The Moon's Hidden Heir

The poison was called Moonsbane. Nyra learned its name three seconds too late. Thorne had come to find her, as he always did after court ceremonies. He was still wearing the ceremonial black velvet of his Ascension rehearsal, still carrying the private flask of honeyed wine their mother pressed into his hands with a kiss on his brow. "You should have seen Lord Everard's face when Father mentioned the border raids," Thorne said, grinning as he dropped onto the stone bench beside her. "I thought his whiskers were going to catch fire." Nyra snorted, pulling her knees tighter to her chest. "You're terrible." "I'm magnificent." He unscrewed the flask and took a long swallow. "Gods, I needed that. Three hours of standing still while they argued about grain taxes. I'd rather fight a Silverfang barehanded." "I'd pay to watch that." "You'd pay to watch me get mauled." "Also true." Thorne laughed—that bright, open sound that made servants smile and nobles soften and Nyra feel, for just a moment, like she wasn't the family's hidden shame. He offered her the flask. She shook her head. "You know I can't hold wine." "Lightweight." "Broken," she corrected, the word flat and familiar. "My body rejects everything. Even pleasure, apparently." Thorne's grin faded. He set the flask down between them and turned to face her fully. In the fractured moonlight, his amber eyes—their mother's eyes—gleamed with something fierce. "You're not broken," he said quietly. "You're different. There's a difference, Nyra. And one day—" "One day what? I'll magically shift? I'll heal from a paper cut without bleeding for hours? I'll stop being the reason Father can't look me in the eye?" Thorne's jaw tightened. He reached for her hand. And then— His fingers stopped mid-air. His breath caught. A single tremor ran through his body, violent and wrong. "Thorne?" He tried to answer. His mouth opened. But what came out was not words. It was blood. Black. Thick. Burning. It spilled over his bottom lip and down his chin in a slow, terrible ribbon. His amber eyes went wide—not with pain, not yet—but with confusion. The pure, innocent bewilderment of a body that did not understand it was dying. The flask slipped from his other hand. Honeyed wine pooled on the stone. Poisoned. The wine was poisoned. "No—" Nyra lunged forward, catching him as he pitched sideways. His weight crushed her against the cold floor, but she didn't feel it. She felt nothing except the wet heat of his blood soaking through her dress, her skin, her soul. "Thorne—Thorne, look at me" His hand found her wrist. His grip was still strong. Still Alpha. His nails bit into her flesh hard enough to leave marks she would carry for days. "It—burns" The words came out wet and strangled. His veins were rising beneath his skin, black ink bleeding through parchment. His wolf—his beautiful, powerful black wolf—was howling inside him, a sound Nyra couldn't hear with her useless ears but felt in her chest like a second heartbeat dying. "I'm here." She pressed her forehead to his. His skin was already cooling. "I'm here, I'm here, stay with me, please" "Nyra." Her name came out clear. Sudden. His eyes locked onto hers with a lucidity that shattered her. "Listen to me." "I'll get help" "Listen." His grip tightened, bones grinding. "Father won't survive losing me. The kingdom won't survive. Varek" He choked. Black blood splashed on her cheek. "Varek did this," Nyra whispered. The words came from somewhere deep and cold. A place she hadn't known existed inside her. "Didn't he?" Thorne's eyes answered before his mouth could. Yes. Their uncle. Their father's younger brother. The man who smiled at them during harvest festivals and brought them gifts from the northern territories. The man who stood only one dead heir and one frail king away from a throne he had always believed should be his. "Don't let him win." Thorne's voice was fading, scraping against his throat like dry leaves. "Nyra. Don't let him win." "How?" The word tore out of her, raw and desperate. "I'm nothing. I'm no one. I can't even—I can't even heal—" "You're the strong one." His lips curved. Blood bubbled between his teeth. "You always were. I just... made it look easy." His hand went slack. His blood cooled against her skin. And Nyra Astrlyn, the princess who could not shift, whose wounds never closed, whose body was too weak to survive a single blow from any wolf in the kingdom—Nyra Astrlyn held her dead twin brother in a forgotten corridor and felt something inside her chest crack. Not her heart. Something older. Something sealed. Something waiting. She