Nyx
Please, I prayed silently, tears carving hot tracks down my cheeks and dripping onto the filthy stone floor, let it be the latter.
Let her live.
Let me be innocent... just this once.
The footsteps grew louder.
Slow. Measured. Deliberate.
Each one landed like a hammer striking an anvil, forging the next moment of my life into something irreversible. My chest squeezed tighter with every echo until breathing felt like drawing air through broken glass. I forced myself upright, legs shaking so violently I had to press one palm flat against the damp, freezing wall to keep from collapsing. The rough stone bit into my skin, grounding me just enough to stay conscious.
The iron gate groaned open on rusted hinges.
Torchlight stabbed into the cell, harsh, blinding after endless hours of suffocating black. I flung an arm up to shield my eyes, squinting through the sudden glare as two gammas stepped inside. Their faces were blank masks of professional indifference, no flicker of anger, no trace of pity, no hint of anything human at all. Just duty. Cold, mechanical duty.
"Get up," one said, voice flat as slate.
My heart lurched and stuttered.
This was it.
The moment that would decide whether I walked out of this hell or was dragged deeper into another.
"Is she…?" The question cracked out of me before I could swallow it back. "Lysera...is she awake?"
Neither guard answered.
The silence that followed was heavier than any chain they could have wrapped around my wrists.
One of them reached down, closed iron-hard fingers around my upper arm, not cruel, but not gentle, and hauled me forward. My knees buckled on the first step; I stumbled, bare feet scraping against uneven stone as they pulled me upright again. My body still felt like it belonged to someone else, limbs leaden from the sedative, muscles trembling with exhaustion and fear, but they didn't slow. They marched me out of the cell and into the long, torch-lit corridor beyond.
Every step away from that dungeon felt surreal, dreamlike, as though I were floating toward either salvation or execution and had no way of knowing which awaited at the end of the passage.
Memories clawed up unbidden as we walked.
Eira's pale face on the healer's table nine years ago.
The way the entire pack had turned to look at me then, exactly the same way they were looking at me now.
The same whispers.
The same certainty.
I swallowed bile and forced one foot in front of the other.
We emerged from the underground tunnel into the upper levels of the mansion, and the noise slammed into me like a physical force, hundreds of voices murmuring, overlapping, rising and falling in waves of tension and anticipation. The pack had gathered.
All of them.
Every warrior, every elder, every servant who could be spared from their duties, crowded into the main hall.
My steps faltered instinctively when I realized where they were taking me.
The massive double doors stood wide open, torchlight and chandelier glow spilling out like spilled gold, inviting judgment itself to step inside.
The guards tightened their grip and propelled me forward.
The moment I crossed the threshold, every sound in the hall died.
Silence fell so abruptly it made my ears ring with phantom pressure.
Hundreds of eyes snapped to me at once.
Pack members lined the walls in thick ranks,elders in ceremonial robes, warriors in dark leathers, servants pressed shoulder-to-shoulder, nobles glittering with jewels, all of them staring. Suspicion. Curiosity. Barely veiled contempt. Whispers ignited almost immediately, low, venomous, slicing through the quiet from every direction.
"That's her…"
"The cursed one…"
"Killer of her sisters…"
I kept my chin lifted, though my spine felt brittle enough to shatter under the collective weight of their gazes.
At the far end of the hall stood my father.
Alpha Rhygar.
He towered at the head of the room, broad-shouldered, unyielding, aura pressing down on the entire space like a storm cloud about to break. His face was carved from granite, jaw locked so tight a muscle jumped in his cheek. Power rolled off him in waves; even the torches seemed to flicker lower in deference.
Beside him stood my mother.
Luna Thalira refused to meet my eyes.
Her attention was locked on the healers clustered around a low cushioned platform near the dais. Lysera lay there, pale, fragile, swathed in white bandages that wrapped her head and one arm. Her chest rose and fell in shallow, even breaths.
Alive.
The relief crashed into me so violently my knees nearly gave out.
She was alive.
