Nara Moon Priestess Guardian
1272 Words
Future Ashen.
“All right, little wolves,” I said, standing in the doorway. “Bed.”
My daughter dropped onto the rug as if sleep itself had attacked her. “But I am not tired.”
Her brother nodded solemnly. “She is not tired, Papa. I checked.”
“You checked?”
He pressed two fingers to her forehead. “Medically.”
I crossed my arms. “All children must sleep at a certain hour.”
“Whose law?” my daughter asked.
“Mine.”
“That is not real.”
“It is in this castle.”
She sat up, eyes bright. “Then tell us a bedtime story. That will help.”
“No story tonight.”
“Please?”
“No.”
“Please, Papa?”
I lasted four seconds.
“What kind of story?”
“A fairy tale,” she said instantly.
“A fairy tale?” I lifted a brow. “I do not know if I know any.”
My son gave me a deeply unimpressed look. “You married a princess.”
“That does sound suspicious.”
“And you live in a castle.”
“Unfortunately.”
“And Mama says you were very dramatic when you were young.”
“That is slander.”
My daughter crawled into my lap. “Tell us a real one.”
I looked toward the fire.
For a moment, I did not see this room. I saw another hearth. Another floor. Another boy curled beside ashes with blood on his back and frost hiding beneath his skin.
“All right,” I said softly. “I will tell you about a little cinder boy.”
“A cinder boy?” my daughter whispered.
“A boy they made sleep near the ashes. A boy they called useless. A boy everyone believed was nothing because no one had bothered to ask what had been hidden inside him.”
“Was he really nothing?” my son asked.
“No.” My fingers brushed the old ring on my hand. “But he did not know that yet.”
“Does he meet a princess?”
“Eventually.”
“Is she pretty?”
“Dangerously.”
“Does he become a prince?”
I looked back into the fire.
“Not at first,” I said. “First, he had to survive a normal day.”
Ashen.
“One.”
The silver lash split open my back.
Pain burned white-hot through my skin, and my fingers clenched around the wooden post in front of me until splinters bit into my palms.
Behind me, Lady Seraphine’s voice remained calm.
“That is for slacking on your chores.”
I did not scream.
Nara did.
A small broken sound left my sister’s mouth from somewhere near the doorway.
“Quiet,” Alpha Torren snapped.
She went silent at once.
But I could still hear her crying.
That was worse.
I kept my eyes on the floor.
Not on Nara.
Not on the guards.
Not on the pack members watching because punishment was always a lesson, and omegas were always the easiest lesson to teach.
And not on my father.
Especially not him.
Torren Drakewood sat in his chair beneath the covered balcony, broad shoulders stiff, golden hair untouched by the wind. The Alpha of SilvaFrost. My father. The man who had given me his name and nothing else.
I wanted him to stop it.
I hated that I still wanted that.
“Two,” Seraphine said.
The guard struck again.
Silver scraped through flesh. My body jerked before I could stop it.
“That is for using magic you had no right to use.”
Whispers rose around the yard.
Magic.
The word followed me like rot.
A useless omega with magic.
A jinx.
Bad luck.
A mistake that should not exist.
“Three.”
The lash fell.
“That is for forgetting what you are.” Seraphine stepped closer, her pale blue skirts whispering over the frozen ground. “No wolf. No rank. No worth.”
No wolf.
The words landed deeper than the lash.
Everyone in SilvaFrost knew I had no wolf. No beast inside my bones. No voice beneath my skin. No second heartbeat to make me whole.
At least, that was what they said.
But sometimes, when danger came too close, I felt something.
Not a wolf.
Not really.
Just a presence in the dark.
Quiet.
Cold.
Watching.
The guard lifted the lash again.
After the third strike, Seraphine stopped naming them.
The rest came one after another.
Four.
Five.
Six.
The silver kept the wounds open longer than normal. Most wolves healed quickly, but I was not most wolves. I did not have a wolf to pull my skin back together. I healed slowly. Wrongly. Like my body had forgotten the spell every other wolf was born knowing.
By the seventh lash, my knees weakened.
By the eighth, the yard blurred.
By the ninth, I tasted blood from biting my own tongue.
Nara made another sound.
Torren’s chair scraped.
For one foolish second, hope rose in me.
Then his voice cut through the yard.
“I should have gotten rid of you that day.”
The world went still.
He did not have to say which day.
I knew.
The day Nara was born.
The day my mother died.
The day he looked at his newborn daughter, saw another omega child, and decided something had gone wrong with his bloodline.
The day I became old enough to understand that love could die before the body did.
Nara’s sob turned soundless.
I wanted to look at her.
I did not.
If I saw her face, I might fall.
And if I fell, Seraphine would give the rest to her.
She had already promised.
“If you pass out,” she had whispered before they tied me to the post, “your sister takes what remains.”
So I stayed awake.
For Nara.
For my promise.
For the little boy I had pulled from the river that morning.
Because that was where this normal day had truly begun.
The SilvaFrost river was not meant for pups.
Everyone knew it.
In winter, it looked beautiful from far away, a silver ribbon beneath the mist. But beneath the ice, the current ran fast and hungry. It swallowed branches whole. It dragged grown wolves under.
I had been carrying water for the twins’ bath when the screaming started.
“Pup in the river!”
I should have kept walking.
That was what a smart omega did.
A smart omega finished chores. Lowered his head. Stayed invisible.
But the boy’s head vanished under the black water.
So I dropped the pail and ran.
Guards shouted for the Alpha. Servants screamed. The boy’s mother sobbed from the bank, held back by wolves who looked more afraid of the river than of losing him.
There was no time.
I stepped onto the water.
Ice formed beneath my boot.
Gasps rose behind me.
I took another step.
The river froze again.
Cold climbed through my bones, familiar as breath. Frost threaded across my sleeves. The current snarled beneath me, cracking and shifting, but I kept moving.
The pup surfaced ahead, choking, little hands clawing at nothing.
Too far.
I lifted my hand.
The air tightened.
It always felt like pulling thread through a needle too small. I could not reach far, not like royal wolves in old stories, but close enough, I could move things.
The pup jerked toward me.
Not enough.
I stepped again.
My fingers curled harder.
- Writer
