THE FORSAKEN LYCAN PRINCESS.

CH 13..

The grey light of dawn bled through the small, iron-barred window of my cellar room, cutting through the damp shadows and painting the stone wall in cold, pale silver.

I sat upright on my straw pallet, my back was still a lattice of agonizing, raw heat, the blisters Tanya’s boiling broth had scalded into my flesh were far from healed, and the severed muscle in my right palm throbbed with a heavy, sickening pulse beneath its bloody wrappings.

Yet, as I looked down at my blood-crusted hands, I didn't feel broken.

The hollow, bleeding pit of shame that had lived inside my heart for twenty-three years was gone. It had been incinerated by the memory of my mother’s soft hazel eyes, replaced by the golden truth written in her own hand. I was no curse. I was no mistake. I was Evelyn’s victory.

A harsh, metallic screech echoed down the stone corridor, followed by heavy, hurried footsteps.

"Get up, filth!"

The heavy oak door rattled as Beatrice kicked the lower panel, her red, sour face appearing through the small viewing hatch. Her small eyes were narrowed into venomous slits, her mouth twisted in its usual scowl of disgust.

"The Luna and princess Tanya are already in the high solar. They demand the morning tea, the fresh linen, and the silver polishnow! If you are a second late, I will have the guards flay the skin right off your lazy bones!"

In the past, her sharp, booming voice would have sent a wave of icy terror straight to my stomach. I would have scrambled to my feet, bowing my head, stammering apologies, and shrinking into myself to avoid her heavy palm.

This morning, I didn't flinch.

I slowly turned my head and looked directly into Beatrice’s eyes. I didn't speak. I didn't rush. I simply rose from the straw pallet with smooth, unhurried grace, holding her gaze with a silence so cold, so terrifyingly calm, that the harsh reprimand dying on her lips dissolved into a confused, uncomfortable silence.

Beatrice blinked, taking an involuntary half-step back from the hatch. Her jaw worked silently for a second before she sneered, trying to recover her authority.

"Move it, girl!" she barked, though her voice lacked its usual booming confidence. She slammed the hatch shut and hurried back up the stairs.

I smoothed down the front of my threadbare, faded gray tunic. I took a deep, steadying breath and stepped out into the corridor.

The high solar of the Silverwood fortress was a sweeping, opulent hall of polished white marble, vaulted stone arches, and soaring stained-glass windows that overlooked the misty valley below. Sunlight poured through the tall glass, illuminating the lush velvet tapestries, the golden chandeliers, and the long, gleaming mahogany table where Luna Victoria and Tanya sat.

Victoria sat at the head of the table like a queen on a throne, clad in a heavy gown of deep crimson velvet embroidered with silver thread. Her dark hair was styled in intricate, rigid coils, her face a mask of cold, aristocratic arrogance. beside her sat Tanya, wrapped in soft lavender silk, sipping tea from a delicate porcelain cup while two servant girls worked frantically to pin the lace along her sleeves.

As I entered the high solar carrying the heavy, steaming silver tea service and a basket of fresh linen, the air in the room instantly shifted.

Tanya’s eyes snapped to me, a cruel, triumphant smirk stretching across her face. She leaned back, expecting to see me dragging my feet, trembling in pain, weeping from the agonizing burns she had inflicted on me yesterday in the sun parlor. She wanted to see the broken dog begging for mercy.

I walked into the center of the room with my chin held high, my spine straight, and my steps slow, deliberate, and perfectly measured.

The heavy silver tray, laden with boiling water and iron pots, weighed heavily on my bandaged right hand, sending sharp, white-hot needles of pain straight up my arm. The raw, blistered skin on my back pulled painfully against the coarse wool of my tunic with every breath I took.

I didn't care. I didn't let a single muscle in my face twitch. I did not drop my gaze to the floor. I held my head up, looking straight ahead, my eyes clear, serene, and entirely void of fear.

Tanya’s smirk slowly faltered. Her eyebrows knitted together as she stared at me, visibly rattled by the utter absence of tears or flinching.

"Look at it," Tanya sneered, her voice shrill as she tried to force the room back into her narrative.

"The monster survives another night. It seems the boiling broth didn't wash the filth off your skin, Elara."

I walked up to the mahogany table, setting the heavy silver tray down on the white tablecloth without making a single sound. The delicate porcelain cups didn't even rattle.

"Your tea, Tanya," I said softly. My voice wasn't a desperate whisper, nor was it a bitter hiss. It was smooth, clear, and quiet, like a deep, frozen lake.

Tanya’s eyes flashed with sudden, fiery irritation. She hated my silence. She fed on my pain, and without it, she was starving.

"You dare look at me?" Tanya hissed, slamming her porcelain cup down onto its saucer with a sharp CLACK that split the quiet solar. Tea sloshed over the rim, staining the white lace of her sleeve.

"You filthy, useless curse! Look at the mess you made!"

She lunged across the table, her right hand flying out in a fast, violent arc aimed directly at my cheek.

Yesterday, I would have cowered. Yesterday, I would have closed my eyes and taken the strike.

Today, my left arm moved with lightning speed.

I caught Tanya’s wrist mid-air.

My fingers, dirty and calloused from years of hard labor, clamped around her soft, delicate wrist like a band of forged iron. The impact stopped her hand an inch from my face.

