Chapter 1 – Echoes of Impact

“She's awake.”

The whisper cut through the sterile hum of machines. Claire Sepharine Nightwind opened her eyes to a ceiling stained with fluorescent light. The scent of antiseptic filled her lungs—burning, clinical, wrong. Her body was a map of silence and agony.

“She moved,” another voice murmured, softer this time. “Did you see that?”

Claire blinked. The light stabbed. She turned her head—barely. A nurse, clipboard in hand, stood frozen at the door. The other, younger, held a tray of bandages. They were watching her like she'd risen from the dead.

In a way, she had.

“Get Dr. Blackwood,” the older nurse whispered urgently, vanishing from the room.

The door hissed shut. Claire’s throat scraped like sandpaper. She tried to speak.

Nothing.

Just a breath.

Just air.

Not even a sound to prove she existed.

Then came the sting—the memory. Not the crash. That was still a blur of metal, air, and pain. But a voice, half-remembered and sharp as shattered glass, echoed through her head.

“Jasper said he’ll hold her hand if she wakes up,” someone had whispered near her bedside once. “But that was three weeks ago.”

He wasn't here.

He hadn't come.

The realization settled like a stone in her chest.

Faint voices drifted in through the half-open door.

“Elodie returned yesterday. They said she walked in like the goddess herself, untouched by the past.”

“I still say Claire was never meant to be Luna. That marriage was a pity arrangement.”

“I heard Jasper didn’t visit. Not even once.”

Claire squeezed her eyes shut. Her leg screamed. Something deep inside tore.

Her hand twitched toward the bedrail, fingers slow and shaking. She clutched the cold metal. Anchor. Proof. She still had control over this body, broken as it was.

She moved again—barely, painfully. Her lips cracked with the effort to speak. “Water,” she rasped. Barely audible. More breath than sound.

But it was enough.

The younger nurse jumped, scrambling to pour a cup from the dispenser. “Miss Nightwind?” she said softly. “Don’t try to talk. You’re safe now.”

Safe?

Claire coughed once, a raw, scraping sound. Her chest ached. Her lips met the straw with difficulty, but she drank—slowly, awkwardly, like a baby deer taking its first steps.

“Good,” the nurse soothed. “Dr. Blackwood is on his way.”

Claire didn’t answer. Her mind was elsewhere—tracing backward through the fog.

The last time she’d seen Jasper clearly... her father’s funeral.

Snow had fallen on his casket. Her fingers had turned blue gripping the prayer rope.

And Jasper?

Nowhere.

Not a word. Not a message. Not even a glance.

Her eyes burned. She stared at the ceiling until it blurred.

"How long..." she rasped.

The nurse hesitated. “Thirty-two days.”

Claire’s breath caught. A full moon cycle. More.

Her wedding ring was gone.

Of course it was.

She lifted her left hand to confirm—bare, pale, unfamiliar.

Good.

There was a knock. Soft, then firmer.

Dr. Edward Blackwood entered. Older than she remembered. Gray at the temples. But his eyes, sharp behind glasses, went wide with something like wonder.

“Claire.”

She tried to smile. It came out as a grimace.

He approached gently. “You’ve done the impossible.”

She wanted to say, *It wasn’t for you. It wasn’t for him, either.* But she said nothing.

He picked up her chart. “Your femur was shattered. Knee crushed. There’s metal in your leg now. And weeks—months—of rehabilitation ahead.”

Claire nodded. “How soon can I walk?”

His eyebrows shot up. “Let’s focus on sitting up first.”

“I’m already up.”

He turned. She was right. She had braced herself on the bedrail, upper body trembling with effort but upright.

Edward blinked. “Impressive.”

“Install parallel bars,” she said hoarsely. “Tomorrow.”

“You should rest. You’ve barely woken up—”

“Tomorrow,” she repeated, more forcefully.

Something in her tone stopped him. He closed the chart. “I’ll have the equipment brought up.”

“Good.”

He hesitated. “Claire... Jasper didn’t know if you’d ever wake up.”

She stared at him. “But he knew I was hurt.”

Edward said nothing.

Claire lay back slowly, heart pounding. Her leg throbbed. The pain was alive now—hot, bright, unrelenting.

Good.

Pain meant she was here.

Meant she had something left to burn.

That night, when the corridor quieted and the nurses dimmed the lights, a courier arrived. Claire watched through the cracked doorway as he passed her room, arms full of white lilies.

“Memorial flowers for the Alpha’s atrium,” he explained to a nurse.

He turned the wrong way.

The lilies were left at her door.

No one came to retrieve them.

Claire stared at the pristine bouquet.

Slowly, methodically, she reached for a pair of surgical scissors.

She sliced each stem clean, dropping petals into the washbasin like flakes of ash.

Not a tantrum.

A ritual.

Her own private cremation.

---

“Do you need painkillers?” the night nurse asked softly as she entered near midnight.

Claire shook her head. “I need the bars tomorrow.”

“You’re going to need help.”

“No,” she said. “I just need steel and silence.”

The nurse looked uncertain but nodded.

When she left, Claire reached under her pillow and pulled out the only thing she’d asked Edward to retrieve weeks ago.

A holovid tablet.

She powered it on. The screen blinked to life.

Wedding day.

Jasper stood tall, polished, unreadable.

No kiss. Not even a smile.

He hadn’t held her hand then either.

She paused the video. Zoomed in on her own face.

She was smiling. Too wide. Too tense.

It wasn’t happiness. It was fear. Maybe even desperation.

Claire turned off the screen.

She didn’t cry.

She was done with that.

Tomorrow, she would walk.

Not toward Jasper.

Toward whatever future her own muscles could earn.