in her mouth when she settled into her den, her children bounding up to her. They were almost of age, and she was due to give birth in the coming moon. How fast things had progressed since she was declared heir to the Wildfate's Alpha position.

"Come now," Aluria said as her children knocked into her. "Be careful, I'm delicate!"

"Sorry, mother," her children chorused in a tone that said they were not sorry at all. She huffed a sigh at that. They took after her too much.

The familiar sound of paws hitting the cave floor made Aluria's ears perk up, and when she looked to the mouth of the cave, she saw her mate approaching. Umeren was not the father of her first litter, though he may as well have been, for he had been in their life when their father hadn't. Aluria smiled at her mate.

With her family with her, Aluria knew the future was bright.