The Forsaken Princess: I'm Not A Wolf!

Chapter 6: Oh dear lord

Sylvianne’s POV:

A needle shot past my neck, missing by a hairsbreadth.

My breath caught in my throat. My body tensed.

For a moment, the world slowed.

Instinct took over.

I dropped low, one knee scraping the filthy stone as I reached into my ankle boot and yanked free the dagger concealed there. My fingers curled tight around the hilt, knuckles whitening as I backed into the shadowed alley behind me.

The light of the main street faded quickly. Silence wrapped around me like a noose.

I scanned my surroundings, eyes narrowed, every muscle taut. The air shifted, and I spun around.

Only to find myself face-to-face with a figure cloaked in black, their features completely obscured by a featureless, obsidian mask. The air around them shimmered faintly, a subtle distortion only I could perceive.

Before I could process the shock, the figure moved with unnatural speed, a leg lashing out in a powerful, sweeping kick aimed at my midsection.

I barely reacted in time, a desperate summersault carrying me backward, away from the lethal strike. The force of the kick, even dodged, sent a tremor through the air, vibrating against my skin. I caught my balance, only to slam into another figure behind me.

Another masked man. This one wore white.

I jerked away instantly, heart pounding as I smelled them both.

Smoke. Musk. And something else.

Poison.

A sickly-sweet scent drifted off their skin, curling into my lungs like rot.

But this wasn’t the subtle spell-poison laced into Ashborne’s dagger. No. This was something else entirely.

This was Weepsap Berry—an ironically named toxin. It smelled of overripe, rotting berries. Sweet at first, then cloying. Stomach-turning. Lethal.

One drop was enough to shut down the nervous system. Induce paralysis and then death.

I swallowed hard.

What in the seven hells was going on?

Was this a robbery?

I gritted my teeth and dropped into a low stance, my back pressed against the brick wall as the men stepped forward.

Their movements were slow. Coordinated.

"What do you want?" I snapped, voice sharp, low, and dangerous. "I don't have coins."

No answer.

Just the sound of soft leather boots on wet stone.

The alley closed in on me.

Tight. Suffocating.

I growled low in my throat, shifting my weight.

Then they lunged.

One held a dagger.

The other held a long, glinting needle, its tip coated in something slick and dark.

I didn’t wait.

I dove forward, letting my body fall low, twisting between them. My palms hit the wall ahead and I kicked off it, launching myself upward. My boots scraped against the brick as I climbed with rapid steps, scaling the narrow gap between the alley walls.

Their surprise was audible—a grunt. They hadn't expected that. They'd underestimated me.

Which meant they knew me. Because anyone else would've assumed I was just a trader in a cloak. No one would've gone for a kill shot that fast unless they were sent. Unless they thought I'd be easy to take out.

That told me one thing; this wasn’t a random attack. This was a hit.

My heart raced as I reached the edge of the rooftop and vaulted over the side. My boots landed hard on the flat tiles, sending a shock through my knees. I didn’t stop. I ran.

The city rooftops stretched before me like a crooked spine.

Wind whipped against my face as I leapt over the narrow alleyways, landing hard on the next rooftop. Another.

Another. Behind me, I heard movement. They were following.

Faster now. More precise.

I pushed harder, darting left, then right, leaping over a broken chimney, ducking under a clothesline strung between two crumbling towers.

The wind howled through the narrow corridors between buildings, stealing the sound of my breath. Sweat clung to my skin. My lungs burned.

Still, I ran.

I couldn't stop.

Every instinct screamed that if they caught me—even once—it was over.

I reached the end of the rooftops and leapt. Down. A two-story drop into a hay pile behind an old stable.

The impact jarred my bones, but I rolled with it, tumbling to my feet. I shot out of the alley and into the crowded marketplace.

People bustled everywhere, voices rising in chatter and barter. The scent of grilled meat, sweat, and dust clogged the air. Cloaks swirled. Boots stomped.I ducked into the crowd, twisting my body, changing my posture. Smaller. Meeker. Invisible.

I weaved between stalls, slipping behind a cart of dyed fabrics, then under a table stacked with fish barrels. My pursuers lost me in the flood of bodies.

For now.

I glanced up.

Assessing the forked street. To my left lay my usual route to the black market and traders’ shopping square. But a cold, intuitive dread prickled at the back of my neck. If I took that route, I had a sickening feeling they would anticipate it. I would be caught. I snarled. Damn it. My teeth ground together, a wave of anger washing over me. There was only one other path.

The other route led to the slave trading square. The Flesh pits. I had only ventured here once, months ago, on a foolish whim of curiosity, and what I’d witnessed had seared itself into my memory, making me vow never to return. I’d thought, by the sheer brutality of the name, "slave trading," that I’d be ready to witness the atrocities that happened there. But no. I wasn't ready. I hadn’t been ready for the sheer dehumanization, the casual cruelty with which they made men, women, shifters—and worse, children—stand, act, and play for their potential buyers. It was a macabre theater of suffering.

But I had no choice. So I took a deep breath and turned right. Straight into the Flesh Pits.

Because that's how it was for the rich, wasn't it? They reveled in their power, reducing sentient beings to mere commodities.

I saw two half-naked foreign women, their eyes hollow but their eyelids decorated with crystals and glitter, forced to stand on a platform, showing themselves off to attract buyers.

Children, their faces painted in grotesque smiles, dressed in degrading costumes, silently offering candies that were clearly laced with cheap, mind-numbing drugs. This wasn’t the populated, glittering side of the royal capital, Lunaheim; no, this would probably be known as the slums.

But even so, the human traffic wasn't any less. In fact, it was worse. People would assume that a place like this would be filled with the poor, thiefs, addicts, low grade shifters, pirates and such. My senses, unfortunately, were keenly aware of it all. I could smell them, the prominent and rich people in the crowd, trying to disguise themselves just as I was, their expensive perfumes and refined linens betraying their status despite their drab cloaks.

I could practically smell the money on them, the casual wealth that allowed them to participate in such barbarity.

I tried to ignore the horrifying spectacle as much as I could, focusing on blending in, on becoming invisible. My eyes swept over the faces, the brutal displays, until my ears pricked, catching a sound that cut through the cacophony.

A deep, guttural growl. It wasn't human, nor was it a wolf. Not quite. For some strange reason, my heart gave a frantic, unbidden leap, a spark of hot and cold igniting in my chest. My eyes snapped toward the sound, burning with an inexplicable intensity.

My irises suddenly felt a surge of peculiar energy, a wave of heat and then an unsettling coldness, as I registered the sound. Had I walked too deep into the Flesh Pits?

There were now creatures here, other than wolves and humans. My dragon instincts, long suppressed, were stirring, recognizing a presence, a familiar one.

I winced when once again a sharp, searing pain shot through my irises, a blinding flare of sensation. Damn it. What the hell was happening? My vision swam for a moment. My surroundings turned orange.

“Oh dear lord.” A woman’s gasp, sharp and terrified, ripped me from my internal struggle. I realized it was one of the half-naked slaves who had been dancing to a drumbeat earlier, her eyes wide with terror, not at anything else, but at me.

I growled, a low, frustrated sound born of irritation and the intensifying pain in my eyes. “What?” I snapped, my voice harsher than intended. She gasped again, pulling herself back, shrinking behind the other girl, who also looked frightened, their fear now directed entirely at me. Then, faint but clear, I heard her whisper, her voice trembling, “Her eyes just turned golden, did you see?”