Flight Into Darkness

POV: Olivia

I ran.

The silk gown tangled around my legs, snagging on roots, silver embroidery shredding into ribbons. Stones and thorns drove into my bare feet until blood slicked the earth behind me. I didn’t stop. Couldn’t.

The air cut like knives—cold, sharp with pine and damp earth. My chest was hollow, the bond that once hummed inside me now silent.

Behind me, the hall still roared with laughter and applause. Even out here, I swore I could hear the whispers chasing me into the night:

The latent—of course.

She thought she could be Luna.

Pathetic.

Each word dug claws deeper.

Branches whipped my arms, scratched my face. My breath tore ragged, lungs raw. My knees buckled, but I pushed until the packhouse lights vanished, swallowed by the trees.

Only then did I collapse.

My knees hit dirt. Cold seeped through torn silk, blood soaking into the ground. I stayed there, doubled over, shaking, hair falling into my face. Salt filled my mouth—I hadn’t even realised I was crying until the tears reached my lips.

I pressed my palms into the earth like I could bury myself there. Vanish. Be forgotten.

But his voice haunted me.

The Goddess doesn’t make mistakes.

Tomorrow, they’ll see you’re mine.

Mine.

He had touched me like I was precious. Kissed me like he’d been starving. Held me like nothing else mattered.

And I had begged him. Pleaded.

Reject me now. Spare me the pain.

He hadn’t.

No. He had taken what I offered, whispered promises into my mouth, carved hope into my bones—then, when every eye was on me, he cut me open.

I, Luther Reed, reject you, Olivia Wade.

The words slammed through me again, brutal and inescapable. My chest locked until I couldn’t breathe.

A scream tore out of me, raw and ugly, shattering the silence. Birds burst from the trees, wings thrashing wildly into the night.

I crumpled sideways, clutching my chest like I could hold the pieces together.

“He promised,” I choked into the dirt. “He promised.”

The bond had been fire. Now it was ash.

Still, some part of me wanted to crawl back. To beg. To ask why.

I bit my tongue until I tasted blood. No.

Never again.

They wanted me broken. Weak. Forgotten.

But I was done begging. Done kneeling. Done being the servant who carried trays while they laughed.

I dragged myself upright, legs trembling, gown in tatters. My feet bled with every step, but I forced them forward.

The forest loomed—dark, endless. Moonlight silvered the branches. Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled. My heart clenched—not mine, never mine.

I pressed my fist to my mouth, swallowing the sob.

“I asked him to reject me,” I whispered to the night. “Instead he took what I had left—and humiliated me before them all.”

The words trembled, but they were true. They tasted like blood and steel.

The Goddess might have bound me to him, but I would not stay bound to this pain.

I lifted my chin to the moon. My voice shook, but I forced it steady.

“I will never beg again. Not for love. Not for him. Not for anyone.”

The forest gave no answer. The wind only carried my vow deeper into the dark.

I walked until my legs quaked and my vision blurred. Every step was agony—barefoot, bleeding, body broken—but each carried me further from the pack that had watched me shatter and done nothing.

Further from him.

At some point, the gown tore free at the hem. I didn’t stop to fix it. I let it drag, ripping more with every step, until the once-silvered silk was nothing but rags. Each shred felt like a piece of the lie falling away—the Luna I thought I could be, left behind in the dirt.

The night pressed colder. Hunger gnawed at my gut, but I ignored it. Pain became rhythm. Left foot, right foot, don’t stop.

I stumbled across a stream, icy water burning my torn feet clean. I bent to drink, the reflection staring back barely recognisable—blood on my face, eyes swollen, silk hanging in tatters.

Not Luna. Not servant. Something else entirely.

“I’ll rise,” I whispered to her. To myself. To the Goddess who had tied me to a man who broke me. “One day, I’ll rise, and they’ll regret this.”

The trees swallowed my words, but I felt them settle in my bones.

And I kept walking.

Every stride was a promise.

One day, they would remember the girl they mocked. The Luna they cast aside.

And when I rose from these ashes—stronger than they could imagine—

They would regret it.