Prologue

“The chains were cold, but not colder than the words.

The wounds were deep, but not deeper than the betrayal.

And yet, beneath the deepest layers of pain, something still flickered:

an ancient instinct, an unknown call.

Not to run. Not to seek revenge.

But to believe that one day, someone would see her—

not as a nobody, but as someone.

Someone alive.

Someone who would fight.”

Nyra

Darkness did not ask permission when it forced its way into my life.

It didn’t knock, didn’t beg for entry. It needed no words, no promises.

It simply pressed down on me — like the damp, cold mist that seeps through cracks in the stone. Like the bitterness that gathers over the years, silently suffocating every dream I ever dared to hold.

I crouched in the corner of the cell, folded in on myself, as if becoming smaller could make me invisible to the world that had never left me in peace. My back leaned against the damp wall, but the chill of the stone reached deeper than my skin — it soaked into my bones, clinging to me, as if the lifeless rock meant to drain the last spark from within me.

Iron shackles bit into my wrists and ankles, the cold of the chains long since seared into my flesh. Scars — old and fresh alike — wound across my body like tangled vines, each cut, each lash adding to the story I never wished to tell.

My body had already learned to speak in my place.

The world was deaf to my suffering. No one heard the silent cries, the wordless prayers that mingled with the smell of stone and blood. The Moon — my only witness — stared in through the narrow bars, cold and indifferent, her pale face untouched by pity or wrath.

Perhaps even the gods had turned their eyes away.

Or perhaps they had never seen me at all.

Once — in another life — I believed that existence was more than pain and humiliation. I believed there must be a place where breath was not bound to fear, where sunlight did not seep mockingly through prison cracks as a cruel reminder of freedom.

But those hopes froze within me long ago, like the first fatal breath of winter, when the world offers no refuge, only frozen silence.

Now, only silence remains my companion.

And the darkness.

Hunger, thirst, the pulse of open wounds — these became the fragments of my everyday. Yet the heaviest burden was the crushing solitude, soundless and unyielding, wearing me down with every heartbeat.

And still… deep inside, something flickered stubbornly. A faint instinct, a long-forgotten voice.

Somewhere, far beyond these walls, I felt a presence drawing near. I did not know from where, or why. Only that the air grew heavier, as if the world outside had stirred. The soft rattle of my chains, the cold breath of the stone, the trembling of tree roots — all whispered the same warning: something was coming.

The wolf within me, caged for years, pricked up its ears. My heart beat wild, restless against my ribs.

Something was coming.

Something greater than death.

Something beyond the fear I had known until now.

Something that could change everything.

When the heavy door groaned open and slammed against the wall, I did not move. My breath came shallow, my body shook — but my eyes, the last frail lights of my torn, wounded soul, did not waver.

I did not yet know that my fate was already sealed.

I did not yet know that the darkness which had devoured me was now ready to lift me up.

And that even here, in the depths of my prison, the Moon had turned her gaze on me once more.

And this time, she did not look away.