Chapter 3

Lyra’s POV

Darkness clung to her like a second skin.

Somewhere far away, a door creaked open. Soft footsteps. The rustle of cloth. A quiet breath.

But Lyra couldn’t lift her head. Pain burned beneath her skin, deep and cold. Her body was leaden, her thoughts thick as fog. Even breathing hurt.

“Child…” a voice whispered. Gentle. Female.

Warm fingers brushed hair from her face.

Evelyn.

Lyra couldn’t open her eyes, but she knew the healer’s scent - mint tea and dried lavender. A memory of safety.

“They left you like this,” Evelyn murmured, voice trembling. “Gods forgive them.”

Cool water touched her arm. The sting of salve followed. Bandages pressed gently against open wounds.

Lyra didn’t speak. Couldn’t. Her mind drifted in and out like a half-finished dream.

She was twelve again, sitting on her father’s lap beside the fire. He was tracing constellations in the air with his finger.

“One day,” he’d said, “you’ll rise above all of this. There’s a strength in you, Lyra. They can’t snuff it out.”

She’d believed him once.

But that was before the square. Before Luna Regina’s voice declared her parents traitors. Before her mother was dragged away screaming, and her father broken in chains.

Before the silence.

The pack had turned on her family with a single word: traitor. And Lyra had become a ghost in her own home.

She was thirteen when the first collar had been clasped around her neck. Fourteen when the beatings began.

By fifteen, she had stopped speaking to her wolf. Until Thalia whispered back.

Now, lying broken on the cot, Lyra felt the echo of her wolf pressing at the edges of her thoughts. Not quite words. Not quite warmth. Just presence.

“I don’t want to be here anymore,” Lyra whispered aloud, voice raw.

Evelyn paused in her work. “I know,” she said softly. “But you’re still here. And that means something.”

Lyra tried to open her eyes. They fluttered, then shut again.

“I’m so tired,” she murmured. “So tired of hurting.”

The healer’s hand squeezed hers. “Then rest. Let yourself heal. The pain will pass. And when it does… you’ll still be you.”

Will I?

The voice in her mind - Thalia - stirred faintly.

„Yes,” the wolf answered. „You are not broken. Not forever.”

A sob caught in Lyra’s throat.

The rejection had shattered something deep, deeper than even her parents’ death. Aiden had been hope. The last thread she’d clung to in the dark.

He didn’t just let it snap - he cut it himself.

“You’re not alone,” Evelyn whispered. “I stayed because someone had to. Because you mattered. Even if they don’t see it.”

She pressed a damp cloth to Lyra’s forehead. The coolness eased the fever burning under her skin.

“You don’t belong down here, Lyra,” the healer added. “And I think… the Goddess knows that too.”

The words slipped past Lyra’s armor, soft and unexpected.

A small seed. Not of hope. Not yet.

But something close.

Lyra slipped in and out of sleep. Dreams mixed with memories. Her mother’s hands weaving lavender bundles. Her father laughing at the stars. Aiden’s eyes when they were children - kind and curious.

Before he turned his back.

And beneath it all, Thalia’s steady hum, like a heartbeat echoing from somewhere deep inside her.

„You are not what they made you to be.”

When Lyra finally opened her eyes, the stone ceiling stared back. But this time, she was still breathing.

Still here.

And a thought flickered through the haze: Survive now. Make them regret everything later.