The Trial of Truth was unlike any of the others.
It wasn't about combat. Not strength. Not blood.
It was about exposure.
And Lyra hated it already.
The Luna Court gathered at dawn in the ceremonial chamber, an open hall carved from black stone, half-lit by torches flickering against the morning haze. Circular, cold, and silent.
Alaric stood at the edge of the circle, tense and unreadable. But present.
It was the first trial he had been allowed to attend as an observer. And the only one he couldn't interfere with.
This one... she had to face alone.
"Step into the center, Lyra Cross," the head Luna Elder commanded.
Lyra did.
She didn't flinch as the floor beneath her feet glowed faintly, not magic, just heated stone infused with blood markers from generations of pack leaders who had stood here before her.
"We demand truth," the Elder said. "And truth shall not hide in silence."
Lyra exhaled slowly.
Here, they didn't ask questions.
They pulled them from you.
The process wasn't torture. Not physically. But it felt like being skinned from the inside out.
A female wolf stepped forward, fingers painted with a slick red oil made from wolfsbane and crushed ember root. She pressed two fingers against Lyra's forehead, and the heat sank deep not into her skin, but her thoughts.
"Speak the first truth that comes," the woman said.
Lyra gritted her teeth.
"I hate how this pack looks at me."
The words were yanked from her like breath.
Another step. Another press of fingers.
Another truth.
"I think Alaric was wrong to Bloodbond me."
The Court murmured. Alaric didn't move.
Again. More pressure. The emotional layers peeled back.
"I'm afraid I'll never be more than a tolerated outsider."
And again.
"I still hear my brother screaming when the rogues tore him apart."
That one cracked something deep.
Her legs almost buckled, but she stayed standing.
And then
"Do you love the Alpha?"
The question didn't come from the Elders.
It came from the crowd.
Cassian's jaw tightened. Alaric's gaze sharpened like a blade.
Lyra's eyes darted toward the voice of a young female warrior, smug in her challenge.
But the process was unforgiving.
The oil still burned against her skin. Her pulse thundered.
And the answer spilled.
"I don't know."
Gasps. A flicker of pain across Alaric's features is brief, but there.
She could've lied.
She wanted to lie.
But this was the Trial of Truth.
And truth, brutal as it was, set her free.
After the trial ended, Lyra walked out without waiting for permission. She pushed through the warriors, past the Elders, and into the open air.
The cold hit her like salvation.
Alaric followed minutes later.
"You didn't lie," he said, voice low.
"I wasn't allowed to."
He stepped closer, brows furrowed. "You really don't know?"
Lyra turned to him. "What would you have done if I'd said no? If I'd said I didn't love you?"
He didn't flinch. "Accepted it."
A pause.
"But it would've killed me."
That cracked her armor.
"I'm trying, Alaric," she whispered. "But I'm in the middle of a war, hated by people who would rather see me dead, and bound to a man who confuses the hell out of me. I want to believe we're more than the bond. But I need time."
"I'll wait," he said. "But I won't pretend I'm not already yours."
Her breath caught.
And for a long moment, the air between them was heavy not with pain, but with possibility.
She reached for him, hand grazing his chest.
"Don't wait too long," she murmured.
"Don't give me a reason to."
That night, Lyra stood in the guest quarters but she didn't sleep.
Sleep felt like surrender.
Instead, she leaned against the window, watching the trees shift under the moonlight. Her reflection stared back older somehow. Hardened. But herself.
The bond pulsed quietly beneath her skin. Not intrusive. Not painful.
Just... present.
It didn't control her.
It reminded her.
She had survived the Trial of Truth.
And while she hadn't shouted her feelings from the rooftops, she hadn't hidden them either.
That was the beginning.
Maybe not the one the pack wanted.
But it was hers.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the forest, shadows gathered.
Alpha Ronan stood at the edge of the boundary, flanked by two scouts.
"She's cracking," one of them said. "The pack's divided. The Luna Court isn't convinced."
Ronan smiled coldly.
"Good. Keep pressing."
He reached down, pulling a scrap of fabric from his pocket, a piece of Lyra's clothing taken during her first escape.
The scent was faint, but enough.
"We break the bond," he murmured, "and she comes to us."
And just like that, the next silent war began not with claws, but with manipulation.
Because the truth may have freed her...
But it also made her vulnerable.