LOGINLyra’s PovI froze.The hand on my shoulder didn’t tighten, didn’t hurt, but the cold of it seeped straight through my cardigan and settled into my bones, and every instinct I had screamed at me not to turn around.“Let go of her,” Rowan said, and I had never heard his voice drop that low before, all the warmth gone out of it entirely.“Such hostility,” the voice murmured, still close against my ear, unhurried despite the crowd of students pressing past us on every side, none of them seeming to notice anything wrong at all. “And after I came all this way to be polite about it.”I forced myself to turn, slowly, and found a man standing a half step too close, his face pleasant and unremarkable in a way that somehow unsettled me more than anything sharp or cruel could have. Ordinary brown eyes. Ordinary brown hair. The kind of face that would slip out of memory five minutes after you looked away from it.“Who are you?” I asked, my voice steadier than I felt.“A messenger,” he said, smili
Lyra’s POVThe smoke thinned around me slowly, curling upward into nothing, and with it went every trace of the chamber, the mirror, Tobias Vale’s cold laughter, the crystal veins pulsing beneath my palms. One moment I stood at the edge of a shattered ceiling bracing for his voice to come pouring through, and the next, the whole vision simply dissolved, like breath fogging glass and fading before I could even read what it had spelled.I blinked, and the corridor of the academy stretched out ahead of me again, sunlit and ordinary, Rowan’s voice still carrying on beside me as though no time had passed at all.“….and that’s the whole reason I got banned from the training hall for a week,” he was saying, grinning at some memory only he could see. “Worth it, honestly.”I stared at him, my heart still hammering from wherever my mind had just been. “Rowan.”“Hm?” He answered.“Never mind.” I shook my head, forcing myself back into the present. Whatever that had been, wherever I had gone, it
Lyra's POVThe creature landed with force that shattered what remained of the courtyard's cobblestones, its wings folding slowly against a body large enough to have blotted out half the moonlight as it descended. Every soldier present, Corin's and Luna's alike, scrambled backward, weapons raised uselessly against something none of them had ever trained to face.I didn't move. I couldn't. Something about the creature's silver eyes, the particular ancient weight pressing gently against my thoughts, felt achingly, impossibly familiar."Lyra, get back!" Luca shouted, one arm thrown protectively across my path.But the creature wasn't attacking. It lowered its massive head instead, silver eyes fixed entirely on me, and the pressure against my mind sharpened into something almost like words, faint and searching, the way a voice sounds when calling from the far side of a very long tunnel.“Daughter of the buried line.”My breath caught. I knew that phrase. I had never heard it before in my l
Lyra's POVFor a long, terrible moment, nobody moved.The stranger stood tall among the soldiers bearing Villeron's crest, his features sharp and unmistakably familiar despite belonging to a face I had never once seen before tonight. His eyes were my exact shade of blue. His jaw carried the same stubborn set I'd caught in my own reflection a thousand times."That's impossible," I whispered. "My father is Alpha Ashwood.""Alpha Ashwood raised you," the man said, stepping forward with unhurried confidence, "which is a very different thing from fathering you, little one."Luca moved instantly, placing himself between us despite Elara's weight still cradled against his chest. "Whoever you are, you'll explain yourself from a distance."The man's gaze flicked toward him, amused rather than threatened. "Prince Luca. How fitting that you'd still be standing guard over her, even now." He returned his attention to me. "My name is Corin. I was your mother's true mate, before duty forced her into
Lyra’s PovElara's face had gone bone white. "That's the summoning horn. The one from the old ceremonies." Her eyes met mine, wide with dawning horror. "Lyra, that horn hasn't sounded in this kingdom for a hundred years. It only sounds for one reason.""What reason?" I asked.She swallowed hard, her voice barely audible over the ringing echo still hanging in the smoke-thick air. "To announce that the crown has recognized a new bloodline."The horn sounded a second time, closer now, unmistakably drawing nearer to where we stood, and through the settling smoke, I finally saw the source a procession of torch-bearing figures marching in from the main gates, banners snapping in the wind above their heads, and at the very center of the formation, unmistakable even at this distance, walked a woman I hadn't seen in what felt like a lifetime.Luna Seraphina, alive and unharmed, her expression carved from something far colder than grief.Luna Seraphina moved through the wreckage of her own mans
Lyra’s povThe stranger stood at the edge of the ruined courtyard, entirely untouched by the smoke and falling debris around him, holding the stolen book out toward me as though offering it back as a gift rather than returning something I had taken."You," I breathed. "How are you even here?""I did tell you the mountain would eventually notice its own guests." His smile didn't reach his eyes. "You simply borrowed the wrong volume, Lyra Ashwood."Beside me, Luca shifted Elara's weight carefully against his chest and went very still, his gaze locking onto the stranger with an intensity I hadn't seen from him since the night in the cave beneath Villeron."Who are you?" Luca demanded."An old friend of the library," the man said pleasantly, "and a much older friend of hers." He tilted his head toward me. "Though she doesn't remember that yet."Rowan stepped half in front of me, his jaw tight. "Whoever you are, you picked a poor time to show up. This place is under attack.""This place ha







