When Lyra returned to the Moonfall manor, the air inside already felt чуж—wrong, unfamiliar, like a home that no longer remembered its own scent.
The corridors still carried the faint trace of old pinewood smoke used during Moon Rite blessings, yet something else now lingered over it. A sweeter perfume. Too sweet. Not of her mother’s line. Not of the old pack customs.
At the end of the hall, she stopped.
Her old chamber door stood half open.
Inside, she saw it at once.
Virella’s things.
New silken drapes embroidered with silver thread hung where her mother’s simple wolf-emblem tapestries once were. Fresh furs laid across the bed in layered softness, marked with Virella’s scent. Even the stone shelf where Lyra once kept her sacred trinkets had been rearranged, polished, claimed.
A maid stood nearby, hands folded nervously.
“Miss…” Lily bowed her head slightly. “This chamber has been given to Miss Virella now.”
Her voice was careful. Almost apologetic.
As if she feared saying it aloud would break something already fragile.
Lyra did not move at first.
She only stood there, staring at the threshold of what used to be hers.
After a long silence, she asked, her voice roughened by something she could not quite swallow down—
“Then… where are my things?”
Lily hesitated.
Then quietly, she led her away.
**
The guest room they brought her to was buried in dust and old silence.
It was smaller, tucked away behind unused corridors where even servants rarely walked. The air smelled of neglect and sealed memory. A room forgotten by time—and now, apparently, remembered only when needed.
Lily shifted uncomfortably.
“Since you were taken away… your belongings were placed here,” she said softly. “I will have it cleaned immediately, Miss Lyra.”
Lyra nodded once.
But said nothing.
She stepped inside alone.
For a long time, she searched.
Wooden chests were opened one by one. Old cloth wrappings unfolded. Forgotten keepsakes turned over in her hands. Each item pulled something loose inside her chest—until finally, she froze.
It was missing.
The only image of her mother.
Selene Moonfall.
Gone.
Lyra’s breath stopped.
Her fingers tightened around empty air as if she could will the world to correct itself.
No.
No, she had hidden it carefully.
After her mother’s death, Theron had ordered all portraits burned beneath the Moonstone pyre. No name spoken. No image kept. As though erasing memory could ease guilt.
But Lyra had stolen one photograph back in secret.
A single frame.
Her mother holding her as a child beneath summer moonlight.
She had hidden it where even servants would not look.
Safe.
Or so she thought.
Her heart pounded as she turned and left the room.
Her steps quickened through the halls until she reached her old chamber again.
The door was fully open now.
And on the bedside—
It was there.
The frame.
Lyra stopped.
Her breath caught so sharply it hurt.
She walked forward slowly, almost afraid the sight would vanish if she moved too quickly.
She picked it up with trembling hands.
The glass was intact. The image untouched.
Selene smiled in the picture, soft and radiant, holding her younger self as though the world had never known cruelty. Lyra’s vision blurred instantly.
Her knees weakened.
A sound broke from her—half breath, half sob.
“Mother…”
Tears fell freely now, unchecked.
And through the blur, she saw something else.
A hairpin.
Then a necklace.
Then earrings.
Her breath stilled again.
She knew them.
Every single one.
The hairpin—crafted by Kael when he was still gentle, still hers.
The necklace—her mother’s last gift before the accident.
The earrings—Ronan’s promise from a time when he still looked at her like she mattered.
Things she had never worn.
Things she had kept safe.
Yet now they were placed together, as though gathered carelessly and worn without permission.
As though they belonged to someone else.
Lyra’s fingers tightened around them.
A tremor ran through her entire body.
Behind her, a voice rang out—bright, startled, too casual.
“Lyra? What are you doing in my room?”
She froze.
Slowly, she turned.
Virella stood at the doorway.
Perfectly composed. Soft smile. Eyes wide with practiced innocence.
And Lyra saw it then.
The shift.
The taking.
The ease of it.
Something inside Lyra snapped cleanly.
She wiped her tears with the back of her hand.
And without a word—
She struck.
The slap echoed through the chamber like a breaking vow.
Virella gasped, stumbling back, falling hard onto the floor.
A beat later, hurried footsteps thundered in.
Ronan.
He caught Virella immediately, pulling her into his arms as though she were something fragile carved from glass.
His face darkened instantly when he looked at Lyra.
“Lyra!” his voice snapped. “Have you lost your senses? She is your sister!”
But Lyra did not even look at him.
Her grip tightened around the stolen items.
Her voice was low—dangerous in its stillness.
“Sister?”
A bitter laugh slipped out.
“She is nothing but the child of my father’s betrayal.”
The words had barely left her mouth when another force struck her.
A sharp blow.
Lyra hit the ground.
Stone scraped her arm, warmth blooming instantly as blood welled beneath her skin.
Her vision swam—but she forced herself to look up.
Kael stood above her.
Cold.
Immovable.
Looking at her as though she were something unclean left too long in sacred halls.
Ronan stood on one side of Virella.
Kael on the other.
Both shielding her.
As if she were the one who needed protection from Lyra.
Ronan’s voice followed, harsh and final.
“You have gone too far. The only reason you were released from the Silverbound prison so soon was because of Virella’s mercy.”
The words sank in.
Silverbound prison.
Lyra’s breath hitched.
The memory returned without mercy—iron chains etched with runes, silence so deep it swallowed even wolf-sense, nights that never ended.
Pain flared through her chest.
Not from the fall.
From everything.
Kael sighed, stepping forward as if nothing had happened.
He reached down.
Touched her arm.
“Does it hurt?” he asked mildly.
Lyra stared at him.
At the hand that had just struck her.
Then at the face that once held her when she cried as a child.
Her expression hardened.
She pulled away sharply and stood on her own.
Her fingers trembled as she clutched the jewelry tighter.
As if letting go would mean losing everything that had once been hers.
Virella, still on the floor, sniffled softly.
“I’m sorry…” she said weakly. “I only thought they were pretty… Ronan and Kael gave them to me. I didn’t mean to take anything important…”
Lyra slowly turned her head.
And looked at them.
Ronan stiffened.
Kael’s gaze flickered for the first time.
Something uneasy passed through both of them.
But Lyra only smiled.
Small.
Broken.
Strange.
“So that’s it,” she murmured.
Her voice no longer shook.
It had gone quiet in a way that no longer begged to be understood.
“Virella,” she said softly, “you always did like taking what belongs to others.”
She loosened her grip.
The jewelry fell.
One by one.
Clinking against stone like shattered vows.
The sound echoed too long in the chamber.
Too final.
Lyra did not move as she spoke again, voice calm now—too calm.
“If you want them… take them.”
Her eyes lifted slightly.
Empty.
“I don’t want anything anymore.”
Not the gifts.
Not the apologies.
Not the people.
Nothing.
Virella’s expression stiffened for a fraction of a second.
Something sharp flickered behind her gentle mask.
Then, suddenly—
She shoved Lyra hard.
Lyra fell back onto the cold floor again.
And in the same breath, Virella bent down quickly, gathering the fallen jewelry into her hands like something reclaimed.
Like something that had always been hers.
