Lyra’s POV
The morning light didn’t gently coax the royal chambers into wakefulness. It pierced through the heavy velvet curtains like a physical blade, demanding an audience with the new reality I had carved out of lies.
I sat up in the center of the massive, silk-draped bed, my skin still humming with the ghost of Fenrir’s touch and the icy, metallic aftertaste of the witches’ potion.
For a fleeting, disorienting second, I expected to hear the harsh, familiar blast of the Vanguard bugle—the signal to roll out of a cot, dress in boiled leather, and run five miles through the freezing mud.
Instead, there was only a terrifying, heavy silence that felt far more dangerous than any battlefield.
“You’re awake, my Queen.”
The voice came from the foot of the bed, but it wasn’t the deep rumb
