The Banishment of Lyra

My name is Lyra. For eighteen years, the Silvermane Pack was my home, but it was never my family.

The night my only friend, Selene, chose to end her life—to Eclipse—was the night I decided to leave.

She showed me that escape was possible, even if it meant walking away from everything I knew. The Alpha and Luna who raised me, and my so-called brothers, made it clear I didn't belong.

Their love was always conditional, reserved for my "true-born" sister, Lillian, found just a year ago.

On my forgotten birthday, I declared my own Eclipse. I am returning to my real family, the Blood-Claws.

But leaving has a price.

A primordial terror stirs in the darkness, threatening to devour everyone I leave behind.

They think I'm running away. They have no idea what I'm really walking into, or what I must become to save them all.

...

The scent of blood and shattered stone hung heavy in the air. My best friend, Selene, was gone.

Just hours before she chose to Eclipse—to permanently sever her tie to this world—she had aimed her car like a missile at my eldest brother, Kael. The Alpha's golden heir, the pride of the Silvermane Pack, now lay with his leg twisted at a grotesque angle, the wet, sickening crack of the impact still echoing in my bones.

Then, she had turned and leaped from the Moon Spire.

I found her broken body crumpled in the shadow of the tower. But as I knelt, her eyes fluttered open. They were clear, lucid, and held a peace I had never seen in them. A smile touched her bloodied lips.

"Lyra," she whispered, the sound a mere breath. "I'll see you... on the other side."

I understood. She had found her way out of this beautiful, suffocating cage they called the Silvermane Pack. She was free.

That night, on my own forgotten birthday, I sat alone in my opulent room. The silence was a presence.

I had baked a small honey cake, a pathetic tribute to a life that was never truly mine. Closing my eyes, I sent a cold, final thought through the pack's mental link, the Blood-Chain. "By moon-high, I will take the Eclipse Path. I am leaving."

The responses were swift, brutal, and exactly as expected.

Ethan, my second brother—the brilliant, pragmatic healer—did not waste words. His reply was a single, psychic pulse, sharp and dismissive: "Acknowledged."

I was a task to be closed, a problem resolved.

Finn's mental voice slithered into my mind next, dripping with theatrical venom. "Finally doing the world a favor? Don't let the door hit you on the way out. But if your little performance ruins Lillian's Moon Ceremony tonight, I swear on my trophies, I'll swallow my own victory medal during my live stream. The fans would love the drama."

My parents, the revered Alpha and Luna, said nothing. Their silence was a void.

Instead, they flooded the Blood-Chain with shimmering, perfect images of Lillian—the true-born daughter rescued from the wilds just a year ago. There she was, in the Moon-Garden, bathed in adoration and moonlight, the center of a universe that had instantly rearranged itself around her.

Their silence was a louder rejection than any curse.

Only Kael, his body broken and his spirit seemingly shattered by Selene's final, enigmatic act, sent ragged, breathing voice memos, his voice thick with pain and desperation.

"Lyra... you know where she went, don't you? That power she used at the end... it wasn't of this pack. It wasn't natural. Where did it come from? Please... you have to tell me!"

I didn't answer a single one of them. I picked up a fork and ate the dry, tasteless honey cake alone, each bite a farewell.

I was going home. To my real pack. My blood family, waiting for me in a sun-drenched forest far from this cold, silver-lit realm.

Selene had just shown me the way was possible.