5. The Night She Runs

LYRA

The dreams came again.

I woke with a gasp, my heart hammering against my ribs in a fast paced manner, the smell of ash and the glow of moonlight in this dreadful place weighing heavily on me. My pendant burned faintly against my chest, its light pulsing rhythmically with the pain in my temples.

I’d stopped trying to understand these dreams. Each one blurring the lines between memory and nightmare. A silver field, a woman falling, a chorus of wolves howling until their voices shattered into silence. And me, standing in the middle of it all, unable to move, unable to breathe for reasons I still cannot comprehend.

The cell was colder tonight. The torches outside glimmered low while their smoke curled into thin choking ribbons. I could hear the guards talking down the corridor but something felt off. They weren’t supposed to be here this late.

I sat up slowly, rubbing my wrists in preparation for whatever. My skin beneath the shackles felt raw and numb. I tried to focus on the familiar rhythm of dripping water from the leaky roof and the distant steps from the guards, anything that kept me tethered to something real. Because these days I can't tell the difference anymore.

Then I heard it again, a soft whisper “Run.”

My head instantly snapped up and I noticed the corridor was empty, but the voice lingered in my mind like an echo.

I pressed my palms against my ears, compelling myself to focus on reality “Stop.” But the whispers kept coming in higher volumes.

“They will kill you when the sun rises.”

My pendant increased its pulsations, hard enough to make me flinch. The light seeped through my fingers, burning through me like molten silver.

“No,” I whispered, shaking my head in disbelief. “No! You’re not real.” I refused to acknowledge the fact that I might have been going insane.

But then lock on my cell clicked. A soft metallic sound, with deliberate intent and the door eased open half an inch.

I froze. Someone was trying to help me.

The guards were still laughing down the corridor, oblivious to what just happened. Whoever or whatever had opened that door hadn’t used a key, and that scared me.

My pendant flared up again. What was the connection? What was I missing?

“Run!” the voice urged, louder this time.

And before I could talk myself out of it, I found myself obeying.

The halls of the lower palace were a maze of stone walls and deafening echoes, probably to highlight what goes on in these dungeons. I slipped through them barefoot, heart pounding, trying to remember the paths Rael had taken when he brought me here.

Every corner looked the same and every shadow moved wrong or at least my fear of getting caught told me so.

By the time I reached the surface passage, the night air hit me so suddenly. Cold, sharp and real. It felt like ages since I had seen the outside world. The moon hung low, bright and full, painting the courtyard in luminescence.

I ran for my life.

The guards were changing shifts near the western gate so I kept to the edges, crouching behind old barrels and wagon wheels in an attempt to go unnoticed. The pendant burned against my chest with each step, only getting hotter and hotter. I bit my lip to stifle the pain but it had already charred a small scar on my skin.

“Please,” I whispered to it, gripping the chain. “Just let me go.”

But it didn’t listen.

By the time I reached the outer wall, my breath was shallow and my vision began to blur. I didn’t know where I meant to go, only that I couldn’t stay here if I wanted to live. I pressed my hand to the gate, ready to slip through the narrow gaps between the iron bars.

The pendant flared white-hot with a blinding burst of light that tore through my chest. I screamed, but there was no sound. Only light, pouring from my mouth, eyes and skin.

The ground trembled beneath me causing me to symbols and lose my balance. Somewhere distant, I heard the guards shouting, their voices dissolving into the sound of cracking bones and panicked cries leaving me curious as to what could’ve happened. But my mission was to escape.

I fell to my knees, clutching at the pendant as it further branded itself into my skin. I didn’t understand what was happening only that something inside me was breaking open. The voice in my head wasn’t whispering anymore. It was screaming.

“Awaken, Child of the Moon” I head as I let out a scream. Then everything went white.

When Lyra screamed, the forest answered

and three wolves fell to their knees.

When I opened my eyes, I was on the forest floor.

The night was quiet again, maybe too quiet. My breath came out in shudders, and for a moment I thought I was dead, and I had awoken in the depths of hell. The pendant lay dim against my chest now, leaving behind an angry red scar shaped like a crescent.

I tried to sit up, but my body wouldn’t move. That was when I saw them. Three wolves sprawled around me in the dirt, massive, silver-furred, their forms flickering as though reality couldn’t decide what they were. Their eyes rolled back with their chests heaving heavily.

One of them shifted mid-breath, the sound of bones snapping as he reverted back his human form: naked, trembling, gasping for air.

The second followed, collapsing entirely with no response. Not even a groan. And the third, he tried to stand with his claws digging into the soil, but the moment he met my gaze, he crumpled, whimpering like a pup.

“What did I do?” I whispered to myself.

The pendant pulsed once more and then went still, as if sated. My vision blurred. I pressed my hand to the burn on my chest, trying to breathe through the pain. But the effort was too much and suddenly, the forest tilted sideways.

I thought I heard someone calling my name, low and distant. Then the world went dark again.

“Lyra!”

A voice cut through the haze: rough, frantic and familiar.

I blinked. The forest was spinning around me, shadows shifting between trees and torchlights dancing in the dark and there he was.

Rael.

He knelt beside me, with one hand gripping my shoulder and the other brushing the dirt from my face. His touch was firm but careful, as though he was afraid I might shatter. Did I seem that fragile?

“What happened?” he demanded, his voice low but laced with subtle concern. “Lyra, can you hear me?”I tried to speak, but the words tangled on my tongue letting out a faint sound, his name maybe.

He turned toward the wolves sprawled nearby, his expression hardening. “Stand down,” he barked, but none of them moved. That’s when I realized they weren’t wolves anymore. They were men now, barely conscious wity fear written across their faces.

“What did you do to them?” Rael whispered, more to himself than to me.

I shook my head hurriedly. “I didn’t-”

“Don’t move,” he ordered, his voice softening. He touched the edge of the burn on my chest, his fingers hovering just above the glowing scar.

“She’s burning up,” he muttered to himself before realizing the cause. “The pendant. What in the Goddess’s name-”

He ripped the chain free and tossed it aside. The air sizzled where it hit the ground, the metal hissing like it had touched a scorching flame.

Rael looked back at me, jaw clenched. His composure was always so cold and unshakable. But in this moment, it was cracking.

“I told you not to run,” he said in a tone I had expected to be anger. But rather sounded like worry.

My vision dimmed at the edges. The last thing I saw was the way he was looking at me. Not like I was a prisoner anymore, but like something sacred and terrifying had just landed in his arms. Then the moonlight swallowed everything again.