1: THE ACCUSATION

Lyra's pov 

Three weeks ago, I was invisible, or so I thought, because that's the safest way to be when you're an orphan Omega living on pack charity, which is what I've been since I was twelve years old and a rogue attack took my parents, which left me with nothing except the clothes I was wearing and a pack that took me in because Moon Law says they have to. 

I learned early that keeping your head down and your mouth shut is how you survive when you have no family to protect you and no status to shield you from the wolves who think being powerless means you're fair game for whatever they want to take.

So I kept to myself, worked hard in the healing ward where they placed me as an apprentice, and made myself useful enough that no one questioned whether I deserved the small room above the clinic and the meals I took in the kitchen after everyone else had finished. I ground herbs and mixed poultices and learned which plants stopped bleeding and which ones brought down fevers, and I was good at it, good enough that Healer Oswin started trusting me with actual patients instead of just preparation work.

I was invisible, and I was safe, and I was grateful for both of those things.

The Harvest Moon gathering that happened three weeks ago was supposed to be just another pack celebration where I worked in the background, helping tend to minor injuries and making sure the medical supplies were stocked in case anyone had too much to drink and did something stupid. 

The whole pack had turned out for it, filling the great lawn behind the pack house with music and food and that electric energy that comes when wolves gather under a full moon and remember what it feels like to be part of something larger than themselves.

I was grinding feverfew root in the medical tent when the first cramp hit.

At first I thought it was just normal monthly discomfort, the kind that comes and goes and doesn't mean anything except you need to drink some willow bark tea and get through it. 

But then the second cramp came, stronger and deeper, and with it came a wave of heat that started in my belly and spread outward like I'd swallowed fire. My skin went hot and sensitive, my clothes suddenly feeling too tight and too rough, and there was a scent rising off me that I recognized from the one other time I'd gone into heat two years ago.

This couldn't be happening.

My heat cycle wasn't due for another three weeks at least, I tracked it carefully in the little journal I kept hidden under my mattress because knowing when to avoid certain situations and certain wolves was part of staying safe. 

But my body didn't care about my careful tracking or my desperate need for this not to be happening right now, in the middle of a pack gathering with hundreds of wolves around and no way to get back to my room without walking through the crowd.

I made it outside the tent before the third cramp brought me to my knees in the grass, and that's when he found me.

"Lyra? Are you alright?"

Alpha Silas Korren was golden-haired and handsome in the way that made other wolves stop and stare when he walked by, and he'd always been kind to me in that casual, easy way powerful people can afford to be kind to those so far beneath them it costs nothing. 

He was Elder Moira's nephew, beloved by the pack, someone who smiled at the orphan girl and sometimes asked how her studies were going like he actually cared about the answer.

I trusted him.

"My heat," I managed to gasp out, curling in on myself as another wave of fire rolled through me. "It came early, I don't—the healer, I need to get to Healer Oswin—"

"Oswin left an hour ago, he had a patient in the eastern district." Silas crouched down beside me, his hand on my shoulder warm and steady and wrong in a way I couldn't articulate because my brain was starting to fog over with heat. "Come on, let's get you inside before anyone notices. I'll take you to the healer's quarters, you can wait it out there safely."

His hand was already pulling me to my feet, already guiding me away from the medical tent and toward the pack house, and I let him because what else was I supposed to do? I was an Omega in heat in the middle of a crowd, and an Alpha was offering to help me get somewhere private and safe, and every instinct I had was screaming at me to trust the strong wolf who smelled like safety and protection.

We went through a side door into the pack house, down a corridor I didn't recognize, and my heat-fogged brain didn't register that we were going the wrong direction until he opened a door and pulled me inside a room that definitely wasn't the healer's quarters. It was too nice, too personal, with a large bed and personal belongings scattered around and a scent that was all Alpha male and nothing like the clinical smell of Oswin's rooms.

"This isn't—" I started to say, trying to pull away from his grip, but the heat was making me weak and clumsy and he was so much stronger than me.

"I know," he said, and his voice had changed, gone from warm and helpful to something else entirely, something that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up even through the haze of heat. "Don't worry, Lyra. I'll take care of you."

I tried to protest but the door locked with a click that sounded like the end of the world to my ears and that was the last thing I remembered. 

I woke up hours later in a bed that wasn't mine, alone, aching and knowing with sick certainty exactly what had happened while I was too far into heat to fight or say no or do anything except exist in a fog that had made my body respond even while my mind screamed.

He'd left a glass of water on the bedside table and my clothes folded neatly on a chair like this was some kind of considerate gesture instead of what it actually was. 

I grabbed my clothes with shaking hands, got dressed as fast as I could despite how much everything hurt, and I ran back to my room above the healing ward without seeing anyone because the celebration was still going and the corridors were empty.

I spent three days in my room trying to decide what to do.

I could stay silent and survive—no one would ever know, and I could keep my job and my room and my carefully constructed invisible life. But Silas would know he'd gotten away with it, and what would stop him from doing it to the next Omega he found vulnerable and alone? What would stop him from cornering another girl who had no family and no power and no reason to believe anyone would take her word over his?

On the fourth day, I started writing down everything that happened, every detail I could remember, and I wrote it seventeen times until I got the words exactly right. Then I walked into the Elder's council chamber and I formally accused Alpha Silas Korren of assault.

They scheduled a Moon Tribunal for three weeks later.

I knew it was dangerous—accusing an Alpha is always dangerous, but accusing Elder Moira's nephew was practically suicidal. I knew they might not believe me. I knew I'd probably lose my position and my home and possibly my place in the pack entirely.

But I didn't know they'd do this.

Its finally the day of the hearing and the Moon Tribunal Hall stretches out before me like a cathedral built for judgment rather than worship, all dark stone and silver moonlight streaming through the circular skylight above. 

Every wolf in Silverpine Pack has packed themselves into the gallery seats that rise up on three sides like an amphitheater designed specifically so everyone can watch someone fall.

They didn't come here to support me.

They came to watch me burn.

I've been kneeling on the cold stone for what feels like hours while the Elders take their seats in the crescent-shaped platform at the front of the hall. 

Elder Moira sits at the center, her silver hair braided with moon-blessed beads that click softly when she moves her head, and her face could have been carved from the same stone as the walls around us—all sharp angles and cold judgment.

My hands shake as I clutch the parchment I've rewritten seventeen times, the paper damp with sweat and crinkled at the edges. I've practiced saying these words in my tiny room above the healing ward, speaking them to my reflection until I could get through the whole thing without my voice breaking.

I wasn't ready.

But I'm here anyway, because staying silent would mean he'd hurt someone else, and I can't live with that even if speaking up means my own destruction.

The whispers in the gallery fade to silence as Elder Moira leans forward, her pale gray eyes fixed on me with the kind of attention that makes my skin crawl. She doesn't blink, doesn't smile, doesn't show any hint of human warmth or mercy.

She reads my written testimony with no reaction at all, and then she looks up and her voice carries across the hall without her needing to raise it, cold and clear as winter ice.

"Speak your accusation, Omega."