Theron gave a single approving nod, as if the matter had already been sealed by the Moonstone itself.
“You are to wed Ronan,” he said, voice firm as carved oak. “Stay within the house. Tend to what remains of this household’s honor.”
Lyra’s breath slowed.
For a moment, she did not understand what he meant.
Then it settled in.
Not only her mother’s photograph.
Not only her memories.
Now even the last thing Selene had left behind in the mortal world—
her company—
was being taken.
Lyra’s fingers curled so tightly that her nails bit into her skin. The air around her seemed to grow colder, as if the ancestral stones themselves recoiled from her anger.
“That company,” she said slowly, voice trembling, “was left to me by my mother. It is hers… and mine. By what right do you decide its fate?”
Theron did not look at her for long.
Kael stepped forward instead.
His voice was controlled, almost gentle—but it carried the weight of finality.
“Because I hold shares within it,” he said. “That gives me the authority under pack law and house covenant.”
A pause.
“You are unwell, Lyra. Rest. Do not concern yourself with matters that will only exhaust you further.”
The words were not cruel.
And that was what made them worse.
As if her grief had become something inconvenient.
As if her existence itself required management.
The door closed behind them.
Soft.
Final.
Lyra stood alone in the chamber.
For a long time, there was only silence.
Then a single tear fell.
And after it, another.
She did not wipe them away.
Because it no longer mattered whether she did.
Everything her mother had left her—
was being stripped away piece by piece.
**
Ronan came often after that.
Each visit carried the same tone—softened voice, careful hands, eyes that tried too hard to appear warm.
When he held her, it was gentle.
Almost reverent.
As though he believed touch could heal what betrayal had already carved open.
“Do not fear,” he would say. “Once we are bound in sacred union beneath the Moonstone, everything that was taken will be returned to you. No one will be able to take what is yours again.”
Lyra did not respond.
The words passed through her like wind through hollow stone.
So Ronan tried differently.
He brought gifts.
Soft pelts.
Carved wooden charms.
Stuffed beasts stitched by hand in the old style of the northern clans, dyed in pale rose tones she once liked as a child.
Soon, her chamber filled with them.
Too many.
Crowding the corners like silent witnesses.
And yet, within that abundance, nothing felt alive.
Only artificial warmth placed over a room already cold.
**
It was during one of those afternoons that Lyra woke early from sleep.
The air outside her curtain shifted.
Voices.
Soft. Familiar.
Too familiar.
Lyra did not move.
She listened.
“I am asking you,” Virella’s voice drifted in, sweetened with dissatisfaction, “you give Lyra so many things… and yet nothing for me?”
A pause.
Then Ronan.
Lowered.
Careful.
“Virella… Lyra is inside.”
A soft laugh.
Careless.
Almost mocking.
“So what?” Virella replied. “She is asleep, is she not? You fear her even in silence now?”
Lyra’s fingers tightened faintly beneath the blanket.
Outside, the air shifted again.
Cloth brushing cloth.
Footsteps closer.
Ronan’s voice dropped further.
“We should speak beyond these walls.”
But Virella only hummed.
“No. I will not move.”
A beat.
Then, softer—
“I want these ones.”
Lyra did not need to see to understand.
She already knew what “these ones” meant.
The gifts.
The ones placed here for her.
A silence followed.
Then Ronan’s breath exhaled—low, controlled, as if he were holding back something primal.
“You are being foolish,” he said.
“I want them,” Virella repeated.
A rustle.
Then Ronan’s restraint broke—not in anger, but in surrender.
A murmur.
A soft command lost beneath closeness.
Lyra heard fabric shift.
Then silence deepened into something heavier.
Something that no longer belonged to conversation.
Through the thin curtain, she saw it.
Two shadows drawn too close.
Virella’s hand on his chest.
Ronan’s posture loosening as he looked away from where Lyra lay.
The Moonlight filtering through the high lattice windows caught them like a cruel blessing.
And then—
Virella rose slightly.
Pressed her lips to his.
It was not hesitant.
Not uncertain.
It was claiming.
Ronan froze for a heartbeat.
Then exhaled.
A sound that was not refusal.
Lyra’s fingers slowly released their grip on the fabric.
Somewhere inside her chest, something that had been holding itself together for far too long finally stopped resisting.
She turned her face away.
Not because it hurt more to see.
But because it no longer mattered to watch.
**
After they left, the chamber was quiet again.
Too quiet.
Lyra rose slowly.
Walked to the corner.
And there—
she vomited.
Not from illness.
From something older.
Something deeper.
The body rejecting what the soul could no longer carry.
**
Days passed in fragments.
Ronan still came.
Virella still smiled.
The world still pretended nothing had changed.
But Lyra began to move differently.
She began to listen.
To remember.
To record—not with ink or scroll, but within memory bound tightly beneath the oath of silence she had learned in the Silverbound Prison.
Every whisper.
Every touch.
Every betrayal spoken softly enough to be denied later.
Then she left the chamber.
Just like that.
No announcement.
No farewell.
Only absence.
When Ronan finally came upon the emptiness, panic sharpened his voice.
“Lyra?” he called. “Why have you left the chamber?”
She stood in the corridor, already dressed for departure.
Her gaze was steady when she looked at him.
“Because it was unclean,” she said.
Ronan stiffened.
“Unclean?”
Lyra tilted her head slightly.
“Yes,” she said softly. “A place becomes foul when it is not properly cleansed.”
Something flickered across his face.
Confusion.
Then relief.
He let out a breath, shoulders easing.
“I see,” he said. “Then it only needs proper cleansing.”
Yet even as he spoke, something uneasy lingered in his chest—like a warning he could not yet name.
He stepped closer.
“We are to be bound soon,” he said gently. “I will give you a grand union under the Moonstone rites.”
Lyra’s lips curved faintly.
No warmth reached her eyes.
“Before that,” she said, “I will give you a gift.”
Ronan smiled, relieved.
“A gift?”
She looked at him.
And for the first time, he could not read what lay beneath her gaze.
“It is a secret,” Lyra said.
He laughed softly, pulling her briefly into an embrace.
“Lyra,” he murmured, “do you know? I have been near mad wanting you.”
She did not answer.
Because only she knew—
there would be no union beneath the Moonstone.
Not anymore.
Five days remained until Virella’s name-day.
And on that day…
Lyra would leave the packlands behind.
And they would finally understand what it meant to lose someone who had already stopped belonging.
