Chapter 42: Lasso The Moon, Your Holiness

"Wonderful," the elder said. "Strike the red end against the strip. Away from me."

"Yes, Elder."

Nova gave a nod and turned away from him.

She opened the matchbook. That was as far as she got.

Apparently the priestess decided matches were trash and took matters into her own hands. Her hips started moving in a pattern that had no business being done at a ritual unless it was an actual mating ritual. Full commitment. Eyes closed. Arms raised.

Every wolf in the clearing stared at her like she had swallowed one too many of the wrong mushrooms and was currently peaking.

Nova was having the same reaction, not understanding what was happening.

Two rival Betas made eye contact and immediately looked away, married in shame.

The belt of her robe was off. Stripper windmill. That was the only way to describe it. But done by a senior citizen. Then a lasso to the moon. The lasso was lost. Lasso went flying into the face of Alpha Starborne, who to his credit, did not react. Next to him, Kai wore the expression of a man who was watching grandma strip at gunpoint.

Somebody said "the fuck." That covered it.

Nova looked down at the matches, determined to light this fire because she did not want to see any more.

"Is she... is she taking off more?" a warrior in the front muttered.

"DON’T LOOK."

"I CAN’T NOT LOOK. SHE’S ON A HILL."

An elder on the panel covered his face with both hands and left them there. He was done. His hands lived on his face now.

Half the clearing was watching Nova. Half was watching the priestess. Nobody was having a good time.

Nova struck the first one the way she’d seen other people do before.

FWOOOM.

The match erupted. The flame that should have been half an inch tall was five feet, climbing off the matchstick like a firework that had been waiting its entire shelf life for this moment. A pillar of white fire screaming off a two-inch piece of wood in the hands of a girl who had never held one before.

Nova screamed. High-pitched. Half the draftees screamed in harmony with her. The ones who were watching her that is.

She jumped backward and dropped the match. It hit the wet ground and went out immediately. She glanced up just in time to see the priestess throw her robe at someone. Underneath was a thin white dress that was as see-through as possible and it was raining.

"SOMEBODY HELP HER LIGHT THE MATCH BEFORE THE PRIESTESS FINISHES," a voice boomed.

The elders all looked in opposite directions like they didn’t hear that.

"FASTER, 7709. FOR ALL OF US."

"STRIKE IT. STRIKE IT. I DON’T CARE IF YOU BURN THE WHOLE FOREST DOWN."

Nova was already grabbing another match. Her hands were shaking but her determination was the determination of a woman who had identified the problem, which was that she had hesitated, and the solution, which was speed. Strike it and throw it before the fire had time to become her problem.

She swiped the match against the strip.

It caught.

She threw it into the pit before the flame had time to climb past an inch. The match arced through the air, trailing a tiny ribbon of light, and landed in the center of the soggy, ash-filled, holiest puddle in the continent.

For one second, nothing.

The crowd leaned forward. Two thousand bodies shifted their weight onto their front feet at the same time. The priestess stopped dancing. The elder with the umbrella stopped breathing. The elder who had cussed unclenched his jaw for the first time in ten minutes.

Then.

WHOOOOOOM.

The fire pit detonated. A white cylinder of flame punched into the sky so hard and so fast that the shockwave hit the crowd before the sound did. Every wolf within fifty feet went down. Alphas, Betas, Gammas, warriors, princesses, elders, every single one of them knocked off their feet like dominoes arranged in a circle around the world’s most aggressive birthday candle.

The priestess, mid-spin, hit the ground so hard her gown flew up and gave the front three rows a view of the Goddess’s most devoted servant that no amount of prayer was going to erase.

The elder holding the umbrella did not fall. Neither did Nova, who was standing at the edge of the pit, looking up at the column of white flame roaring hundreds of feet into the sky, then down at the matchbook in her hand, then back up at the flame.

She knew it wasn’t the matches. Every rational part of her brain understood that a matchbook from an elder’s pocket had absolutely nothing to do with a two-hundred-foot divine inferno. The flame responded to her blood, or her presence, or whatever passenger was currently leasing space in her body, and the match was a coincidence with good timing.

But still.

White wolves made of light and flame spiraled around the column, peeling off in every direction, running across the ground in streaks of brilliance before looping back and climbing the fire like a staircase made of light. They moved fast, fluid, joy in animal form, and for three seconds the clearing looked like the inside of a snow globe designed by the Goddess on her best day.

FWUMP.

The column compressed back down in a vacuum. The flame dropped to normal height, ten feet, burning bright and steady like it had been lit by conventional means, minus the color. It was still white.

The wolves on the ground were picking themselves up. Some faster than others. A Beta helped his Alpha stand and received no thank you. Two warriors made eye contact from the mud, shared a look that processed the entire evening, and silently agreed to never discuss it.

Nova turned from the pit. Every eye was on her. The silence was so complete she could hear the rain hitting the umbrella above her.

She blinked at the crowd. The crowd blinked at her. She looked at the elder. The elder looked at her.

She glanced down at the matchbook in her hands.

"Oh, my apologies." She held out the matchbook to him. "Thank you, Elder."

The elder took it without a word.