The First Kill

Lyria’s POV

Night draped itself over the forest like a hunting cloak silent, patient, waiting.

I moved through the trees without sound, my steps guided by instinct more ancient than my own blood. Every sense stretched sharp and new. I could hear the heartbeat of a rabbit trembling beneath a fallen log twenty paces away. I could smell the metallic tang of storm clouds beyond the ridge.

But more than that…

I could smell him.

A guard.

One of Rowan’s.

The one who had tied the rope around my wrists.

The one who had whispered, “Don’t struggle. It’ll be over quick.”

I felt the memory like a brand pressed into my new skin.

My wolf this feral, reborn creature inside me lifted her head, teeth bared in cold anticipation.

Take him.

The scent trail wound through the underbrush, a mixture of soaked leather, wolf musk, and fear. He was nervous. Watching the treeline. Probably sent to make sure my ashes were truly cold.

How poetic.

I followed him until his silhouette came into view: broad-shouldered, axe strapped across his back, torch in hand. Flames licked at the darkness around him, struggling to keep back the night.

He muttered to himself, voice shaky. “Alpha said she’s dead. Burned. Gone. Nothing walks after that…”

I stepped into the torchlight.

His breath hitched.

The torch dipped.

“Moon above” he choked. “Lyria?”

No one had spoken my name with such horror before.

It thrilled something deep in me.

He stumbled backward, scanning the trees as if expecting Rowan to appear from the shadows and save him.

No one was coming.

He raised his axe with trembling hands. “Stay back. You’re not you can’t”

“I can,” I whispered, my voice a rasp of smoke and new hunger. “And I did.”

He swung the axe. Too slow. Too predictable. I moved before he finished the motion, my hand catching his wrist. Heat surged from my palm into his skin fire that didn’t scorch me, only everything it touched.

He screamed, dropping the weapon as his arm blistered under my grip.

I leaned in close, inhaling his terror, his disbelief, the scent of someone who’d thought himself a predator until he saw a real one.

“Why did you help kill me?” I asked softly.

He shook his head violently. “I— I had orders the Alpha we all”

I pressed my fingers against his throat. Not choking. Just reminding him how fragile he was.

“You tied the ropes too tightly,” I murmured. “Did you know that? You bruised me before the flames even touched my skin.”

His eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry. Please— please don’t”

“Don’t what?” I whispered. “Don’t make you suffer? Don’t let the fire taste you too?”

He sobbed, falling to his knees. “Please”

The wolf inside me snarled.

Burn him.

I didn’t hesitate.

My hand slid to his jaw, tilting his head gently almost tender. Flames unfurled from my fingertips, licking across his throat, his chest, his limbs. He screamed once… then the sound dissolved into a wet, cracking hiss as fire consumed him from the inside.

His body collapsed into embers.

Ash drifted through the air, spiraling upward like a faint, grieving snowfall.

I watched until the last glow faded, until the forest swallowed the smell of charred flesh, until silence reclaimed the clearing.

My heart did not race.

My hands did not tremble.

I felt nothing but a steady, simmering calm.

This was justice.

This was balance.

This was the beginning.

I turned toward the deeper woods, toward the border that separated Bloodshield lands from the Shadowrend territory beyond.

And for the first time since my rebirth, I felt eyes on me.

Not human.

Not wolf.

Something other.

A presence watching. Waiting.

Drawn to me.

I stepped toward it.