Chapter Three: Breaking the Girl I Was

“Up.”

My aunt’s sharp voice woke me up from the best sleep I've had in three days. I opened my eyes, groaning as the chill morning air made me shiver. I looked out of my window and it was as dark as night. world. My body screamed at me to remain wrapped up in bed and enjoy it's warmth but I couldn't ignore Aunt Luma's command. This was what I signed up for. 

“Up, Aria. Now.”

I slowly dragged myself up, “It’s… it’s still dark,” I mumbled, yawning loudly. 

“That’s the point.” Aunt Luma’s silhouette moved past the faint light of the lantern, stern and unyielding. “If you want to survive, you must train when others still sleep. Now move.”

By the time we stepped outside, it was freezing. Each breathe I took made a fog in the air. The field stretched before us, damp with dew. The field was like a silent graveyard, occasionally interrupted by the chirping crickets in the distance. Luma threw a wooden staff at me. 

“Today begins your unmaking,” she said. “If you cling to the girl you were, you will fail. You are no longer Aria, the Alpha’s daughter. You are a wolf clawing to survive. And survival requires pain. Are you ready?”

I tightened my grip on the staff though my fingers trembled. “I… I think so.”

“No. Not think. Be.” She stepped back, lifting her own staff. “Attack me.”

“What?”

“Attack.”

I delayed for a bit too long. She hit her staff against my ribs, knocking the air from my lungs. I stumbled and gasped.

“Attack me!” she barked.

I got angry, coupled with the pain in my side. I swung terribly but she dodged it effortlessly. She striked me with her staff on my shoulder, then on my knee continuously. Pain flared but something inside me snapped. I lunged, faster, putting every ounce of fear and anger into the strike.

She stopped me again and pushed me backward so hard that I landed face flat on the wet ground. 

I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. Instead, I forced myself back to my feet.

“Good,” she said, her face unreadable. “Get up. Again.”

By the time the sun rose up in the sky, I had taken more hits than i could count. My body was bruised, trembling and my palms were raw from gripping the staff. I was drenched in sweat, burning from cuts I didn't remember receiving.

“Again,” Luma commanded for the hundredth time.

“I can’t,” I gasped, weak at the knees. 

“You must.” Her eyes were strict. “Do you think Malrick will care if you’re tired? Do you think the sons of Alphas at the Academy will pity your weakness? Stand!”

I forced myself upright, rage and exhaustion blending into something dangerous. With a guttural cry, I swung and this time, I managed to graze her shoulder before she disarmed me with brutal ease.

For the first time that morning, she smiled with satisfaction. “Better.”

I fell to the ground, my breathing rugged. Tears burning my eyes. “I hate this.”

“No, child,” she corrected softly, kneeling beside me. “You hate him. And this—” she gestured to the staff, the field, the bruises “—is the weapon you will use to defy him. So endure.”

---

Days blurred into each other.

My mornings started before the break of dawn, my muscles ached at every strike, every fall, and every time I dragged myself up to my feet. Luma trained me without mercy. Lessons upon lessons on hand-to-hand combat, agility and endurance. She bounded weights to my ankles and forced me to run until I was breathless. She taught me how to fall without breaking, how to strike without thinking and how to endure pain until It became proof that I was still alive.

“Faster!” she shouted one hot afternoon. I was soaked in sweat, my arms trembled as I held a plank position. “Your strength is not enough. You must be precise. You must be smarter than them.”

“I’m trying!” I groaned as I fell once more. 

She bent beside me. “Do you think trying will protect you when they sniff out the girl you’re hiding? Do you think trying will keep Malrick’s hands from you? You either become stronger, or you die. Choose.”

Her words hit me harder than any strike. I was out of breath but I gritted my teeth and pushed myself back up.

“I’ll become stronger.”

“Good,” she said, but there was no praise in her voice only expectation.

That night I knelt at my mother’s grave. “Mother,” I whispered, tracing her name on her headstone. “I can't do this.”

The wind blew cool gentle breeze on my sweat-soaked skin.

“They want me to turn into someone else. To bury Aria, to kill her, so I can survive. Would you want that for me?” I swallowed hard, sniffing back my tears. “I miss you so much. I wish you were here. You would know what to do. You always do.”

Liora’s voice stirred inside me, softer than before. “She would want you to fight. She would want you to live.”

“I’m trying,” I whispered, broken. “But every day it feels like I’m breaking into smaller pieces. How much of me will be left, when this is done?”

The silence gave no answer, but somehow, I felt steadier after speaking.

Weeks passed and the pain became familiar. Bruises became maps across my skin. My muscles were hardened, my movements sharpened. I learned to anticipate, to counter and to endure attacks. 

One morning, after a particularly brutal sparring match, I caught my reflection in the river. I hardly recognized myself—hair plastered to my forehead with sweat, shoulders broader, eyes sharper, fiercer. There was a fire there that I hadn’t seen before.

Luma came up behind me, her voice low. “You are changing.”

“Into what?” I asked, my tone bitter.

She remained silent. I looked at her, “What if I fail?”

“You won't fail. You’ll die trying. But at least you won’t die as his.”

What she said was the truth. I was changing. I no longer felt like the girl who had stumbled into Aunt Luma’s chamber begging for escape. That girl was gone. What remained was someone sharper, harder. A wolf forged from pain and desperation.