Chapter Two: Exile and Fire
—Lyra's POV—
---
I sit by the river until the stars disappear behind the clouds and dawn begins to bleed slowly into the sky like ink in water.
The cold has seeped into my bones, but I hardly notice. My skin is numb, but not just from the night air. My soul… feels hollow, scraped clean like the inside of a carcass after wolves have feasted.
I don't cry anymore.
There's nothing left to cry out.
The scream that tore from my throat last night—that wild, broken thing—I think it shattered the last piece of the girl I used to be. The one who believed in fated mates. The one who waited for Lucian to choose her. The one who thought love could be enough.
I'm not her anymore.
What's left is a silence so deep it rings in my ears.
And beneath that silence...
A flutter.
So small. So fragile.
But undeniable.
I press my hand to my abdomen, and a different kind of tremor passes through me—no longer from grief or rage, but awe. Terror. Wonder.
Lucian's child.
Still so new I can barely feel it, yet its presence anchors me more than anything else has.
I should hate it. I should hate him.
But I don't.
And that terrifies me more than anything Lucian ever said.
---
I rise on unsteady legs, knees stiff from the cold and bruised from where I collapsed in the dirt. My cloak is damp, my clothes torn. My body aches in ways I can't even name.
But I move.
Because no one is coming.
Because if I stay here, I die.
Because now… I am not alone.
---
I find the den just before dusk.
It's little more than a hollow space beneath the twisted roots of an old pine tree, half-swallowed by snow and shadows. The air inside is damp and smells of earth and old leaves, but it's hidden. Safe. Forgotten.
Like me.
I dig with my hands, clearing out moldy clumps of pine needles, scraping frost from the walls. My fingers bleed. I don't stop. I line the floor with what little I can gather—dry moss, shed bark, grasses I ripped from beneath the snow.
It's not much.
But it's mine.
Ours.
---
The first night, I don't sleep. My body curls instinctively around my stomach, arms wrapped tight, heart thudding too loud in the quiet. Every gust of wind feels like a whisper. Every branch crack sounds like a threat.
I tell myself I'm safe. I lie.
But then I feel that flutter again.
And I remember—
I can't afford to die.
Not now.
I press my palm flat against my belly.
"You don't have to know him," I whisper, my voice cracking like old ice. "But you'll know me. And I'll fight for you."
That's the promise I make in the dark, with the moon watching through cracks in the roots above.
---
Time passes like fog—days folding into nights, then back again. I lose track of how many.
I become something else. Not quite wolf. Not quite girl.
Something in-between.
Something wild.
I learn to track rabbits by the warmth of their footprints. I fashion snares from vines and branches, set traps with trembling hands. I carve a blade from a broken rib I found in the woods—leftover from some unlucky prey. The bone fits perfectly in my hand.
I eat what I can. Roots. Berries. Tiny animals I whisper apologies to before the kill.
Nausea is my shadow in the mornings. Dizziness too. But I survive.
I survive.
Every day, my belly rounds more. Every day, the ache in my chest lessens.
I am a mother now.
And I will rise.
But rising is not glorious. It's not a blaze of light or some miracle transformation.
It's slow.
Painful.
Ugly.
It looks like waking with frozen fingers and trying to light a fire with trembling hands. It sounds like your stomach growling louder than your thoughts. It tastes like roots so bitter they make your eyes water—but you chew anyway because it's all there is.
Rising is stitching together your soul with twigs and smoke,
and praying it holds.
Some days, I don't speak at all. Not even to the child.
Not because I don't love it.
But because I am afraid that if I let the words come, they'll carry everything I've locked away:
the pain,
the betrayal,
the ache of remembering what it felt like to be chosen
for a single, beautiful moment—
before being unmade in front of the whole pack.
Lucian didn't just reject me.
He erased me.
But I am rebuilding, word by word. Scar by scar.
---
The snow deepens.
I learn to melt ice by setting stones in the fire and dropping them into bark-lined bowls of packed snow. I learn the patterns of the stars again—not to wonder, but to know when to prepare for storms.
I learn that silence doesn't always mean safety.
And that fear, when faced every day, becomes a tool.
---
The first time I sense another wolf nearby, it's not fear that grips me.
It's instinct.
I slide quietly to the edge of the den, scenting the wind. Male. Distant. Not familiar.
I don't flee.
I don't confront either.
I wait, crouched low beneath the frost-laced pine roots, my hand on the bone knife, my body curled protectively.
He doesn't find me.
But I know now—I'm not as hidden as I thought.
And next time… they might not leave.
---
That night, I don't sleep.
The fire is small, my breath ghosting through the air. I sit upright, legs crossed, hands on my belly. The child moves again—stronger now. Not just a flutter, but a kick.
A reminder.
Of what's coming.
I press my lips to my wrist, where my old pack mark used to burn. Now it's faded—just faint, silvery scars.
They didn't just exile me.
They tried to erase me.
But the moon is still mine.
The forest is still mine.
And this child…
This child will never bow to anyone's throne.
---
I whisper into the stillness, voice hoarse:
"You'll never kneel to a mate who thinks your worth depends on their approval.
You won't be taught to shrink for power that was never real.
You will be raised in truth—
in blood,
in roots,
in fire."
---
And just before dawn, something shifts in me.
Not just the baby kicking again—though it does, strong enough to make me gasp.
But something deeper.
A knowing.
That the girl Lucian cast aside…
She's gone.
What stands now is a mother. A wolf. A storm gathering at the edge of the forgotten woods.
And one day…
they will hear me howl.
Not in pain.
But in power.