Dust danced in the lantern glow, swirling like ghosts above the old stone floor.
The elder's library breathed quietly, heavy with age; it was said to be a place full of knowledge and wisdom, which held most of the pack's secrets.
Wolf hidden scrolls were lined the high walls, their edges curled with time marking its place into the pack's history and culture.
Seals of red wax clung to faded parchment. Shadows flickered with every gust of the low-burning flames.
Lyra left the barn and went into the library. She crept between shelves, breath shallow, steps light.
Her fingers, smudged with ink and dust, slipped into the pile of discarded scrolls near the hearth. Torn pages. Broken spines. Forgotten songs.
She didn't belong here, omegas were not allowed into the elders' library.
But she needed to know; she was so curious about her fate.
She pulled a scrap-free scroll, which was brittle and half-burned.
Her eyes scanned the faded lines. A song about the moon's second face.
A warning hidden in rhyme. At the edge of the parchment, faint and flickering under the light, was a crescent mark. Almost like the one she saw in her dreams while in the barn.
Her breath caught.
It was the same shape as her dream. The silver wolf's eye.
She leaned closer. Her fingers trembled.
A footstep.
Soft. Then another.
Closer.
She froze.
The parchment crinkled as she shoved it against her chest, into her tunic, heartbeat wild.
The door creaked.
A shape moved through the dust.
"Curiosity," the voice said, low and sharp, "is not a trait of obedient omegas."
Luna Velessa who was the librarian for the elder's library.
Lyra kept her head down. Her hands clenched the fabric at her stomach. The scrap burned against her skin.
The lantern crackled.
"I asked a question," Luna said.
Lyra bowed low, not speaking.
The silence thickened.
Then: "Leave."
Lyra didn't look back as she walked out towards the door, but in her chest, the song from the scroll beat louder.
The cold air hit Lyra first. Then the sneers.
She froze in the library doorway, scroll pressed to her chest, heartbeat loud.
Luna Velessa stood tall in front of her, her silver cloak pooling like smoke at her feet.
Behind her, a knot of pack pups girls from the higher families giggled with sharp teeth. They had come to the library to pick up scrolls to learn.
Among them stood Maelin, the one who had shoved Lyra into the mud last time.
"There," Maelin cried, pointing. "She hides something! Look at her tunic!", while Lyra was walking out."
Lyra stepped back, but there was nowhere to go.
"She steals from the elders!" another voice called. "She hides secrets!"
Luna Velessa's eyes narrowed down to Lyra as she gazed on her purposefully. One step. Then another.
Lyra held her breath.
"What have you taken, little thief?" the Luna said, her voice soft, dangerous.
Lyra opened her mouth, but no words came. Her fingers tightened, she tried to defend, but once again failed.
Velessa lunged.
Her hand grabbed Lyra's collar and tore it down. Nails scraped her skin, which made Lyra bleed a little. Lyra flinched as the parchment fluttered to the floor.
The girls gasped.
Velessa's eyes flashed.
"Ancient words," she hissed. "Forbidden marks."
She crushed the scroll under her boot. The paper gave a brittle cry.
Lyra stood trembling, collar torn, shame burning down her neck. Laughter echoed in her ears.
But she did not cry. Not this time.
The courtyard stones bit into Lyra's bare feet as the warriors dragged her forward.
Dusk wrapped the world in grey. The wind carried whispers through the cold air, curling through cloaks and fur.
Fires burned low in the iron braziers, casting long shadows across the stone circle.
"Let them all see," Luna Velessa's voice rang out. "Let them remember what happens to thieves who forget their place."
The warriors yanked Lyra to her knees in the courtyard for trying to get away with the scroll she took from the library she was forbidden to enter.
Pups gathered like flies, their eyes bright with excitement. Some whispered. Some laughed. Others stared, wide-eyed, as if unsure whether to fear her or enjoy the show.
Her tunic was still torn from the library. Dirt clung to her skin. Her breath hitched, but she kept her head high.
The wind caught her hair. Somewhere behind the warriors, she saw him, the only person who did not tell on her and showed her a sort of compassion.
Kaelen.
Half-hidden by shadows, his face was carved in stone. His jaw clenched tightly. His eyes never left hers.
But he didn't move.
The beta Velessa raised a hand. "This is the price of pride. Of lies. Of a lowborn girl daring to touch what was not hers."
The crowd murmured all in one sort of dismay or the other.
Lyra closed her eyes. The stone beneath her knees was cold, but her blood boiled.
She had only wanted to know the truth about the fate which made her suffer so much without justice.
Now the truth had made her a spectacle in front of everybody in the pack. A warning.
And Kaelen… watched from the dark, he was helpless, even though he wanted to help, he could not, it was out of his power.
They tied her to the stone post without a word said to her when she was brought in.
The ropes bit into her wrists painfully. Her feet barely touched the ground. The wind was sharp, brushing against her back like icy fingers.
Her tunic had been ripped down the middle, baring her spine to the dusk.
She bit her lip hard. Hard enough to taste blood. Her wolf twisted inside her, snarling, begging to be let loose.
She didn't and she couldn't; she only was a little girl who stayed in the barn.
