Chapter twenty
1220 Words
The silence after the raven’s message was louder than any war drum.
Return the Moonstone by sunset. Or we come for her heart.
The name left behind—The Shadow Queen—hung in the air like poison.
“She’s real?” Kael asked again, voice low, barely restrained.
“Yes,” I whispered. “She’s not just real. She’s ancient. Older than any Alpha bloodline. Older than the Moon Goddess herself.”
Dorian, Kael’s beta, stepped forward. “Then why hasn’t she made a move before now?”
“She didn’t need to,” I said. “She was bound. Locked behind blood seals and cursed gates. But something’s changed.”
Kael met my eyes. “You.”
We gathered in the war chamber, the Moonstone pulsing faintly in my satchel.
The map sprawled across the oak table was littered with red markers—representing Council battalions. The black ones represented our dead. There were too many of both.
Lucian’s forces had disappeared into the mountains, but we knew they weren’t retreating.
They were waiting.
And the Shadow Queen wasn’t bluffing.
“She wants the Moonstone because it’s the only thing that can destroy her,” Kael explained to the others. “And Nyra… is the only one who can wield it.”
I looked around the room—commanders, seers, wolves who once doubted me now hanging on my every word.
“I’ll finish the trials,” I said. “No matter the cost.”
Kael flinched at those words, but said nothing.
Because he knew.
Some costs couldn’t be avoided.
The second trial began at dusk.
Not in some enchanted cave or ancient ruin.
But here.
Now.
In blood.
The Moonstone flared hot in my hand, and the ground split open beneath the fortress, revealing a spiral staircase made of bones.
Kael tried to follow.
I stopped him.
“This one is mine,” I said.
He didn’t argue.
He just kissed my forehead, and whispered, “Come back to me.”
The chamber below pulsed with violet light. Unlike the first trial, which had been about memory and pain, this one was a test of choice.
A voice echoed through the chamber:
“To lead, you must kill.
To rule, you must decide who lives.”
“Only one may walk out.”
Two doors opened.
And two people were dragged in.
One was Dalia—the healer who’d saved me after my first shift.
The other was Ryker—a warrior who had once betrayed Kael during the border raids.
Both were bound. Both stared at me.
“Kill one,” the voice said. “Or they both die.”
“No,” I whispered. “You can’t do this.”
“You must,” the voice boomed. “Choose who deserves the future.”
I dropped to my knees.
This wasn’t power.
This was cruelty.
Dalia looked at me, tears in her eyes. “It’s okay. I’m ready.”
Ryker said nothing, but there was regret in his eyes.
I reached for the blade they’d given me.
And then I did something the Moonstone didn’t expect.
I turned the blade on myself.
“I won’t choose. You want a Queen who kills her own? Then find someone else.”
The stone screamed.
The chamber exploded in light.
And when I opened my eyes…
Dalia and Ryker were gone.
Only the Moonstone remained, glowing brighter than ever.
Trial Two: Defy the Order.
Passed.
When I emerged from the chamber, Kael was waiting.
His face went white when he saw the blood on my arm.
“You weren’t supposed to get hurt.”
“I wasn’t supposed to survive,” I said softly.
He pulled me into his arms, holding me so tightly it hurt. “That’s twice you almost died.”
“I’m not done yet.”
He didn’t let go.
“I need to tell you something,” he murmured.
And then the world around us fell quiet.
“I didn’t just lose Lucian. I killed our father.”
The words hit harder than a punch.
I stepped back. “What?”
“He was going to give the Alpha seat to Lucian—even after he betrayed us. I confronted him. We fought. And when it was over, he was bleeding out. I didn’t mean to… I just… lost control.”
He looked broken. “I buried him myself. Told everyone it was war that took him.”
Tears stung my eyes. “Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because I can’t lead a kingdom on a lie. Not with you beside me.”
I reached for his hand.
“You’re not the only one with blood on your hands,” I whispered.
And then the alarm bells sounded.
They had come.
The fortress gates exploded.
The Shadow Queen’s assassin stepped through the smoke.
She wore white. Her skin shimmered like bone. And when she lifted her hood—
I stopped breathing.
It was Ivy.
My childhood friend.
My sister in every way but blood.
The one who died in the fire at the orphanage.
“No,” I choked out.
She smiled, her eyes glowing with dark magic. “Hello, Nyra. Miss me?”
Kael growled beside me. “She’s dead.”
“She was,” Ivy said. “Until the Queen offered me a second chance.”
She unsheathed her blade. “And all I have to do is kill you.”
I stepped forward.
“You’ll have to try harder than that.”
The fight was brutal.
Ivy wasn’t the girl I remembered. She moved like shadow, her strikes aimed to wound, not kill—to make me bleed slowly. Emotion warred with survival. Every time I saw her face, I hesitated.
She didn’t.
She cut deep.
Kael tried to intervene, but I held him back. “She’s mine.”
Finally, I landed a blow that cut through her shoulder.
She fell to one knee.
“I didn’t want this,” I whispered.
“Then you should’ve died that night,” she hissed.
“I searched for you—”
“You left me,” she screamed. “You left me in that fire.”
The guilt hit like a knife. Because she was right. I had escaped. I hadn’t known she was still inside.
And the Shadow Queen had twisted that pain into hate.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “But I won’t let you kill me.”
She raised her blade again.
Kael moved faster than sound.
One blow.
Clean.
Final.
Ivy collapsed into my arms.
“I was your sister,” she gasped.
“You still are,” I sobbed.
And she died in my arms.
Again.
We buried her under the old tree near the river. The place we used to play as girls.
The Moonstone pulsed warm in my chest now—not in my hand.
Because I was changing.
Evolving.
And the final trial was already building on the horizon.
As Kael and I stood beside Ivy’s grave, his voice cut through the quiet:
“What happens if you pass the final trial?”
I looked at him.
And I said the truth:
“I stop being just a girl.”
“And become the weapon the world fears.”
- Writer
