The Silver Lance

The Moon Flower

— Moonlit Conversation, in Wolf-form —

The air was thick with pine sap and wolf sweat from running free.

They lay in the clearing, flanks heaving, steam rising from their bodies in the cold. Not human. Not beast. Both. Enough of each to speak — not with mouths, but something deeper. A language pulled from the marrow, shaped in thought and breath.

Roy’s voice — not words, but meaning — drifted through her like smoke.

“Do you ever feel… too alive?”

“Like joy … and horror … in the same breath?”

“Like you were made for this?” He paused. “And hate yourself for it after?”

Grace didn’t answer at first. Just watched the moon through the canopy, her chest rising slow.

“It’s freedom,” she said. “Ugly and perfect. Like tearing the world open and finding yourself inside it.”

Roy thought about it.

“And then the sun comes up,” he added. “And you have to pretend it didn’t happen.”

They were quiet a while.

“Do you ever wish you could stay?” she asked. “Stay like this forever. Not think. Not explain. Just run?”

“Every full moon,” he said. “Until I remember what I did.”

“We don’t choose it.”

“No,” Roy said. “But we live with it. Every day.”

Their bodies ached with spent power. Their claws dulled by dirt and time.

But their souls—

—were wide open.

And the moon watched them. Patient. Silent.

⸻

Silver Lance

— Moonlit Hills, Grace POV —

Roy’s wolf shape dissolved slowly—fur slipping back into skin, limbs shortening, spine cracking into place. When he rose to two feet again, he looked older. Not just aged—worn, as if every transformation filed something away from his soul.

Grace stood near him, panting. Breath curling in the cool air. Her fingers trembled as they became fingers again. Nails raw. Skin tingling. Her eyes—still wide, still wild. The wolf still clung to her spine, to the ball of each step. Not gone—just under the skin, waiting.

Roy didn’t speak at first. Just studied her, as if gauging how much of the woman had returned.

Then: “Let me show you something.”

He moved through the trees without looking back. Grace followed.

They reached what looked like nothing more than a patch of grass. Quiet. Dark.

Until Roy pointed.

Near a rotted stump, something glowed faintly—pale silver, spear-like. A narrow flower, petals sharp as moonlight frozen into blades.

Roy knelt and plucked it with careful fingers. It pulsed once, as if reluctant to leave the earth.

“Silver Lance,” he said. “Only grows where the veil’s thin. Only blooms at night.”

Grace crouched beside him. At first, the bloom looked dead—just a plant. But when her fingertips brushed it, a shimmer slid across the petals.

“You can only see the ones that shine if you’re still partly turned,” Roy said. “Human eyes miss it. Even most wolves don’t know how to look.”

Now she saw them—dozens, maybe more—burning dimly in the grass. Each like a fallen star, rooted in black soil. The air smelled faintly of metal and rain, as if a storm had passed through just for them.

Roy smiled—first time she’d seen it. “Need a hundred to make the juice. Any less and you get visions but no clarity. Any more…” His smile thinned. “…and your bones forget how to go back.”

She raised a brow. “A hundred?”

“Better start now,” he said. “Before we change back.”

Side by side, they began to gather the flowers—bare hands lifting cold light from the ground—while the moon hung overhead, bright and silent, watching.

⸻

How to Make the Juice

— Roy’s Cabin, Grace POV —

The place smelled like smoke, pine sap, and something darker. Licorice and wet fur, old blood, crushed herbs.

“Sap always smells faintly of anise,” Roy said. “Some say that’s how you know it’s working.”

Grace stood at the battered workbench, watching him slice the Silver Lance blooms with a bone-handled knife. His hands were steady. Reverent, almost.

“You don’t crush them,” he said. “You open them. Carefully. There’s a sap inside. That’s what matters. Not the petals. Not the stem.”

Grace picked one up and followed his lead. The bloom was still faintly glowing. When she slit it, clear sap beaded along the cut like dew, shimmering in the lantern light.

“What’s in it?” she asked.

“Moonlight, mostly,” Roy said with a half-smile. “The rest is poison. Or medicine. Depends on what part of you’s in charge.”

He dropped the opened flowers into a cast iron pot, along with a pinch of dried nightshade, powdered bone, and a splash from an unmarked jar that smelled like vinegar and rust.

Then he lit the burner and stepped back.

Grace watched the mixture bubble, then settle. The smell was sharp—metallic, herbal, bitter.

Roy handed her a tin flask. “When it’s done, you pour it in here. Sip only. Before the moon rises. And only once per cycle.”

She frowned. “Why only once?”

“Because this ain’t a cure,” he said. “It’s a key. Opens the door slow instead of tearing it off the hinges.”

She looked into the pot. The liquid inside had turned pale silver, thick as syrup.

“You’ll still change,” Roy continued. “But you’ll know. You’ll remember. That’s the trick. Anyone can turn. Staying you while it happens—that’s where most of us fail.”

Grace didn’t speak. She took the flask when it was filled. Held it close.

Then asked, quietly, “What happens if I stop taking it?”

Roy looked at her. Long. Steady.

“You forget who you are,” he said. “The wolf takes the wheel. Maybe forever.”

Grace nodded.

She didn’t need to ask if that had happened to him before. She could see it in his eyes.

Half a man. Half a shadow. All memory.

Later, she sat on the porch while the sun dropped behind the trees, flask in hand, moonlight rising like breath from the ground.

She drank.

And when her bones began to shift again, it didn’t hurt.

It sang.

The wolf came forward.

But this time—

She was waiting for it.

⸻

The Scent on Her Breath

— Ranger Station, Grace POV —

The air inside Pete’s office was stale with coffee, pine mud, and old paperwork. Grace stood near the window, arms crossed, pretending to be calm.

Pete sat behind his desk, tapping a pencil against a folded trail map, not looking at her yet. His jaw worked like he was chewing on a thought.

Then he sniffed. Subtle. Twice.

“You been drinking Sambuca or something?” he asked, squinting.

Grace blinked. “No.”

“Huh.” He leaned back. “Smells like licorice.”

Her throat tightened.

He looked at her now. Not suspicious. Just observant in that quiet, woodsman way. “Whatever it is, it’s not beer. I know beer breath. This is something else. Sweet. Faint.” He tapped the pencil again. “Odd.”

Grace said nothing.

Pete rubbed a hand across his chin. “You know, it’s been quiet. Real quiet. No dead livestock. No missing hikers. Not since early spring.”

He paused. “Hell, I was almost starting to look competent again.”

Grace allowed herself a smile. Just enough.

Pete grunted and came to stand beside her at the window. He stared out at the woods—dense, drowsy under summer heat.

“I don’t know what changed,” he said, more to himself than her. “But I’ll take it. Less pressure from the ranchers. Fewer night calls. Makes my job a whole lot easier.”

Another sniff.

Then he looked at her sidelong. “Whatever you’re doing, Grace—keep doing it.”

She didn’t reply.

Because what could she say? That the only thing standing between peace and bloodshed was a flask of glowing sap, brewed with poison and hope?

That every month, just before the moon lifted over the pines, she drank something that let the beast inside her come without completely taking her away?

That she remembered the killing, the hunger, the run—but could now wake up in the dew-damp woods and breathe, not scream?

No.

She said nothing.

But later that night, when she uncapped the flask again, the scent of licorice curled up from the silver liquid—

a reminder

of the wild thing she was,

and the thin, bitter thread keeping her human.

⸻