The first crack split the silence.
The lash struck her back like fire. Her breath flew from her chest. She didn't cry out. Couldn't. Wouldn't.
She did not just face pain but was publicly humiliated for an offence which is considered an honored privilege for beta pups.
The second blow came. Then the third.
Each time, leather kissed open skin. Blood rose slowly. Warm. The cold wind made it sting worse, with each pain pouring in agony and anguish upon her inner wolf.
Luna Marissa, the head of the moonfang pack, was also at the courtyard. She stood still, her face calm.
Pups watched. The Warriors looked away. No one moved.
Except Kaelen.
He stood at the edge of the courtyard, fists braced against the stone wall. His knuckles were white. A crack formed beneath his hand, thin and jagged.
He didn't speak. But his eyes burned, and he felt her pain.
Lyra's knees shook. Her vision blurred.
The tenth lash broke skin deeper. She tasted iron. Her teeth dug harder into her lip. Her wolf howled in her chest.
But she stayed silent.
Because this pain wasn't just punishment.
It was proof.
Proof they feared the truth she carried, and if they let it out, it will be dangerous, for they are afraid of what they don't know.
And proof she would survive them.
The barn was cold and very windy when Lyra came back to its comfort from the courtyard.
Lyra lay curled beside a half-empty pile of straw, her back burning with every breath.
Her skin wept beneath the torn cloth tied around her shoulders, coupled with the lashes she received.
The darkness whispered, soft and low, brushing her cheek with a breeze that smelled of old hay and silence.
She couldn't cry. Not now. The tears had dried somewhere between the seventh lash and the last time someone spat in her direction.
All that was heard of Lyra was just a soft but little creak.
Her body tensed and tired from the suffering she had been through.
Footsteps, careful and slow, moved across the wooden floor.
She didn't lift her head, didn't need to. She knew his scent before he knelt beside her. Cedar and storm.
Kaelen.
He didn't speak right away. His shadow blocked the lantern light as he crouched near her side.
She felt his hand hover over her, but not his touch. He placed something in her palm, warm from his touch.
A clay jar, wrapped in waxed cloth.
His voice was low. Gentle and subtle as him.
"Don't let them kill the wolf inside you."
Her fingers trembled around the jar, which she gave to him.
The wax seal caught the light of a crescent moon, pressed deep into the red.
Her breath hitched.
It was the same mark as the one on her ankle. The same as the torn scroll they'd ripped from her collar. The same as the one that burned in her dreams.
She looked up at him then, eyes wide and wet.
He didn't flinch.
She wanted to ask him why. Why he cared? Why he helped? Why now. As she was an omega
But her throat ached too much for words.
So she clutched the jar close.
And in that small silence between them, where shame and warmth and something too wild to name lived, she felt her wolf stir.
Not broken.
Not dead.
Just waiting.
Snow fell like silence that night.
Lyra stood barefoot on a field of white, her breath rising in clouds as soft as dreams.
The moon above her was full and heavy, casting silver across everything it touched. Trees bowed low, cloaked in ice. Nothing moved. Nothing breathed.
Then a sound which was not loud, but deep like the earth was humming.
The silver wolf stepped from the mist.
Its fur shimmered, more light than flesh, more spirit than beast. Eyes like liquid stars locked onto hers. They didn't glow but they pulled; she was overwhelmed by her aura.
She didn't run. Didn't speak.
The wolf's voice came without sound, slipping into her bones like snowmelt. "The child of the broken moon shall break the crown… or be its grave."
Lyra's heart stilled; she could not understand what the silver wolf was saying.
The wolf stepped forward and lowered its head, pawing the frozen ground.
Frost cracked. Light shimmered. Beneath the snow, a scroll glowed with gold lines etched into its seal, the shape of a crescent.
Then it was gone.
Swallowed by snow. Swallowed by a dream.
The wolf turned. Its tail swept moonlight behind it.
Lyra took one step, then another. Her legs didn't shake here. Her scars didn't burn. The cold didn't bite, and she tried to follow immediately.
But the wolf was already fading, its body dissolving into mist and memory.
Her hand reached out too late.
Then, the world fell.
She woke with a gasp, the barn dark around her, and she realized it was only a dream.
But the words which the silver wolf told her burned in her chest frequently.
And her fingers… were dusted with frost, just as cold as the dream she had.
Dawn bled into the barn like a secret.
Lyra's eyes flew open. Cold air bit her skin, but it wasn't the chill that woke her.
It was the silence.
She sat up. The chain that had bound her wrist to the barn beam, which was thick, rusted, unmoving, and it now lay in the straw. Snapped.
Not broken. Not cut. Split clean through.
Her wrist bore no bruises. No blood. She flexed her fingers. They trembled, but not from pain.
She hadn't moved.
The straw hadn't shifted.
She hadn't moved.
The metal glinted weakly in the light, like it too didn't understand what had happened.
Then came the creak of wood.
A shape stood in the doorway with a long cloak, a gnarled hand gripping the frame. A whisper rode the wind, low and sharp.
"Not yet, little wolf…"
Lyra's breath caught.
But when she blinked and looked again, the figure was gone.
And behind her… the straw was laced with frost.