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Chapter 5

Author: Snow
I stumbled away from the cliff, my hand a poor shield against the bleeding wound. No one noticed me leave. They were all clustered around Lillian, their coos of comfort a stark contrast to the agony roaring in my head.

"Run!" The Whisper's voice was a frantic drumbeat in my mind. "To the core! There is no time!"

Each step was a fresh wave of nausea. The world tilted, the path blurring before my one good eye. I fell more than once, scraping my knees and palms on the sharp rocks. But I kept moving, driven by a purpose they could never understand.

Behind me, I could hear the distant, panicked shouts as the Whisper's warning finally reached the others. But it was too late for them to stop me. Too late for anything but the ritual.

I reached the mouth of the Darkness Maw. The mist was thicker now, colder, carrying the stench of the waking beast below. The ground trembled slightly.

This was it. The point of no return.

I took one last, staggering look back at the Silvermane compound, its gleaming spires now just a distant, hateful memory. They had taken everything from me. My place, my family, even my face.

But they couldn't take my choice.

I turned my back on them forever and walked into the swallowing darkness of the canyon, toward the failing prison and my destiny.

I was leaving. And I was never coming back.
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  • The Banishment of Lyra   Chapter 9

    On my first true birthday among my blood family—the one that marked my arrival into this world, not the one I had escaped—the entire Blood-Claw pack threw a celebration so vibrant it seemed to shake the very leaves from the trees. There was no moon-silk, no ceremonial daggers, no performative grief or staged dramas. There was just the roaring, crackling warmth of the bonfire, the primal, heart-thumping beat of drums that felt like a second, communal heartbeat, and the overwhelming, delicious smell of a feast that seemed to stretch for yards, laden with the forest's bounty. Laughter echoed, real, unforced, and contagious. And in the center of it all, placed on a rough-hewn wooden platter, was a honey cake, baked by my mother's own hands, that was so rich, so dense with sweetness and love, it made my eyes sting with happy tears.I found a quiet moment, slipping away from the center of the joyous chaos to stand at the edge of the firelight, where the shadows were soft and the noise was

  • The Banishment of Lyra   Chapter 8

    Meanwhile, in the cold, silver-lit world I had willingly left behind, the truth settled not like a dusting of snow, but like a shroud, heavy and suffocating.The stabilized seal in the Darkness Maw was a fact they could not rationalize, ignore, or attribute to anyone else. The entire pack had felt the tremor of its restoration, a wave of pure, ancient magic that washed away the lingering stench of the Shadow-Warg. They had been saved from an extinction-level threat they never knew was breathing down their necks, saved by the daughter they had scorned, accused, and driven to what they thought was her death.Ethan, the pragmatic healer, the man of science and reason, found his world view shattered. His hands, so skilled at mending flesh and bone, were useless against the corrosive guilt that ate at him from the inside. He threw himself into his work with a frantic, desperate energy, but in the quiet moments between patients, his mind would cruelly replay the last images of me: the bloo

  • The Banishment of Lyra   Chapter 7

    Consciousness returned not with a jolt, but like a slow tide, gentle and warm. I woke to the feeling of impossibly soft furs against my skin and a gentle, dappled warmth on my face. The world-shattering, soul-rending pain was gone. In its place was a deep, body-wide ache, the kind that follows a long and brutal illness, and a tight, pulling sensation across my face, a reminder etched in flesh. But beneath that, there was a fundamental, thrumming sense of... wholeness. I was alive.I took a slow, careful breath, savoring it. The air was rich and alive itself—with the scent of sun-warmed pine, of clean woodsmoke, and the mouth-watering aroma of roasting meat. Real, solid, honest smells.Cautiously, I opened my eyes. Both of them. The left was blurry, the world seen through a foggy, distorted lens, but it saw light and movement and color. It was a miracle, or perhaps the last, parting gift of the Whisper, a final act of grace for services rendered.A face moved into my field of vision

  • The Banishment of Lyra   Chapter 6

    The descent into the Darkness Maw felt like stepping into the throat of a dying world. The air grew thick and cold, tasting of wet stone and things long forgotten. The familiar silver light from above faded, replaced by a sickly, greenish glow from fungi that clung to the cliffs like scabs. It was quiet, but not silent—a low, constant hum vibrated up through the soles of my feet, a feeling of ancient, waking hunger that made my teeth ache."Hurry, Child." The Elder Whisper's voice was thin, stretched taut with a fear I'd never felt from it before. "The bindings cannot hold much longer. Every moment we delay brings the abyss closer to swallowing all."My face was a raw, screaming agony. Every jarring step sent fresh fire lancing through the wound Lillian had so precisely inflicted. I could feel the rough texture of torn flesh, the stark outline of cheekbone beneath. My left eye was a swollen, painful ruin. But I kept moving, one foot dragging in front of the other, pulled by the Whis

  • The Banishment of Lyra   Chapter 5

    I stumbled away from the cliff, my hand a poor shield against the bleeding wound. No one noticed me leave. They were all clustered around Lillian, their coos of comfort a stark contrast to the agony roaring in my head."Run!" The Whisper's voice was a frantic drumbeat in my mind. "To the core! There is no time!"Each step was a fresh wave of nausea. The world tilted, the path blurring before my one good eye. I fell more than once, scraping my knees and palms on the sharp rocks. But I kept moving, driven by a purpose they could never understand.Behind me, I could hear the distant, panicked shouts as the Whisper's warning finally reached the others. But it was too late for them to stop me. Too late for anything but the ritual.I reached the mouth of the Darkness Maw. The mist was thicker now, colder, carrying the stench of the waking beast below. The ground trembled slightly.This was it. The point of no return.I took one last, staggering look back at the Silvermane compound, its gleam

  • The Banishment of Lyra   Chapter 4

    Lillian's "fragile Lunar Spirit" always had an uncanny, convenient sense of timing.I had won the annual Great Hunt, bringing down the largest stag with a single, clean shot. Her spirit fractured, and my victory was forgotten in the panicked rush to her bedside.I had successfully, for the first time in a generation, summoned the shimmering, ethereal Northern Lights to dance over the compound. Her spirit fractured, and my achievement was deemed a "disturbance" to the natural order.This time, as the guard delivered his news, I felt nothing. No simmering anger, no weary frustration. Just a cold, hard knot of certainty solidifying in the pit of my stomach. It was time.The wind on Broken Moon Cliff was a biting, merciless whip, carrying the scent of cold stone and distant pine. And there, perched dramatically on the very edge, was Lillian. Because of course she was. She wore a gown woven of genuine, luminescent moon-silk, which glowed with a soft, internal light, making her the undenia

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