Chapter thirteen
The first attempt came before dawn.
Lyra felt it before she heard it—the bond tightening sharply, snapping her awake as if someone had pulled a blade across the inside of her chest. She was on her feet in an instant, breath shallow, senses sharpened to a painful edge.
Someone was inside the stronghold.
Not guards. Not council wolves.
Something quieter.
The corridor outside her chamber was dark, torches guttering low. The silence was wrong—too clean, as though sound itself had been stripped away. Lyra reached for the blade instinctively, feeling its familiar weight steady her pulse.
A shape detached itself from the far end of the hall.
Lyra moved.
She did not shout. She did not retreat. She stepped forward, authority settling into her spine like armor. The bond pul
