The Red Moon (2)

Seraphina's POV

Helena would always encourage Stephen and me to care for our mother, despite the distance between us. “Her burden is heavier than you can imagine,” Helena would say. “Being the family head isn’t just about power. It’s about the curse. The bloodline.”

I didn’t understand what she meant back then. Curse. That word echoed in my mind, but I couldn’t grasp its full meaning.

“Why is it a curse?” I asked Helena once, my voice small and hesitant.

She hesitated, her usual warmth clouded with something I couldn’t quite place. “It just is, child. Some things are too old to be explained.” Then she’d change the subject, unwilling to give me a proper answer.

Helena, despite raising us, doesn’t resemble us at all. Her skin is darker, while mine is pale, almost like porcelain—fragile and flawless. Her hair is a deep brown, common among humans, while mine gleams like gold, the trademark of our lineage. Her eyes are blue, like mine, but duller, clouded with age and something else. It’s hard to explain, but they lack the clarity of the bloodline.

I’ve never seen her shift into a wolf. She’s always told me that, though she bears the Moonbane surname, her wolf blood is so diluted that the Moon Goddess no longer blesses her. It’s as if the divine power of our ancestors slipped away from her, leaving her only with the remnants of a once-great legacy.

She told me once that, aside from our family’s main branch, the other members of the pack—the ones living on our estate—are descendants with similarly diluted bloodlines. They cannot fight to protect our home like the warriors from other tribes. They don’t possess the strength, the power, the innate connection to the Moon Goddess that flows through Stephen and me.

But they’ve adapted. They’ve integrated into human society, using their cunning and connections to bring wealth and influence back to the family. It’s through them that Moonbane remains one of the wealthiest and most powerful packs, even if it’s not through strength alone.

Still, other tribes have always coveted our land, thinking us weak. How foolish they were.

When I was ten years old, I witnessed an invasion. It was a mid-sized tribe, nothing extraordinary, but their numbers were in the thousands. They thought they could take advantage of what they perceived as Moonbane’s lack of warriors. But they underestimated us—underestimated her.

I watched from the shadows as my mother, the family head, tore through their ranks like a force of nature. Her claws cut through flesh and bone with terrifying ease, the power radiating from her like nothing I’d ever seen. It was over in moments, the invading army reduced to nothing but corpses. The sight haunted me for weeks after. I couldn’t stop thinking about the sheer ease with which she destroyed them.

Later, I learned that the tribe had existed for centuries, a legacy wiped out in mere minutes. No one dared challenge Moonbane after that.

As I grew older, I began to understand just how different our tribe was. "What happens if there’s no one to inherit the family head’s position?" I once asked Helena, my curiosity gnawing at me. "Would Moonbane fall?"

Helena’s response was swift, her voice firm with conviction. "The family’s lineage has never been broken in a thousand years, and it never will be. As long as the moon remains in the sky, Moonbane will always be a tribe blessed by the goddess. We will always be at the top of the wolves."

"But what about the red moon?" I asked, my voice quieter. "Does it only curse Moonbane?"

Helena sighed, her expression troubled. "Yes. Just as it only blesses Moonbane."

I suddenly remembered my mother's word.

"By the time the next red moon appears, I will no longer be here to see you."

I remember that night vividly—my mother’s sorrowful voice, and the despair that radiated from her, so palpable it seemed to fill the room like a heavy fog. Her words cut through the silence like a cold wind, chilling me to my core. It was not just what she said, but how she said it. There was a finality in her tone, a certainty that made it impossible to ignore.

But why would my mother feel such despair?

As the head of the Moonbane family, she possessed everything anyone could desire—unparalleled beauty, the power to decimate armies single-handedly, the adoration of our people, and the highest authority in our world. Why, then, would she be so filled with sorrow? So lost in hopelessness?

“Perhaps Mother has awakened the gift of prophecy,” Stephen whispered to me one evening after we had heard her ominous words. My brother’s voice was soft, careful, as though he feared speaking the thought too loudly would make it more real. He suspected our mother had foreseen her own death, a fate sealed by the next red moon, just as our father had met his end on the night we were born.

"But even without prophecy, she should be prepared," I replied, my own voice laden with uncertainty. The thought of losing her, despite our distant relationship, gnawed at me.