didn't scream. She didn't weep. She sat in the spreading pool of his blood and stared at his face—her face, mirrored and made male, the only person in the world who had ever looked at her and seen worth—and let the cold place behind her ribs finish its terrible awakening. Then she moved. --- She dragged his body to the hidden alcove behind the third stained-glass panel, the one they had discovered as children playing hide-and-seek. It was small. It was undignified. It was the best she could do with arms that trembled and a body that was already failing her. She would come back for him. She would give him a proper burial. She would burn offerings and speak his name to the Moon Goddess until her voice gave out. But not yet. First, she had to become him. --- In her chambers, under a moon swollen and silver-white, Nyra Astrlyn raised her mother's ceremonial dagger with trembling hands. Her silver hair fell to her waist. The mark of her shame. The proof of her weakness. The reason the court whispered Lunar Cursed behind cupped hands and her father looked through her like she was already a ghost. She gathered it in one fist. And cut. The strands whispered against the stone floor like falling snow. When she finished, her head felt light. Wrong. Her reflection showed a stranger—sharp-jawed, hollow-eyed, with hair cropped brutally short against her skull. She looked like him. Almost. The binding came next. Linen strips wound tight around her chest, crushing her breasts flat, restricting her breath until every inhale was a conscious fight. Painful. Necessary. His clothes a spare set he'd left in her chambers weeks ago, forgotten. His scent clung to them. Cedar and leather and something wild she would never possess. His signet ring. His posture. His walk, which she had spent seventeen years memorizing without knowing why. When she finished, Thorne Astrlyn stood in her mirror. And Nyra was nowhere to be found. She pressed her palm flat against the cold glass. "I will take everything he stole," she whispered to the ghost behind her eyes. "I will burn his name from history. And I will wear your face to do it, brother." "Forgive me." --- Shadowmoon Academy loomed ahead, a fortress of dark stone and darker reputation, its towers clawing at the moon like the ribs of some ancient, starving beast. Students streamed through the iron gates in clusters all of them broad-shouldered, all of them male, all of them radiating the unconscious arrogance of wolves. Nyra adjusted the strap of her trunk and tried not to breathe too deeply. The suppressant potion sat heavy in her stomach, a cold knot of herbs and magic. Hellen had triple-brewed it. It would hold. It had to hold. "You look like you're marching to your own funeral." She startled. A sandy-haired boy had materialized at her elbow, grinning as he spoke. "First-day jitters?" he guessed. "Don't worry. Everyone here pretends they're not terrified, but they are. Especially the ones headed to the Undercroft dorms." "Undercroft?" "The cheap seats." He laughed. "Don't worry, I'm headed there too. Finn Harlan." He stuck out a hand. "Black sheep of the Harlan family. Pleasure to meet you, whoever you are." Nyra hesitated. Then she took his hand, matching Thorne's firm grip. "Thorne. Astrlyn." Finn's eyes widened. "Astrlyn? Like—" He whistled. "Well. That's a name and a half. You must be the prince everyone's been whispering about. Heard you were supposed to enroll this year." "Here I am." "You're shorter than I expected." Finn grinned to take the sting out of the words. "No offense. Come on, I'll show you to the dorms. Room assignments are posted by the main hall maybe we'll get lucky and end up bunking together." "That would be... good." Finn's grin widened. "Look at that. Already making friends. You're a natural, princeling." He chattered the entire walk about the academy's draconian rules, the legendary brutality of the training masters, the rumors he'd heard about certain top-ranked Alphas who supposedly ran the place like their personal kingdom. Nyra let the words wash over her, nodding at appropriate moments, filing away every piece of information. He kept on chattering about everything. "Watch it!" Someone barreled into her from behind. She stumbled. Her trunk caught on someone's foot. The world tilted— She hit the ground hard. But the ground felt warm instead of cold. She had landed on someone. Her palms were pressed against a chest carved from granite. Her knees bracketed narrow hips. And her lips— Her lips were pressed directly against the mouth of the most terrifyingly beautiful man she had ever seen. The world stopped.