April, 1863

The Moon glowed through her bedroom window, as luminous as a kerosene lamp. No wonder Rini’s ancestors worshiped the Moon, those first wolfkind who howled out in the murky night sky, thankful for guidance. Rini fidgeted in the silver glow, pulling her fingers through the woven plaits of her crimson hair until they were unbound.

Unbound.

The change rippled through her muscles and sinew, prickling her tiny hairs to life with a current of pure being that she missed when she was confined to her skins. But Rini had learned as a cub not to change indoors. Paws and claws never tread well on the smooth floorboards of her family’s cabin. 

“We’ll meet just before dawn and go for a run.” Her two best friends had agreed – together, just their trio, away from the village, away from the Elders, and their parents, and their restrictions. Out into the fresh woods. Free. 

Rini had hardly slept. She’d never been a good liar, but she could deflect an untruth. When her sister, Mena, asked why she fidgeted with their quilt, laying there in the dark after the house had gone quiet, Rini could answer in truth.

“Auntie has taught me so much already I worry I can’t remember it all.”

It was true, of course. Being a brand new apprentice, scarcely a fortnight now, had heaped more responsibility onto her days than Rini could believe. Which is why she so desperately needed this run, this freedom. This chance to be unbound.

But the war crept ever closer to their precious mountains. To their village, up a hollow and away – away from the fuss and noise of humankind, away from their politics and their wars. Away from their superstitions. 

But even the mountains could not keep out the soldiers and the guns forever. 

Rini knew it. But oh, she wanted to forget it. To go and be free. 

Be unbound, if only for one run, one morning. 

Rini leaned on the outside of the stairs, pressing most of her weight against the thick railing to lessen the creaking as she slipped toward the kitchen and the front door. She knew of a legend that told of Daria, the first Bennachadh, using magic to mask the sound of her footsteps as she snuck up on the water hag, Skol. But Rini was just a Healer’s apprentice and didn’t know anything about magic. Unless being an aeisdear meant she was born with a bit of magic. But hearing the songs of trees couldn’t help her slip past her parents.

“Stars be damned,” she whispered. She was eighteen, marked as a woman and perfectly capable of making her own choices. But still she hesitated.

Her parents stood by the stove in the warm pocket of the kitchen. All she needed was to slide by them and she was free. Her elder sister still slept, tucked into the quilt in their bed. She didn’t spy her little brother Oliver about either. If I can just make it to the hallway. But the floorboards betrayed her.

“Serenity, lass, you’re up early,” her father growled, not unkindly. 

Rini shook the loose sheet of her crimson hair over her shoulder and smiled. “Aye Pa, I have to go meet Auntie.” A lie, but a small one. She would go and see her Great Aunt. But after her run.

“Aunt Sedna needs you this early?” asked her mother as she surreptitiously wiped her floured hands against her apron.

“Aye,” Rini said, looking quickly away from her mother’s eyes. She knew too well that her mother could read a lie as quick as a snap of heat lightning. 

“Well, if Aunt Sedna needs her apprentice, then go on,” her father opened his broad arms to her. “Don’t go wandering in the woods, you hear? There were soldiers spotted outside Morgantown when Chief Ian and his boys went down there last.”

“Aye Pa,” Rini shrugged off his hug, the gurgle of guilt in her stomach. Lumina and Lilith were waiting for her, and they were about to break half a dozen restrictions the Chief and Elders’ Council had placed on the village since the outbreak of the war. But the chance to run free was too sweet to miss. 

She smiled, swallowing the untruth. Grabbing up her long skirts so she didn’t trip, Rini hurried from the kitchen before her parents could ask more questions.

***

The early morning air smelled of the earthy scent of dried kindling burning in the hearth fires around the village. Rini inhaled deeply. She could lick the taste of smoke from the dew-heavy air. The pines hummed, high and fast like notes from a fiddle, their crushed needles releasing a tangy, clean smell. She sighed. She could nearly taste freedom on the breeze. 

She whistled, then ducked behind a stand of trees not far from the McLean cabin. She undressed quickly, pulling her blue homespun dress overhead and tossing it carelessly into a pile with her shift, stockings, and pantaloons. The air caressed her tender skin, her nipples tightened and fine hairs rose along her arms. 

“Impatient, are we?” Lumina McLean sauntered toward Rini, already naked with her nightgown draped carelessly over her shoulder.

“My parents were already awake,” Rini sighed.

“Do they know we’re going for a run?” Lilith, Lumina’s twin sister, asked as she joined Rini, pulling off her chemise with a graceful flourish. When Rini shook her head, Lilith gave a cheerful cry. She opened her arms wide to the purpling sky and let the change course through her body, silver-gray fur replacing skin in a smooth wave, as she landed gracefully on all fours.

“You’re so dramatic,” Lumina scoffed. With a wheeze, the change resettled Lumina’s bones, popping them from joints and refashioning them until her body took the lithe form of a gray wolf.

Rini looked into the clear sky of early morning. The rising sun had burned away the purple haze of dawn. The air tingled, ripe with possibility. Trees sang a familiar aria. The itch beneath her skin spread, her shoulders and knees the first to pop from their fitted joints, pressing outward as they expanded or shrank. The itch ticked down her spine, the vertebra curving, realigning. Her fingernails sharpened and her fingers shortened. In a breath, her skin sunk beneath a blanket of tawny fur. Rini shook out the pelt, her tail uncoiling from the base of her spine. 

She barked, joy and impatience buzzing in her veins. She wanted to run, to feel the wind slide along her shoulders and back. She wanted to pound her paws against the damp earth. She wanted to leave behind Cully Beinn and all the traditions and restrictions that regulated her life. She wanted freedom.

Lilith nipped at her tail, wiggling the thick fur above her eyes.

You want to play chase? Rini thought as she danced back and forth, snapping playfully at her friend. Lumina rolled her eyes and sulked toward the trees.

In a bound, Rini leapt over Lilith to tumble against Lumina, knocking them both over. She gave a giddy yip before springing up the mountain trail, away from their village. She heard Lumina growl, but the drumming of two sets of paws followed her as she climbed the steep path.

It was cool and shadowed underneath the pine and sweetgum branches. Rini raced through the familiar trails, her whole body extended in effort. She was agile in her furs, more graceful than she ever was in her skins. “Four legs are better for balance,” her mother joked whenever Rini tripped over her ankle-length skirts and petticoats. But in her furs, Rini moved in long, sure strides. There were no hems to stumble over, and she was faster than the McLean sisters.

Up and up she raced, easily outpacing the twins. Her tawny fur slicked back as the air streamed past. For a few strides Rini was thoughtless, a creature of movement, a creature of freedom. A sharp tug on her tail pulled Rini into the present. Lilith licked her lips and darted past her, a sly smile exposing her teeth.

Rini barked a laugh at the challenge as she sprang over a felled log. She felt a childlike giddiness as she ran. The wind chilled her nose and made her eyes water, but she ran on, upward, past the farthest Gordon family fields, up past the trickling Laurel River, until a strong scent brought her up short.

Sour, like vinegar and rotten cabbage. Urine. And the copper tang of blood.

Humankind.