But the cold, brutal reality of where I stood, of why I had been dragged here in chains of silence, swallowed the relief almost instantly.
Thorne stood a few paces away from her.
Posture rigid. Face drawn tight with worry. When his gaze finally lifted to mine, my breath snagged in my throat.
There was no warmth left in those eyes.
Only disappointment, deep, cold, final.
That single look carved deeper than my mother's slap, deeper than the dungeon's darkness, deeper than my father's threat.
The guards halted in the exact center of the hall and released my arms.
I stood alone beneath the weight of the pack's judgment.
Alpha Rhygar took one deliberate step forward.
"Nyx."
My name in his mouth sounded like an indictment.
"You stand before this pack once again accused of harming your own blood," he continued, voice low and edged with steel. "Speak."
My throat closed. Palms slick with sweat. Body still trembling from the lingering sedative. But I forced the words past numb lips.
"I didn't push her," I said. The tremble was there, but the words were clear. "Lysera was the one who threatened me. She... she wanted to push me down the stairs."
A ripple moved through the crowd, murmurs, skeptical exhales, heads turning to exchange glances.
My father's expression remained unchanged.
"And yet," he said slowly, each syllable measured, "she is the one lying injured… and you are standing."
The same words Rhett had used.
I looked toward my brother instinctively.
He stood among the warriors near the side wall, arms crossed, face perfectly neutral. Not defending. Not condemning. Simply observing, as though my life hung in the balance and it was no more consequential to him than the weather outside.
The ache in my chest sharpened.
"I swear it on the Moon Goddess," I said, voice breaking despite my effort to hold it steady. "I shifted away. I didn't touch her."
A scoff drifted from somewhere deep in the crowd.
"She always says that."
"Just like with Eira…"
The name twisted like a blade between my ribs.
My mother finally turned.
Her eyes were bloodshot, not from grief over me, but from terror for Lysera.
"If my daughter wakes and tells a different story," she said quietly, each word precise and lethal, "you will answer for it."
My heart plummeted.
They weren't waiting for truth.
They were waiting for Lysera's version of it.
And I already knew, whatever came out of her mouth next would determine whether I left this hall on my feet… or vanished from it forever.
As if the golden daughter was waiting fir her cue, Lysera stirred.
Her lashes fluttered.
Then her eyes opened, clear, bright, perfectly timed.
Every head in the hall swiveled toward her in an instant. I might as well have ceased to exist.
"Oh.... Lysera!" My mother rushed forward, voice cracking with desperate relief. "Are you okay?"
"Yes," Lysera whispered. Then she whimpered softly, one hand drifting to her side as though even the act of breathing cost her dearly.
For one bitter heartbeat I wanted to scream at her.
You just woke up. You don't need to perform this much.
But the thought died as quickly as it came.
A fall like that left real damage, bruises, fractures, internal bleeding. Pain was inevitable. So I clamped my jaw shut, nails biting crescents into my palms, and stood trembling while the room revolved around her.
Then Thorne spoke.
"Did she push you from the stairs?"
He didn't look at me when he asked.
He didn't say my name.
He simply lifted one hand, pointing directly at me, as though I were a stranger. A suspect. A threat.
My breath caught and died in my throat.
Lysera turned her head slowly, careful, delicate, until her gaze found mine for one fleeting second.
Then she nodded.
Tears spilled immediately, perfect, crystalline, sliding down her cheeks in silent accusation.
"Yes…" she sobbed, voice fragile and heartbreaking.
The hall erupted, gasps, murmurs, sharp intakes of breath.
My heart plunged into freefall.
"Nyx said that because you chose me instead of her, I didn't deserve to live," Lysera continued, each word slow, deliberate, devastating in its quiet precision. "She said if I died… she would finally be with you."
The lies struck like physical blows, one after another, each one landing harder than the last.
For one terrifying instant I almost believed them myself.
Because the room reacted as though the words were gospel.
Shock rippled outward.
Disgust followed.
Then anger, hot, righteous, unanimous.
