Chapter 4 Bread For A Beggar

• [XENA]
• “How much longer will we stay here, Luna?”
• Kasumi finally asks the question, but her voice still carries a hint of hesitation.
• I don’t answer, nor do I move, even though my knees have started to ache. I’ve been kneeling on the cold black stone floor of the temple for over an hour, hands clasped, but no prayer in mind. The Moon Goddess’s face on the idol remains unchanged—still kind, still calm.
• It mocks me. The life I’ve been given is anything but kind, and it is full of chaos.
• “We should leave before it starts raining, Luna,” Kasumi tries again, now sounding desperate.
• The candles on the altar flicker in the cold gusts of wind as the petals of the purple irises scattered at the idol’s feet shift; some of them have wilted, while others remain fresh. I watch a candle melt completely, its flame dying with a last shudder.
• I sigh in irritation. What answer was I hoping to find here? All I’ve felt since my arrival is melancholy. My tears have long since dried, leaving my eyes swollen and red.
• Still, all I can think of is him.
• Cassian—the man I trusted, defended, and loved past reason. The man who once carried me from blood and ruin and promised me the world. The man who now poisons me every morning with Knotgrass tea and calls it care.
• I think of Davina, too. My sister. The sister I loved even when hate should’ve come easier. Davina, who sent rogues to “teach me a lesson.” Davina, who probably celebrated when I lost my wolf. Davina, who will walk free in two years to claim the life I’ve been living like a ghost.
• There’s no one left in this world who loves me. Cassian. My family. Even the Goddess I pray to. They all hate me.
• When I finally sit upright, my gaze catches the man in the far corner. He’s been here since before I arrived and has demanded my attention without even doing anything. I finally look at him as I turn to face Kasumi. He’s broad-shouldered, half-hidden behind one of the temple’s cracked pillars. A mottled, stitched-up robe hides most of him. His hood is drawn low, his face shadowed. He’s too large to be a beggar, and too still to be simply resting.
• I have a strange feeling that he has been watching me since I set foot inside the temple.
• Kasumi, waiting near the doorway, clears her throat softly, reminding me of the tray she’s holding.
• Every time I come here, I bring offerings: bread, milk, spare cloth, and trinkets, which may be sold to procure some money. The temple is a sanctuary to those the world casts out—humans, exiles, omegas stripped of their packs.
• I pick up a piece of bread wrapped in cloth.
• One by one, I offer the bread to the worshippers along the wall—old women, shivering men, children too small to know what hunger means yet. I’d house these children in the Alpha’s keep, but Cassian hates humans—no matter how small or helpless. The recent wars haven’t made the situation any better for them.
• I never toss the food; there’s dignity in handing it over—in seeing their eyes meet mine in gratitude, and knowing I did something right.
• At last, I reach the figure in the corner. The man hasn’t moved, only lowered his head further beneath the hood.
• There’s one piece of bread left.
• “Here,” I say softly, extending it toward him.
• For a moment, nothing happens. Then a hand emerges from the robe—large, calloused, with a wolf’s head inked across the wrist. The sight startles me. I fumble the bread; it slips and hits the floor.
• “Forgive me,” I murmur, stooping to pick it up.
• When I lift my head, I catch a glimpse beneath the hood—a mouth set in a hard line, a sharp jaw, the glint of eyes too pale to belong to any common wolf. Then he turns away.
• He takes the bread quickly, as if the moment meant nothing.
• But I stand frozen, my pulse uneven, feeling a strange tug I can’t explain—a sort of recognition where there shouldn’t be any.
• “Luna?” Kasumi calls gently from behind.
• I blink, straighten, and force a small smile. “Come. Let’s go.”
• As we move toward the entrance, Kasumi whispers, “He could be a changeling, Luna. You shouldn’t meet their eyes. They’re dangerous.”
• I nod absently, but my thoughts are already tangled in the image of the stranger’s inked wrist and the bizarre pull I felt in my heart.
• At the doorway, I slip on my sandals. The first crack of lightning splits the sky, bright and jagged. A heartbeat later, rain pours down in sheets.
• “Quickly,” Kasumi says, pulling her cloak tighter.
• I pull up my hood. We’re about to step into the downpour when I spot an old woman near the temple stairs, hunched and trembling, already soaked to the bone.
• “Wait,” I say. I run to her, kneeling beside her. The rain chills my skin instantly. “You’ll fall ill. Come inside, Grandmother. The temple will shelter you from the rain.”
• The woman doesn’t move. Her face is a map of wrinkles, her gaze distant.
• “I have nothing left to give you,” I say softly. “I’m sorry.” I glance back toward the idol, its candlelight flickering through the storm. Then I sigh. “Well… perhaps I do.”
• Unclasping the golden pins at my shoulders, I slip off my ceremonial cloak—the one Cassian draped around me at our wedding, the one threaded with gold and moon-woven silk—and drape it around the woman’s frail frame.
• I sigh. “It’s useless to me now, but you can sell it and live well for at least a few months.”
• The old woman looks up, her face illuminated at the strike of lightning. “Bless you, child,” she rasps.
• I smile faintly, rise, and turn away before I can think too much about it. I never see the way the woman’s gaze follows me—or how, from the shadows of the temple, the hooded stranger watches me leave.