Chapter 8: The Night Everything Changed

The trouble began with a smell.

Smoke.

I noticed it shortly after midnight, when the packhouse had settled into silence and most of the lights had been extinguished.

At first, I thought someone had left a cooking fire burning in the kitchens. It wouldn't have been the first time a careless worker had forgotten to check the ovens.

Then I heard footsteps running through the corridor.

A door slammed.

Someone shouted, "Wake the Alpha!"

I sat upright.

The smell of smoke had grown stronger.

I hurried to the window and looked outside.

A pale orange glow flickered beyond the ceremonial grounds.

For several seconds, I couldn't understand what I was seeing.

Then the first scream reached me.

The ceremonial hall was burning.

I rushed from my room without stopping to put on proper shoes. The corridor was already filling with frightened voices as pack members emerged from their bedrooms.

"What's happening?"

"Get everyone outside!"

"Where are the guards?"

I followed the crowd towards the courtyard.

The night air struck my face, cold and sharp. Smoke rolled above the trees, and sparks rose into the darkness like burning insects.

The ceremonial hall stood at the centre of the grounds, its wooden decorations catching fire faster than anyone could extinguish them.

Workers ran between the building and the water barrels.

Guards shouted orders.

Somewhere in the confusion, a child was crying.

I pushed through the crowd.

"Mara!"

I found her near the eastern entrance, helping two older women towards the main courtyard.

"Nyla! Thank goodness."

"What happened?"

"I don't know. Someone found smoke coming from the rear storage room. By the time the guards arrived, the curtains were burning."

I stared at the flames.

The hall had been decorated for the ceremony. White roses, silver ribbons, wooden arches, and hanging fabrics covered almost every available surface.

It was beautiful during the day.

Now it was a trap.

"Are there people inside?" I asked.

Mara looked towards the building.

"I don't know."

A crash sounded from within.

Several people screamed.

I saw a figure emerge from the side entrance, coughing and stumbling. A guard caught him before he fell.

"It's clear!" the guard shouted. "Everyone out!"

But another voice rose from behind the building.

"Help! Someone, please!"

I turned towards the sound.

A young servant was trapped near the storage entrance, where a fallen beam blocked the path. Smoke poured through the doorway, and flames had begun climbing the wooden frame.

Without thinking, I ran.

"Nyla!" Mara screamed.

I ignored her.

The heat struck me before I reached the entrance. My eyes watered, and smoke clawed at my throat.

The servant was crouched behind a stack of broken furniture, her hands pressed over her mouth.

"Come here!" I shouted.

"I can't get past!"

I grabbed a length of fallen wood and tried to shift it.

It didn't move.

I pulled harder.

Nothing.

The flames crackled above us.

Panic threatened to take over.

Then I felt the familiar pressure beneath my ribs.

The pendant warmed against my chest.

I closed my eyes for a heartbeat.

Help her.

The thought was mine.

The answering sensation was not.

Something surged through my arms.

I pulled again.

The beam moved.

Not easily, but enough for the servant to crawl through the gap.

I caught her hand and dragged her towards the doorway.

A burning fragment fell from the ceiling.

I threw myself over her.

Pain flashed across my back as the fragment struck me, but I forced myself to stand.

"Run!"

We stumbled out of the entrance just as part of the roof collapsed behind us.

The sound was deafening.

I dragged the servant away from the building and fell to my knees on the grass.

For several seconds, I could do nothing but cough.

Hands reached for us.

Someone pulled the servant towards the healers.

Another person grabbed my shoulders.

"Nyla! Look at me!"

Blake.

His face was streaked with soot, and his eyes were wild.

"What were you thinking?"

I tried to answer, but a coughing fit interrupted me.

He pulled me to my feet.

"You could have been killed!"

"She was trapped."

"You should have waited for the guards!"

"There wasn't time!"

He stared at me, breathing hard.

Then his gaze dropped to my back.

I felt the heat of the injury before I felt the pain.

My dress had torn where the burning fragment struck me.

Blake's expression changed.

"You're hurt."

"I'm fine."

He turned me towards the light.

Blood stained the fabric, but the wound was already closing.

His grip loosened.

Behind him, the ceremonial hall continued to burn.

And I knew that whatever had happened tonight, it had not been an accident.

---

By the time the fire was brought under control, the eastern side of the ceremonial hall had collapsed.

The decorations were gone.

The white roses had blackened.

The silver ribbons had melted into twisted strands.

The entire pack stood in the courtyard, watching the last flames die.

Nobody was celebrating anymore.

The Alpha's guards moved through the grounds, questioning workers and checking the damaged building. The pack healer examined the injured, while several elders argued near the main entrance.

I sat on a low stone wall with a blanket around my shoulders.

Mara stood beside me, refusing to leave.

"You could have died," she said for the third time.

"I know."

"You ran straight into a burning building."

"Someone was trapped."

"And you thought the best solution was to become trapped with her?"

I managed a weak smile.

"You're angry."

"I'm terrified."

Her voice broke on the last word.

I reached for her hand.

"I'm sorry."

She squeezed my fingers.

"Don't apologise for saving someone. Just promise me you won't keep throwing yourself into danger without thinking."

I wanted to make that promise.

I wasn't certain I could keep it.

Across the courtyard, Blake stood with Councilman Darius and two guards. His face was hard, his shoulders rigid.

I watched as Darius pointed towards the remains of the storage room.

Blake shook his head.

Darius said something else.

This time, Blake looked directly at me.

A chill passed through my body.

He knew something.

I rose from the wall.

"Mara, stay here."

