Chapter 2

Two months ago, a group of she-wolves had cornered me behind the old training grounds.

They came out of nowhere, blocking my path before I could react. One of them shoved me to the ground, and the rest closed in around me.

"Look at her. She won’t even resist. Weakling!"

Raven crouched down and grabbed a fistful of my hair.

“At least your sister has an excuse. Hunters kept her in a silver cage for days and it left her with PTSD and epilepsy. What excuse do you have, weakling?”

She dragged something out from behind her back. A bucket. The smell hit me before the contents did.

Rotting meat. Spoiled milk. Garbage they had been saving for days.

She poured it over my head.

The filth ran down my face, my neck, soaking into my clothes. I sat there, covered in it, my wolf whimpering somewhere deep inside me.

"You smell like what you are now," Raven said, stepping back.“Garbage!”

The others laughed as they walked away.

I stayed on the ground long after they left,until I could no longer smell the garbage on myself.

Then I walked home, carrying the stench of rot with me.

The moment I stepped through the door, my mother's head snapped up.

The scent hit her before I could even speak.

"What is that smell?"

Her voice was sharp and accusing.

I opened my mouth to explain, but nothing came out. What was I supposed to say?

That I was attacked? That six wolves held me down and poured garbage over my head?

That I had learned long ago that telling them would only make things worse?

My mother's eyes swept over me..

"Did you do this on purpose?"

I blinked.

"Celine has been calm for two days. And you walk in here smelling like a dead animal's carcass. Do you want to trigger her?"

I wanted to defend myself but no matter what I said, they would still believe I was the one at fault.

If I told her I was attacked, she would ask why I had been alone. She would ask what I had done to provoke them.

And all of it would feed back into the same story — household disrupted, Celine distressed, peace shattered by my existence.

"Celine cannot handle any kind of trigger, or her life will be at risk!" The healer's words had become a curse cast over our entire family.

So I swallowed everything.

"Sorry. I fell near the hunting pits."

My mother frowned but did not press further. She was already turning back toward the stairs.

"Go wash immediately. Use the basin water. And do not come out until the smell is gone."

I went to the washroom at the end of the hall and locked the door.

The water was already cold. I scrubbed my skin until it turned raw, but the smell would not come off. It clung to my hair, my clothes, my fingernails.

I scrubbed until my hands trembled and my tears finally spilled over.

Then I sat on the floor, hugged my knees to my chest, and cried into my own arms so that no one could hear.

---

The darkness was closing in over my vision now.

I could still feel the silver burning through my veins from the statue lodged in my back.

I heard father on the phone."...yes, another episode. Send the healer. Now."

Footsteps hurried past me.

They were all heading toward the sofa, where Celine was still thrashing in Mother's arms.

"Iris, go get Celine's herbs!"

My mother's order came without her turning her head. I wanted to answer, but my lips would not move anymore.

"Still putting on an act — let's see how long you keep this up!" Father snapped irritably.

My last flicker of consciousness landed on the day I stood in the healer's doorway.

I had come to return my apprenticeship satchel. The leather bundle filled with the dried herbs I had spent seven years learning to identify.

"Why are you quitting?"

The healer stared at me, stunned.

"You have a gift, Iris. Your nose can distinguish a healing root from a poison in a single breath. In my twenty years of training students, I have never seen anyone as talented as you.”

"The scent of the herbs sets off Celine's episodes."

I kept my head lowered, not daring to meet her disappointed eyes.

"Her healer said she needs a scent-free environment."

Now those locked-away dreams were dying slowly, right alongside me.

The sound of heavy boots on stone grew closer. The healer's warriors burst through the door.

"Where is the patient?"

"Here! Hurry! My daughter can't take it anymore!"

Father's voice cracked with an urgency he had never once shown for me.

How I wished someone would just look down. Would notice there was another daughter on the floor, bleeding, waiting to be saved.

The healer's warriors walked straight to the sofa and carefully lifted Celine, wrapping her in a clean white cloth. Mother followed, giving orders as she went.

No one noticed me dying in the corner.

"A wolf with silver in her blood can’t wait..." That was the last thing I heard. Then the world sank into permanent darkness.