Chapter 9
602 Words
I wake up in the ward again.
This time, I laughed immediately I opened my eyes this time. I was going to be labelled pretentious.
This was one of those cracked, breathless laughs that scraped out of my throat like broken glass. It tasted like pain and pride and something else I couldn’t name.
Elio and I once were called the trouble twins. Unafraid of punishment, quick to mischief, and completely immune to fear. Or at least, we used to be.
He grew up more reserved. All duty and honor, like he swallowed a sword and made a blood pact with his reflection. But rile him up enough, and he was still the boy who dared me to jump off the roof because he broke his leg after trying it first.
When I was younger, I thought my father and my twin were everything. I idolized them. Worshipped them. I was never happier than when we trained outside together—Elio with his graceful, fluid form, me breathless and bruised, trying to keep up. I had no wolf yet. No chance in the world. But combat called to me like a second heartbeat.
Back then, I thought my father’s silence was patience. His distance was strategy. I believed if I trained hard enough, if I bled enough, he’d see me. He’d be proud.
Spoiler alert: he never will be.
Somewhere in that uphill battle, I found something that was mine.
Gunmanship.
I’d seen a commoner use one once. The elders called it a coward’s weapon—claimed wolves were faster than bullets and wounds healed too quick for it to matter.
But they were wrong.
Guns didn’t care about strength. They didn’t care if you had fangs or royal blood or if you were the cursed daughter of an unacknowledged Alpha line.
If you aimed right, you won.
The first time I entered the hunting trials, A competition every cabinet member, elder and noble go to for seasonal fun, Elio laughed.
“You couldn’t catch a rabbit if it tied itself to your foot.”
I just laughed with him.
That evening, I shot a mountain lion clean through the eye.
And all it took was...one. Determined. Shot.
Problem solved.
Everyone, with their elongated claws and fangs, bloodied and with mud had looked at me with mockery in their eyes right after.
I didn't care. I'd caught something.
It became my thing. My secret rebellion. I learned every curve of every piece, every mechanism, every recoil pattern. I built and unbuilt rifles the way other girls braided their hair.
For once, I wasn’t the runt in the training yard. I was the sniper in the trees.
Until I...accidentally shot at Elder Ezekiel.
Well, it was an accident.
I missed.
They confiscated my weapons after that. Called it a “safety violation.”
I look around the ward now with anything but patience.
“I know we’re twins and you can’t function without me,” I mutter, glancing toward the bed beside mine, “but could you stop dragging me back here every time I pass out?”
Elio didn’t answer. Still unconscious. Still pale. Still annoyingly serene.
I sighed and slammed my head against the pillow. Once. Twice. A third time for good measure.
Everything was fogged out. I remembered the mines. I remembered Larka. I remembered—
The strange glowy stone.
Did I… swallow it?
I shuddered.
There was nothing left of that now. No heat. No hum. No voice.
I put a hand over my belly.
Was it all in my head?
I still have school in the morning.
Sigh.
- Writer