"Where are you going?"

"To find out what happened."

"Nyla, please don't—"

"I won't do anything reckless."

She gave me a look that suggested she did not believe me.

I approached the group slowly.

The guards straightened when they saw me.

Blake's expression darkened.

"You should be resting."

"I can rest after someone explains why our ceremonial hall caught fire."

Darius studied me.

His gaze lingered on the torn dress and the faint bloodstains that remained despite my healing.

"You were inside the building?"

"Someone was trapped."

"And you rescued her?"

"Yes."

He exchanged a glance with Blake.

"What?" I demanded.

"Nothing," Blake said.

"Stop doing that."

"Doing what?"

"Looking at each other as if I'm not standing here."

Darius's mouth tightened.

"You're frightened and exhausted, Nyla. This isn't the time for questions."

"Then when is the time? After the ceremony? After someone else gets hurt? After you decide that whatever happened tonight is another secret I don't deserve to know?"

Blake stepped forward.

"Enough."

I stared at him.

For years, that single word had been enough to make me retreat.

Tonight, it wasn't.

"No. I have spent my entire life being told to wait, to stay quiet, to accept what people decide for me. I'm done."

The words seemed to surprise even me.

Darius watched me with an expression I couldn't interpret.

Then he asked, "Did you feel anything unusual inside the building?"

I hesitated.

The warmth of the pendant.

The sudden strength in my arms.

The way the heavy beam had shifted when it should have been impossible for me to move it.

"Why are you asking?"

"Because fire can trigger strange responses in certain bloodlines."

My heart began to pound.

"Certain bloodlines?"

Blake turned sharply towards him.

"Darius."

But the councilman had already spoken.

I took a step closer.

"What bloodlines?"

Darius looked at Blake, then back at me.

"That is not a conversation for the courtyard."

"Of course it isn't."

I laughed bitterly.

"Nothing ever is."

I turned away before either man could stop me.

But as I walked back towards Mara, I heard Darius speak behind me.

"She cannot remain ignorant forever, Blake."

His reply was too quiet for me to hear.

I kept walking.

---

The packhouse was restless for the remainder of the night.

Some people returned to their rooms. Others gathered in small groups, whispering about the fire and wondering whether the ceremony would be postponed.

I heard rumours before I reached the stairs.

Someone claimed the fire had started in the storage room.

Another insisted the flames had spread too quickly for an accident.

A third whispered that the guards had found a broken window behind the building.

A broken window.

I stopped.

The voice belonged to one of the kitchen workers.

"How do you know?" another woman asked.

"My cousin was helping with the cleanup. She said the latch had been forced."

"Then someone started the fire deliberately?"

"I don't know. But why would anyone want to burn the ceremonial hall?"

I continued walking, but the question followed me.

Why indeed?

The hall had been prepared for a ceremony that would bring together influential members of the pack. Destroying it would cause embarrassment, financial loss, and perhaps political tension.

But it would also create confusion.

Confusion that someone could use to hide something.

I returned to my room and locked the door.

My hands were trembling.

I removed the blanket and examined my back in the mirror.

The wound had disappeared.

There was not even a scar.

I touched the place where the burning fragment had struck me.

Then I looked at my pendant.

For the first time, I wondered whether my healing was only the beginning.

What if the strength I had felt in the storage room had come from the same source?

What if the strange howl was not a warning, but an answer?

I sat on the edge of the bed and took the embroidered cloth from my pocket.

The crescent and three circles looked ordinary beneath the lamp.

I turned the fabric over.

The letters A.B.K. stared back at me.

I had no idea what they meant.

But I knew someone in Blackthorn did.

I slipped the cloth into the wooden box, then placed the pendant around my neck.

Tomorrow, I would find a way to investigate the old records.

I would not wait for Blake.

I would not wait for the council.

And I would not allow anyone to tell me that my own history was none of my business.

A soft sound came from outside my window.

I froze.

It came again.

A scrape against the outer wall.

I crossed the room quietly and peered through the curtain.

A figure stood beneath the trees at the edge of the courtyard.

Too far away for me to see a face.

Too still to be a worker.

I pulled the curtain back slightly.

The figure lifted its head.

Even from that distance, I felt the weight of its attention.

Then it raised one hand.

Something flashed between its fingers.

Silver.

My pendant grew hot against my chest.

I stumbled backwards, clutching it.

When I looked outside again, the figure was gone.

I stood in the darkness, unable to move.

The fire.

The forced window.

Darius's questions about bloodlines.

The mysterious stranger watching my room.

Too many things had happened in a single night.

And every one of them seemed connected to the secret everyone had been keeping from me.

I pressed my palm against the pendant.

For a moment, I felt that presence inside me again.

Stronger than before.

Closer.

I had spent twenty-five years believing I was the weakest person in Blackthorn Pack.

Tonight, I had pulled a burning beam away from a trapped woman.

Tonight, my wounds had healed before anyone could properly examine them.

Tonight, someone I had never seen had stood outside my window holding something that made my pendant react.

I didn't know what I was.

But I knew I was no longer willing to live as though I were nothing.

Outside, the first birds began calling from the trees.

Dawn was approaching.

The ceremony was still ahead of us.

And somewhere beyond the boundaries of Blackthorn, someone knew I existed.

Someone had watched me.

Someone might even have been waiting for me.

I drew the curtains closed.

For the first time in my life, I wasn't afraid of the possibility that I might have a wolf.

I was afraid of what would happen when everyone discovered the truth.

Because after tonight, I could no longer pretend that my life would remain the same.

Everything had changed.