Chapter 3
1180 Words
The morning after the pyres went cold, Lyra learned how quickly love can turn into something colder than winter.
The packhouse smelled of boiled oats and wood smoke. Voices rose and fell around the long tables, steady as a tide. No one looked at her when she stepped into the kitchen. It was as if she had turned invisible overnight.
She reached for a bowl.
The cook slapped her hand away with a wooden spoon.
“Not for you, Lyra,” Hettie said without meeting her eyes. “That is for the warriors.”
“I am hungry,” Lyra said. Her voice came out small and hoarse, so she cleared her throat. “I will take whatever is left.”
Hettie made a noise that was not quite a laugh. “Then you will take the pot after it is scrubbed.” She shoved a rag at Lyra’s chest. The spoon clattered against the counter. “Do the floors. Do the pots. Then ask again.”
Lyra swallowed and took the rag. Around her, the room moved on. Ladles dipped, cups clinked, the smell of cinnamon drifted past. A boy she used to race through the fields with walked by carrying a full plate. He did not look at her. He made sure his shoulder brushed hers hard enough to make her stumble.
Another voice spoke from the doorway. “You heard Hettie. Floors first.”
Calder stood there with his arms folded. He had once been one of her father’s best trackers. His eyes looked like flint now.
Lyra dropped to her knees and started to scrub.
No one stopped her when she worked straight through lunch. No one offered her a drink. By the time the last bowl was washed, her fingers had pruned and her knees burned. Hettie set a chipped cup of water on the counter, nothing more.
“Drink outside,” Hettie said. “You cloud the room.”
Lyra stepped into the yard and tilted the cup back. The sky was bright and tasteless. She breathed in the smell of dust and wet stone, then turned toward the long path that led down into the village, and farther still, to the school.
At school, the whispers did not bother to hide. Someone hissed, “Mother killer,” when she passed. Another voice answered with, “Father killer,” and giggles followed like thorns. Lyra kept her head high and moved through the hall.
Reyna caught up to her at her locker. Reyna had once shared secrets and sweet bread with her under the apple trees. Now she leaned in close, the gloss on her lips catching the light.
“You should not come back here,” Reyna said. “It upsets people.”
“I live here,” Lyra said.
“That is what everyone is upset about,” Reyna said with a sweet smile, then turned and walked away.
“Mr. Hale, to the office,” a voice called from down the hall. It was Headmistress Vale.
Vale was a severe woman with iron hair and a straight back. Lyra went, her footsteps echoing against the tile.
Inside the office stood Vale, a woman in a pale suit whose scent pricked Lyra’s skin like nettle, and two boys she knew well. Corin, Beta Rowan’s son, and Jax, whose father ran the border patrol. Corin’s mouth curled when he saw her.
“I do not want trouble in my school,” Headmistress Vale said. Her eyes pinned Lyra first. “It is a place for learning, not for drama.”
The woman in the pale suit spoke next. “I am Miriam Rowan. My mate will be announced as Alpha at the next full moon. We will be making changes.” She paused, letting the silence fill the room. “To promote order.”
Lyra’s mouth went dry. Rowan had been her father’s Beta. “Order,” she repeated softly, more to hear the shape of the word.
Miriam’s smile did not reach her eyes. “Starting today, you will sit in the back row in every class. You will not speak unless you are called on. You will not be chanced to eat with the others. Your food will be brought to you. You will not attend pack socials, dances, or hunts. This is temporary. Until things settle.”
Corin snorted. Jax bit his knuckle to hide a laugh.
Lyra looked at Headmistress Vale. “Is this a school rule now?”
Headmistress Vale’s gaze did not waver. “It is a community rule,” she said.
Lyra nodded. She felt the words drop into her like stones. When she left the office, Corin’s shoulder hit hers in the doorway. Jax whispered loud enough for her to hear.
“She should wear a bell,” Jax said. “So we know when misfortune is coming.”
In the back row of her first class, Lyra stared at the chalkboard and willed herself not to listen to the whispers. A folded scrap of paper landed on her desk. She did not touch it. Another landed. Then another. She left them there. The room smelled of chalk and ink and rosemary from the windowsill. She breathed in the herb and let the scent settle her pulse.
After classes, she walked home alone. She felt eyes on her from every porch, from behind curtains, from the steps of the bakery where a woman dusted sugar on rolls and then brushed it off her hands as if to rid herself of a stain. The children playing in the street quieted when she passed. One little boy waved. His mother pulled his hand down and pushed him inside.
At the packhouse, a list was nailed to the board by the door. Lyra’s name appeared four times: laundry, kennels, latrines, woodpile. She stared at the last line. Night duty, it said. She would not sleep much. That was the point.
Calder appeared again. “You are late,” he said. “The dogs are hungry.” He handed her a bucket of scraps that smelled of fat and bone and old blood. “Try not to burn anything this time.”
That night, she fed the dogs. Then she hauled wood until her shoulders shook. She scrubbed floors until the grain of the boards felt like a map under her palms. When night pressed cold against the windows, she stood at the mouth of the narrow corridor where the omega bunks lined up like crates and waited for orders that did not end.
An omega named Lani pressed a small piece of bread into her hand when no one was looking. It was stale and perfect.
“Thank you,” Lyra whispered.
Lani’s eyes flicked toward the door. “Be careful,” she said. “Miriam wants to be loved. When that does not happen, she will settle for being feared.”
Lyra slept for two hours on a thin mattress that smelled of lye. She woke to the clang of a bell. Morning arrived like a slap.
- Writer
