Moonlight filtered through the canopy above, casting silver patterns across her shoulders, but it couldn't quite reach the cold that had settled somewhere deeper in her bones. She was standing at the estate gates when her identity token hummed against her palm. A scent-sealed message from beyond the borders.
She opened it, and her breath caught.
A formal acceptance scroll filled her vision, the Cresthaven Academy's ancient sigil gleaming against the pale parchment. The academy—the elite program she'd poured everything into, her one lifeline out of this territory and everything it held.
Her fingertips trembled against the token's smooth surface. Somewhere along the way, the moon cycle she'd given herself to prepare had slipped past unnoticed. And now, finally, her new life was about to begin.
She stood there watching the wind lift fallen leaves from the ground, spinning them away into the distance. The weight she'd been carrying in her chest—that crushing stone—cracked and crumbled. For the first time in longer than she could remember, the future looked clear. Bright.
Her passage through the border crossing was already arranged. Her traveling pack was ready. She could leave right now.
But before she did, there were places she needed to visit. A proper goodbye to the past that had tangled around her for over a decade.
Seven hours before departure.
She ran in her wolf form to the place where she'd first met Fenris.
She was nine years old when rogue traffickers dragged her into that abandoned den, threw her in with a dozen other terrified pups. She'd been shaking so hard she couldn't breathe, her young wolf whimpering inside her. And then a boy stepped forward—young Fenris, all gangly limbs and fierce determination, his wolf already showing dominance beyond his years, positioning himself between her and danger. They'd fought their way out together, running until their lungs burned and their paws bled.
But the terror had been too much. Her mind had buried the memory completely, leaving a gap that Selene had slipped into, claiming credit for a rescue she'd never made.
The den was gone now. In its place stood a gleaming trade hall, all humming activity and workers' voices echoing off stone walls. Lyra stood at the entrance in her human form, watching the bustle of pack commerce, and felt fragments of that buried memory surface like debris rising through dark water.