Chapter 2
1310 Words
The rough dirt of the courtyard scraped against Astraia’s knees as two heavy hands dragged her through the iron gates of the fortress.
Every step sent a jagged bolt of agony shooting through her chest.
The silver cut on her collarbone burned like liquid fire, the skin around it bubbling black where Alphaean’s blade had severed the soul-bond.
Her lungs felt packed with ash.
The spiritual tear didn't just hurt her body; it felt as though half of her inner spirit had been ripped out with rusted hooks, leaving a raw, hollow void behind.
"Up on your feet, stray," a raspy voice grunted.
It was Brutus, the senior guard with the scarred snout whose ale mug Astraia had refilled less than an hour ago.
Beside him walked a younger, lanky guard named Vane, who kept fidgeting nervously with the hilt of his iron broadsword.
"She can barely walk, Brutus," Vane muttered, casting a uneasy glance down at Astraia’s trembling frame.
"Look at the mark on her neck. It’s turned completely black. The silver poison is already in her blood. Do we really need to drag her all the way to the Canyon?"
"Alphaean gave an order," Brutus spat, shoving Astraia forward so hard she nearly stumbled onto her face in the slush.
"We throw her off the ledge. If she’s dead before she hits the bottom, fine. If she isn't, the canyon rogues will tear her to pieces. Either way, she doesn't come back."
Astraia kept her eyes fixed on the muddy snow beneath her boots, forcing her breathing to slow down.
Pain is just information, she told herself, repeating the mantra she had rehearsed for five long years.
Focus on the pain, and you lose. Focus on the ground, and you survive.
Deep within her core, right beneath the screaming agony of the severed bond, that strange, new spark was still flickering.
It wasn't cold like the pack magic she had watched the Alphas use.
It was hot—a dense, simmering ember of pure thermal heat that seemed to be absorbing the silver poison in her blood and burning it away, bit by bit.
She didn't know what it was, but she knew one thing: she wasn't going to die in the dirt tonight.
The pine trees thinned out as they reached the edge of the Iron Ridge boundary.
The howling wind picked up, carrying the foul, sulfurous stench of the Mistland Canyon below.
The Canyon was a jagged, pitch-black chasm that sliced through the continent, a lawless wasteland where dishonored, wolfsbane-corrupted rogues gathered like flies on rotting meat.
"This is far enough," Brutus said, coming to a halt just ten feet from the cliff’s crumbling edge. He reached down, grabbing Astraia by the back of her frayed tunic, and hauled her to her feet.
Astraia swayed on her legs, letting her head loll back, her eyes glassy and unfocused.
She let her arms hang limp at her sides, making her body feel like dead weight.
"Look at her," Vane scoffed, relaxing his stance and letting his guard down completely.
"She isn't even conscious. What a waste of time. Alphaean really thought this weak thing was his mate?"
"The Moon Goddess makes mistakes sometimes," Brutus grunted, pulling a short hunting knife from his belt to cut the leather ties binding her wrists.
"Hold her arm while I slice this, Vane. I don't want her dropping early before I can push her properly."
Vane stepped closer, reaching out an unsheathed, careless hand to grab Astraia’s left shoulder.
In that exact split second, Astraia’s eyes snapped open.
The dull, glassy haze vanished, replaced by a cold, razor-sharp focus.
Before Vane could even register the shift, Astraia grabbed his extended wrist, ducked her head beneath his arm, and drove her heel down onto the side of his knee with every ounce of force she possessed.
A sickening CRACK echoed off the stone walls of the gorge.
Vane shrieked in agony as his knee joint bent sideways. As he dropped to the frozen dirt, Astraia seized the hilt of the short dagger at his belt, unsheathed it in a fluid, blinding arc, and drove the steel blade straight through his throat.
Vane choked once, his eyes wide with utter shock, before collapsing face-first into the snow.
Brutus froze, his scarred snout twitching as his mind struggled to process what had just happened in less than two seconds. "What—you little parasite!"
Brutus roared, dropping his hunting knife and drawing his heavy iron broadsword.
He lunged forward, swinging the flat of the blade in a wild, horizontal sweep meant to take her head off.
Astraia didn't try to block it—she didn't have the physical weight to match his raw strength.
Instead, she dropped flat onto her stomach, letting the heavy iron blade whistle harmlessly inches over her hair.
She swept her leg outward, catching Brutus behind his ankles.
The heavy guard lost his balance, his armored boots slipping on the slick ice, and hit the ground with a thundering crash.
Astraia scrambled to her feet, her chest heaving, the silver scar on her neck burning like a branding iron.
She didn't waste time trying to fight him further. She turned toward the dark forest, ready to sprint into the treeline and vanish into the night.
Twang.
A sharp, metallic whistle cut through the howling wind.
A heavy cross-bolt struck Astraia straight through her shoulder from behind, the impact knocking her off her feet.
She skidded across the icy rock, stopping just inches from the sheer drop of the cliff edge.
Blood—dark and mixed with black wolfsbane—flushed over her clothes.
Slowly, step by quiet step, a figure emerged from the thick shadow of the pines.
It was Sienna.
She wasn't wearing her fine red silk dress anymore. Instead, she wore dark leather riding gear, a heavy steel crossbow held tightly in her gloved hands.
Behind her stood three tall, heavily masked assassins clad in black iron armor that bore no pack crest.
"Did you really think I would let you walk away, Astraia?" Sienna said softly, her voice cool and devoid of its usual playful sweetness.
She walked right past Brutus, who was groaning as he struggled to get up, and stopped at the edge of the rock.
Astraia coughed, clutching her bleeding shoulder, her breath coming in ragged, freezing gasps.
"Alphaean... already rejected me," she rasped. "I am nothing to him..."
"Alphaean is an i***t who thinks with his pride," Sienna spat, aiming the loaded crossbow directly at Astraia’s face.
"He thinks severing the bond makes him free. But as long as you are breathing, the universe will keep trying to drag him back to you. I spent three years positioning myself to become the next Alpha Female of the Silver Moon. I will not let a low-rank stray ruin my crown."
Sienna tilted her head, a cold, merciless smile spreading across her lips.
"Besides," Sienna whispered, lowering the crossbow just enough to aim for Astraia's chest.
"My real masters have much bigger plans for this ridge than Alphaean could ever dream of. And you are an unwanted variable."
Sienna pulled the trigger.
The iron bolt slammed directly into the center of Astraia’s chest.
The force of the strike lifted her off the snowy ledge, driving her backward into empty air.
Astraia fell into the pitch-black abyss of the Mistland Canyon, the freezing wind roaring in her ears as the ledge above her vanished into the darkness.
As the icy shadow swallowed her whole, deep within her chest, the dying ember didn't extinguish.
Under the mortal trauma of the poison, the bolt, and the fall, the ember flared into a roaring, blinding furnace of golden light—and for the first time in five hundred years, the forgotten blood of the Solari Lycans began to boil.
- Writer
