POV: Everly
The courtyard was dressed in flame.
Red banners draped the archways. Gold-dusted leaves were scattered across the cobbled floor like fallen crowns. Fires crackled in ceremonial pits, filling the air with warmth and woodsmoke. Laughter rose in bursts…deep, full, and cruel.
Everly stood at the edge of it all, hands folded, head low.
She wore plain gray linen, freshly pressed but unadorned. A thin silver-thread cord circled her throat, not tight, but unmistakable. A servant's mark. A silent symbol that she didn't belong.
The festival was meant to honor the season's end. The warriors' return. The "strength of Ironfang." But it wasn't strength they wanted tonight.
It was a spectacle and Everly, like always, was the easiest offering. She moved between the tables, serving drinks, clearing platters, ignoring whispers. Someone snapped their fingers for more meat. Someone else laughed when her skirt caught on a bench leg. Lyra watched it all with a smile like frostbite, beautiful and deadly.
Kyran hadn't looked at her once.
That was fine.
She didn't need him to.
Selene had been quiet all day, but near. Close enough to breathe against Everly's ribs, to tingle along her spine. The wolf didn't press, didn't growl. Just waited.
Everly could feel it: the edge of something. Not panic.
Not fear.
Something… sharper.
She made it almost an hour before the trap sprung.
Someone spilled wine across the main dais. One of the ranked girls, draped in emeralds, eyes bright with malice, clicked her tongue and called out. "Everly, darling. Be a dear, won't you?"
Everly approached with a cloth already in hand, heart already pounding. She dropped to one knee beside the table, careful, practiced and that's when it happened.
A boot slid out.
Subtle.
Deliberate.
She didn't trip…she fell… hard. Elbow to stone, platter clanging beside her, a goblet crashing just inches from her face. Laughter exploded around her.
"Oh dear," someone cooed. "Clumsy and cursed?"
"Maybe her wolf tripped her," Lyra called. "Oh…wait…what wolf?"
More laughter.
She didn't move.
Didn't speak.
She knelt there, breath shallow, hands curled into fists.
And then…
"You'll clean that up, won't you?" said Lyra with a sweetness so lethal it drew soft laughter from the nearest table.
Everyone watching.
Kyran. Silent.
Everly reached for the cloth. Her fingers trembled. Selene pushed forward, not so gently this time. Not quietly, either. "Enough." The word wasn't loud. It didn't echo, but it rang through Everly's chest like thunder.
No one else seemed to hear it.
Only her.
Only Selene. "Say something."
Everly clenched her teeth. She could feel it now, power coiling behind her skin, pressing against her bones. Like her blood had changed direction. Like her name wasn't hers anymore. She reached for the cloth again.
Someone kicked it just out of reach.
Laughter again.
But this time…different. Uneasy.
The fire in the nearest brazier crackled; a gust of wind curling through the courtyard even though the air had been still moments ago.
Everly looked up and her eyes weren't afraid. They were empty.
Dead quiet and that silence…
Broke.
"You will not break what was born whole." The voice wasn't hers.
Not fully.
It came from her throat, but deeper.
Older.
Selene.
Spoken aloud.
Every torch on the wall flickered at once, several guests gasped, and the laughter died.
Kyran rose half from his seat.
Lyra paled.
Everly stood slowly and straightened. Her palms were still open. Empty. But her spine was unbent, her shoulders no longer curled inward. She didn't look around.
Without explanation, she turned and walked away.
Not fast.
Not slow.
Each step was deliberate.
The fires did not return to their full strength until she vanished from view.
No one stopped her.
Not even the Alpha.
She didn't run.
She made it to the far side of the garden wall before her legs gave out. The stone was cool beneath her as she collapsed to her knees, breath shaking. Her hands tingled, her heart thundering against her ribs.
Selene didn't speak again but she was there.
Present.
A warmth just behind her sternum. A second pulse.
A promise.
Everly let the silence settle. The wind picked up again, soft and curling through the broken leaves like breath. She pulled Spirit's token from her sleeve and rolled it between her fingers. The lines carved into it felt deeper now. Like they'd burned their way into her skin.
She didn't cry.
Didn't shake.
She just stared into the darkness and let it wrap around her.
And somewhere behind her ribs, Selene whispered, "Not broken… not anymore."