Mag-log inWhat Victor CarriedHe was waiting for me in the small study off the guards' quarters, a room I'd never once had reason to enter before tonight. It was sparse and functional, a narrow desk pushed against one wall stacked with duty rosters nobody had bothered filing away, a single lamp burning low between two mismatched chairs, the kind of room built for reports rather than anything a person might actually want to say out loud in it."You could have chosen somewhere less like an interrogation," I said, taking the seat across from him, the chair's wood cold even through my skirts."I chose somewhere private," Victor said. "There's a difference, though I understand why it might not feel that way tonight."He didn't speak again for a long moment. He turned a small carved token over and over in his fingers, wolf-shaped, worn smooth along every edge, and I watched him open his mouth twice and close it again before any sound came out, the silence stretching long enough that I nearly reached
Eleven DaysI woke to a soft knock before the sun had fully risen, and found Akira waiting in the hallway, her expression carrying an urgency that pulled the last traces of sleep from my mind instantly, her robes hastily thrown on over her nightclothes in a way that told me she hadn't paused to dress properly before coming to find me."There's something in the library," she said. "It happened overnight. I wanted you to see it before anyone else did."She left me at the library door rather than following me in, standing back with a deliberateness that felt, in the moment, like its own kind of kindness, and I understood, crossing the threshold alone, that she'd meant for me to read it first, in private, before the weight of it became something the whole circle discussed together over breakfast, dissected and analyzed before I'd even had the chance to simply feel it.The damaged ledger sat open on the table, exactly where we'd left it, except now an entirely new page had filled itself wi
What the Test CostI found Elara in the library three days later, staring at a blank page instead of reading anything on it, her expression distant enough that I nearly turned around before she noticed me standing in the doorway."I tried to remember the color of the dress you wore to my sixteenth birthday," she said, without looking up, her fingers idly turning the corner of the empty page over and over. "I couldn't. Not the shade, not the fabric, nothing. It should be an easy thing to remember. We danced in that dress until your feet blistered and you had to walk home barefoot, and you complained about it for a week afterward.""Maybe you never remembered it that clearly to begin with," I said, settling into the chair across from her, though I didn't fully believe my own reassurance even as I offered it."Maybe," she said. "Or maybe the chamber took something small from me that night, the way it took something small from all of us, and none of us thought to ask exactly what before w
The TestWe went to the sanctuary two days later, the full circle of us this time, Kieran, Akira, Kaiden, Elara, Victor, Marcus, and Priya, who'd insisted on coming despite Kieran's initial hesitation, arguing that if she was going to offer to help carry a piece of my memory in twelve days, she'd rather understand exactly what that offer meant before the eclipse forced her to learn it under pressure."You don't have to be afraid," I told her, as we descended into the tunnel together, lanterns raised against the damp dark, the passage narrower than I remembered it, cold radiating off the old stone walls close enough on either side to brush my shoulders."I'm not afraid for myself," Priya said. "I'm afraid of what it will cost the people I love to stand beside you in that chamber, and I'd rather understand that cost now, while there's still room to prepare for it properly, instead of learning it for the first time on the night everything actually depends on it."We walked the rest of th
What Priya WithheldWe gathered at Priya's cottage after dusk, the same small kitchen where Elara and I had first heard the truth about Wren, though this time the room felt more crowded, Kieran and Akira and Kaiden filling the space alongside Elara and me, everyone's attention fixed on the woman standing at the head of the table with her hands folded tightly in front of her, her knuckles pale from the pressure."I told you the truth two days ago," Priya said, once we'd all settled onto the mismatched chairs she'd gathered from every corner of the small house. "But I didn't tell you all of it. I've spent two days deciding whether the rest was mine to share, and I've decided the eclipse is close enough now that withholding it any longer would be its own kind of betrayal.""Then tell us," I said, my hands already tightening in my lap.Priya drew a slow breath, her eyes moving briefly to Elara before settling on me, and I watched some old fear steady itself behind her expression, the look
Twelve DaysI woke before dawn, the number already settled in my chest the way it had every morning for weeks now, and found I couldn't fall back asleep, my mind too full of everything the last several days had unearthed.I dressed quietly and made my way down to the training yard alone, wanting, for once, to test something without an audience watching me fail. The castle was still mostly asleep around me, the halls dim and quiet, and I found something almost peaceful in the solitude, a rare stretch of minutes that belonged to no one's expectations but my own.The dead oak stood pale in the early light, its cracked bark now running the full length of the trunk, a wound that had never quite managed to become anything more than a wound no matter how many mornings Kieran and I had spent trying to coax it further.I pressed my palm flat against the bark, and instead of reaching for him the way I always did, I reached instead for the memory itself, the one I'd finally spoken aloud in full
CHAPTER 5.He killed her.My body froze in shock, as I was suddenly being pulled away by some mighty hands. Swiftly, I was picked up like a piece of trash, and thrown into a large black van, which resembled an ambulance. Then, the journey began.As I sat behind that van in darkness, the wave of un
CHAPTER 20.The hidden truth.As I stood in the middle of the pack's ancestral home, I felt the entire weight of my entire existence being placed on my shoulders.At that moment, the entire atmosphere was covered with the scent of old wood and dust. From what I could see, it was a reflection of the
CHAPTER 13.The pack's judgement.The tension in the atmosphere as I approached the venue where the pack had assembled was really intimidating. Now, I knew that I had to stand up for myself, or face eternal doom.The light from the old lanterns created a long array of dark shadows.Recently, I hav
CHAPTER 1.The atmosphere was cold and chilly. It was the winter season, and as usual, the soft breeze and melodious songs of birds could be heard.I sat in my room in absolute dejection. Today, was the day. The day when my destiny will be marked, and my future, rewritten. Few minutes from now, I







