The Girl With No Origin
1270 Words
CHAPTER ONE
Raphina
The first thing I ever learned about myself was that I did not belong.
The Lockheart Pack was not cruel, not exactly. It was simply just too aware. Aware of rank, of bloodlines, of the sacred chain that linked one wolf to another. Alphas ruled, Betas served, Omegas obeyed — and somewhere far below that, among the invisible and unwanted, there was me.
No one ever said it outright, but I knew it from the way they looked at me.
The way their eyes slid past me like I was a smudge in their perfect picture.
I didn’t even have a last name. I was given a last name by the Pack.
“Raphina,” the Elder would call during roll, his voice echoing in the open yard. “Just Raphina. No pack line. You’ll be Raphina Fletcher.”
The silence that followed was always the same — sharp, uncomfortable, stretching far too long.
Sometimes, I’d wish I could disappear into the dirt. Other times, I wished I could command the wind to blow hard enough to scatter their whispers to the trees.
But I had no such power.
While other children were already showing hints of their gifts — little bursts of light, sparks, or strength — mine never came. I was eight that year, small and thin, with nothing to my name but fast feet and faster instincts. I could find lost things in the woods. I could sense when danger was close. But that wasn’t a gift, not really. Just... luck, I supposed.
The morning it happened was cold — one of those days when the mist never quite lifted from the ground. We’d been sent to gather herbs near the boundary line, where the trees grew thick and the ground hummed faintly with old magic.
Mirella was leading, of course. She was the Beta’s daughter, born with a sharp tongue and sharper claws. Her gift had awakened early — the ability to call wind into her palms. Everyone adored her for it. Everyone but me.
“Careful not to step where you don’t belong, runt,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at me. Her tone was sweet, but her eyes were not. “We wouldn’t want the forest to swallow you up. No one would know where to look.”
The others giggled. I said nothing. I never did.
We gathered leaves and petals in silence, the only sound the whisper of wind brushing through the trees. Mirella’s laugh cut through it suddenly — bright and cruel.
“Look at this!” she called, holding up a small stone shaped like a heart. “Maybe the Moon finally took pity on her.” She tossed it toward me, her voice dripping with mock pity. “Here, orphan. Something to remind you that even stones get shaped by love.”
The others laughed again. I didn’t move to catch it, and it bounced against my boot before rolling away.
I bent to pick it up, ignoring the sting in my chest.
That was when Mirella stepped closer.
Too close.
“You really think you belong here, don’t you?” she whispered. “Among wolves who were chosen by the Moon herself?”
Her breath smelled like mint and pride.
“I don’t think anything,” I murmured, keeping my eyes on the ground.
“Exactly,” she said, smiling. “You don’t *think.* That’s your problem.”
She gave me a small shove — not hard enough to bruise, but sharp enough to make me stumble back into the mud. My herbs spilled everywhere, petals crushed underfoot.
A few of the other children laughed, though one — tiny Eren from the mill family — looked away, ashamed.
I pushed myself up slowly, brushing dirt off my knees. My palms were wet with cold mud. The smell of it clung to me.
“Go on then,” Mirella said, tossing her braid over her shoulder. “Use your mighty powers to clean that off. Oh, right. You don’t have any.”
I could have said something. I could have thrown the stone back at her or told her that her power came from wind because she was empty inside.
But I didn’t.
I just looked at her — really looked at her — and felt a quiet, strange calm settle over me.
Because somewhere deep inside, beneath all the humiliation and dirt and tears, I knew she was wrong.
I didn’t have their gifts, but I had something else — something no one could quite name.
Even when I got lost, I always found my way back.
Even when I fell, something inside me refused to stay down.
I could sense paths others couldn’t see. Feel danger before it arrived.
It wasn’t magic — at least, not the kind they’d ever understand — but it was mine.
When the Elders came to check on us, Mirella was the first to greet them, beaming and holding up her full basket.
I stood a little ways behind, muddy and small, clutching the stone she’d thrown at me.
Elder Rowan’s eyes softened slightly when he saw me. “Raphina,” he said gently, “did you wander again?”
“No, Elder,” I murmured. “I was right where I was meant to be.”
He frowned, as though trying to read my meaning, but he said nothing.
---
That night, when everyone else was asleep, I crept out to the meadow behind the sleeping huts. The Moon hung low, silver and solemn. The grass whispered under my bare feet.
I took out the stone and set it on my palm. It gleamed faintly in the moonlight — rough but beautiful.
“Even stones get shaped by love,” I whispered, mimicking Mirella’s cruel tone. Then I smiled, soft and bitter. “Maybe they do.”
I placed the stone on the earth, just where the moonlight kissed it, and whispered, “Then shape me too.”
The wind stirred. Not the kind that Mirella commanded, but a gentler one — a whispering breeze that brushed against my skin as if to say you already are.
I didn’t have power like the others.
No strength to lift trees or command storms.
But that night, standing under the moon with dirt on my knees and a stone in my hand, I swore to myself that I would carve my place into this world — not by the Moon’s gift, but by my own will.
Because I might have been nothing to them, but I was something to myself.
And one day, they would see.
---
The next morning, when I walked through the training yard, Mirella passed by me again, flanked by her followers.
She glanced down at the small pendant around my neck — a rough stone tied with twine.
Her nose wrinkled. “Still playing with rocks?”
I met her gaze this time, calm and quiet. “Still afraid of what’s real?”
Her eyes widened, and for the first time, she didn’t have a response.
She just turned away, muttering something about “crazy little Omegas.”
I didn’t look back.
As I walked toward the open field, the wind shifted, wrapping around me in a way that felt like protection. Like promise.
And though I didn’t know it yet, that night had already set something in motion — a path winding quietly toward the boy who would one day see me not as a shadow among wolves, but as the spark that defied it.
A path toward the Nightshade heir.
The Darkborn
- Writer