The high solar fell into an absolute, suffocating silence.

The two servant girls pinned to the floor gasped, dropping their sewing needles. Beatrice, who was standing near the door, choked on her own breath, her eyes bulging out of her head in pure shock.

Tanya froze, her jaw dropping, her eyes wide with unadulterated disbelief.

"What... what are you doing?" she gasped, her voice trembling with sudden, instinctive rage.

"Let go of me, you wild animal! How dare you lay your filthy hands on me!"

I didn't let go. I didn't tighten my grip to hurt her, nor did I flinch at her screeching. I simply held her wrist steady in the air, looking straight into her brown eyes. My gaze was so cold, so deeply unbothered, that it reflected her own insignificance right back at her.

"You dropped your tea, Tanya," I said quietly, my voice utterly devoid of anger, fear, or submission.

"And I am busy."

I released her wrist with a gentle, indifferent push, stepping back smoothly.

Tanya stumbled back into her chair, her face flushing a deep, furious crimson. She clutched her wrist as if I had burned her, her chest heaving as she stared at me, utterly humiliated and completely disarmed by my composure.

"Mother!" Tanya shrieked, turning desperately to her mother.

"Did you see that?! The curse put her hands on me! Order the guards to whip her! Strip her skin off!"

Luna Victoria had not spoken a word since I entered the room.

She sat rigidly in her high-backed chair, her sharp, cold eyes locked onto my face. The absolute aura of dominance she usually projected was faltering, replaced by a subtle, creeping shadow of horror that slowly drained the color from her aristocratic cheeks.

Victoria wasn't looking at my dirty tunic. She wasn't looking at my bandaged hand.

She was looking into my hazel eyes.

For twenty-three years, Victoria had seen only a broken, terrified orphan when she looked at me, a pitiful reminder of the woman she could never replace. But today, standing before her in the morning light, my head held high, my gaze steady and unbreakable, she didn't see the curse.

She saw Evelyn Cresthaven.

She saw the royal Luna who had commanded the love of the entire valley without ever raising her voice. She saw the woman Alpha Raymond had wept for on his knees. The calm, terrifying dignity radiating from my soul was an exact, living mirror of the dead queen Victoria had tried so desperately to erase from history.

Victoria’s breath hitched in her throat. Her fingers, adorned with heavy gold rings, gripped the armrests of her chair so tightly her knuckles turned white.

"Mother!" Tanya screamed again, her voice cracking with frantic rage.

"Do something!"

Victoria slowly raised her hand, her voice coming out dry, tight, and laced with an underlying tremor she couldn't hide.

"Quiet, Tanya."

"What?!" Tanya gasped, turning to her mother in disbelief.

Victoria didn't take her eyes off me. She rose slowly from her chair, her crimson velvet dress rustling against the marble floor. She walked around the long mahogany table, stopping three feet away from me.

The air between us grew thick, heavy with the suffocating pressure of her Luna aura. She tried to force her power onto me, trying to bend my knees, trying to force my eyes back down to the floor where she believed I belonged.

I stood my ground. I didn't bend. I didn't tremble. I met her heavy, oppressive aura with the serene, unbreakable shield of my mother’s memory, staring directly into her cold eyes with absolute, quiet indifference.

Victoria’s eyes widened slightly, a flicker of genuine terror flashing deep within her pupils. She realized, in that single, agonizing second, that her whip, her insults, her cruel starvation, and her years of torment had failed. She had broken my body, but she had failed to break my soul. The weapon she had used to control me for two decades, fear, was completely useless.

"What happened to you last night, Elara?" Victoria whispered, her voice low, dangerous, and dripping with an uneasy suspicion.

"Nothing, Luna Victoria," I replied softly, my chin remaining high.

"I simply woke up."

Victoria stared at me for a long, agonizing moment, her chest heaving slightly as she searched my face for a tear, a tremor, a sign of weakness, anything she could grab onto to reassert her dominance.

She found nothing.

"Get out," Victoria breathed, her voice barely a whisper, yet sharp enough to slice through the quiet room.

"Mother!" Tanya protested, standing up.

"I said GET OUT!" Victoria suddenly roared, her composure completely shattering as she turned her head and screamed at the servants and Tanya, her voice echoing off the high stone arches.

The servant girls scrambled toward the heavy doors in terror. Tanya flinched, looking between her mother’s pale, agitated face and my calm, composed figure, before stomping out of the solar in a huff of silk and rage.

I bowed my head slightly. not out of submission, but out of simple, quiet courtesy and turned on my heel.

As I walked smoothly toward the grand arched doorway, my threadbare tunic rustling softly against the marble floor, Victoria’s tight, trembling voice cut through the empty solar behind me one last time.

"You think you have won something, don't you?" Victoria whispered, her tone laced with a desperate, bitter poison.

I stopped at the threshold, turning my head slightly to look back at her over my shoulder.

The morning sun caught my hazel eyes, making them glow with a warm, brilliant gold.

"Good day Luna," I said softly.

Without waiting for her response, I stepped out of the high solar into the corridor, leaving the Luna of the Silverwood pack standing alone in her grand marble hall, terrified of the ghost she could no longer suppress.