Every gaze sharpened. Every face hardened. Certainty settled over the hall like frost.
I stood frozen, tears streaming unchecked down my face, lips trembling so violently I could barely form words.
"She's lying," I whispered.
The sound barely reached my own ears.
No one else heard it at all.
The hall buzzed around me, whispers swelling into a low roar of judgment, while I stood in the eye of the storm, ears ringing so loudly I could scarcely hear my own ragged breathing.
Lysera lay on the stretcher, pale, fragile, haloed by people who loved her, who believed her without question. My mother hovered above her like the world would collapse if Lysera so much as winced again.
And a slow, poisonous thought wormed its way into my mind.
If it were me…
If I were the one broken and bleeding on that platform.
If I lifted my head and whispered, Lysera pushed me.
Would they believe me?
The answer came back cold and immediate.
No.
Never.
Thorne straightened.
He stepped closer to Lysera, concern etched so deeply into his features it looked like pain.
Then he turned to me.
His eyes were hard.
Unfamiliar.
"I would never be with someone like you," he said.
Calm. Controlled. Cruel.
"I don't know what kind of darkness lives inside you, Nyx, but don't mistake my silence for affection. I only tolerated you. That's all." He paused, voice dropping lower, almost gentle in its brutality. "And I will never choose a girl capable of something like this."
Something inside me cracked.
Not with a sound.
But I felt it, felt the vital piece that had kept me hoping, kept me enduring, torn out with bare hands.
Blood bloomed on my tongue where I'd bitten through my lip.
Tolerated.
Years of stolen moments.
Every whispered promise.
Every quiet I love you pressed against my skin in the dark.
Tolerated.
Before the pain could fully crest, my father stepped forward.
Alpha Rhygar.
The hall fell silent in an instant.
"I've heard enough," he said, voice rolling like distant thunder, carrying absolute authority and absolute finality. "Nyx has proven time and time again that she is unstable, dangerous, and unfit to remain within this pack."
My heart slammed so hard against my ribs I thought it might fracture bone.
"She will be sent to Altheris Academy at dawn."
The world tilted violently.
Altheris.
Every pack child grew up knowing the name, whispered in warning, spoken in dread.
A fortress built on blood and bone.
Where the irredeemable were sent to fight monsters.... or become them.
Where survival was never promised, only earned through violence, cunning, or sheer dumb luck.
Murmurs exploded through the hall.
"That place?"
"That's where you send children you don't want to."
"Murderers."
"Those who can't be controlled."
Each word carved deeper, each one confirmation that my own father had just sentenced me to die.
To be erased.
To vanish so completely the pack could finally forget I had ever existed.
Something inside me snapped.
Not completely.
Just enough.
Heat surged behind my eyes, not tears this time, but something hotter, wilder. Beneath my skin my wolf... or so I thought...
Something that has been silent for nine long years in me, finally stirred. Clawing. Roaring. Furious at the endless injustice.
Lysera shifted slightly on the stretcher, small, deliberate movement.
That was all it took.
I lunged.
The sound that ripped out of my throat was not human, it was raw, feral, saturated with nine years of swallowed pain, swallowed blame, swallowed silence.
Hands grabbed me immediately, warriors closing in, voices shouting.
"Hold her down!"
My mother's scream cut above the chaos.
They tried.
One set of arms wasn't enough.
Two.
Three.
My strength shocked even me, wild, desperate, born of something deeper than muscle.
I fought blindly, rage burning hotter with every heartbeat, war drums thundering in my ears.
Then I felt it.
The sting in the side of my neck.
Once.
Not enough.
Twice.
Still burning.
"Again!" someone bellowed...maybe my mother but I don't know anymore.
The third needle slid home.
The fire inside began to gutter.
Limbs grew impossibly heavy.
Vision tunneled, darkening at the edges.
The last thing I saw, before black swallowed everything, was my mother's face.
Terrified.
Not of because they were treating her daughter like an animal.
But of what I might become if they didn't stop me.
And then the world went mercifully, completely black.