Chapter 4

Lyric

The council chamber feels different when I enter it, not colder, not darker—just tense, as if every stone in the room is holding its breath. The elders sit in their carved seats, arranged in a half-circle around the central floor. They were expecting me. The priestess made certain of that.

I walk carefully, each step measured. My thighs ache. My abdomen throbs with a steady, dull pressure. The scent of blood—my blood—lingers despite the rinsing and wrapping. I am not healed. I am not composed. I am simply here because there was never truly a choice.

Bryce stands near my father’s chair, positioned too close to the place reserved for the future alpha, as though proximity alone might make it true. He turns as I approach, studying me with faint irritation, the kind a man shows when an inconvenience interrupts his plans.

My father watches me with furrowed brows, trying - and failing - to read me.

The priestess stands at the far end of the chamber. When our eyes meet, she gives a small nod. Just once. Enough to steady me.

“Lyric,” Elder Merek says as I step into the center. “We are gathered as you requested.” There is no pretense, just the formality and pretentious air of age-old custom.

It steadies me more than kindness would have.

My father leans forward slightly. “Daughter, you may speak.”

I open my mouth, but Bryce cuts in smoothly, “Before Lyric begins, I would like to address—”

“You will wait,” I interrupt him and Goddess help me, it feels good. My voice is calm but slices through the room like a sharpened blade. “You were not the one who called this council. You do not speak first.”

Murmurs ripple along the edges of the room. Bryce’s jaw flexes.

I lift my chin.

“I have called this hearing,” I say, “because a divine union has been broken.”

The elders straighten. A few blink in confusion and look around as if they’re seeking answers from their fellows.

Bryce’s eyes narrow dangerously. He has never harmed me, and I have never feared him, but never is a long time and there is always a first time for everything.

My father inhales sharply, a barely perceptible sound.

I continue, despite the tightness gathering in my chest. “I stand before you as Luna of Three Towers, a true born daughter of Greyheart blood, and invoke my right to declare this mate bond compromised.”

Bryce moves before he can stop himself. “Lyric, you are grieving. This is not the time to-”

“It is exactly the time,” I say, my voice steadying rather than breaking. 

Bryce is grasping at straws, bringing up the miscarriage. We don’t talk about it. My father himself commanded it. He’s afraid of the message it will send.

“I am merely grieving the pain my beloved mate and sister have caused me,” I say in a voice so cold it almost starts snowing.

“Enough!” Bryce snaps, turning toward the elders. “She is unwell. She should not speak. This is a family-”

The priestess steps forward.

“Lyric,” she says, her gaze fixed on me alone, “speak the decree.”

I draw in a breath that scrapes against the bruised edges of my ribs.

“With the authority granted to me by the Goddess and the title of Luna, I invoke the Law of Severance.”

The words hit the chamber like a shockwave, but I don’t flinch when the elders stare at me with open confusion. My father rises halfway from his chair, looking as if he has been struck. Bryce goes pale for the first time in his life. Leila presses her back against the wall as though she hopes it will swallow her.

Bryce is the first to speak. Of course he is. Cocky fucker. “Th- the Law of Severance. What is that?”

It feels holy. It feels… divine. It’s just that none of them seems to understand why.

The priestess steps forward with quiet purpose. “The invocation has been spoken,” she says. Her gaze moves across every elder, allowing no room for doubt or objection. “The Law of Severance allows for the dissolution of the sacred bond if one partner is found to be unfaithful.”

For a moment, the chamber is so quiet, you can hear a mouse fart, then Bryce recovers enough to scoff. “This is absurd. There is no such law. She is grieving. She is delirious. You cannot possibly-”

“You will not question the divinity of our Goddess again,” the priestess says, her voice firm enough to still half a dozen wolves at once. “You have no standing to challenge a divine invocation.”

Bryce looks from her to me, fury and panic warring across his face. “Lyric, you do not understand what you’ve done. You cannot dissolve a divine bond with ancient nonsense whispered into your ear by a woman who-”

“I know what I’m doing,” I say. My voice is quiet but steady, and that steadiness seems to unsettle him more than anything else. “And what happens next is no longer in your control.”

Elder Merek clears his throat, visibly unsettled. “This matter is… unprecedented. Luna Lyric, the council will gather at moonrise to discuss your future.”

His reaction is not unexpected. The priestess told me it might happen. They don’t know the law, they can feel how sacred it is, but they don’t know what to do next. 

The council of elders will gather to discuss it, and then they’ll come up with some ‘cockamamie plan,’ as the priestess put it, ‘and life will go on. I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Odds are they will banish Bryce and Leila, and your father will find a new match for you.’

The priestess gestures for me to follow her. My legs tremble with each step, but I move past Bryce without looking at him. The elders begin murmuring, some arguing already, others rushing for old texts they never imagined they would need. My father is frozen in place, too stunned to speak.

As I reach the door, I hear Bryce break. “Lyric,” he snarls, “this is not finished.”

I stop, but I do not turn around. “No,” I say, keeping my voice even. “For you it isn't.”

I walk out of the chamber.  My pulse races, and my body aches with each breath, a constant reminder that just two days ago, I lost yet another baby because of Bryce, and whatever fucked up shit he’s caught up with. 

The dread slips in quietly, not loud or dramatic, but deep and certain.

I step into the corridor, and before the door can fully close, I hear my father say something that cuts through the noise of the elders’ shouting. My name. “Lyric.”

I turn back. He stands in the doorway, the council chamber behind him in chaos, Bryce shouting, the priestess immovable, elders scrambling to remember a law they never expected to hear spoken aloud. 

But my father isn’t looking at them. He’s looking only at me - his daughter, the future Luna, his light green eyes, so much like mine, are not filled with judgement or anger but something much softer. Love and concern.

He takes a single step forward, lowering his voice so only I can hear him. “You have suffered. Goddess knows, you have. But what on earth drove you to dissolve your union with Bryce.”

“Why not? Why shouldn’t I? He has Leila. He can go off and live his happy life with her.”

“Yes,” my father hisses in a low voice. “Because he thinks he can inherit the pack through Leila. What do you think he’ll do to her, to you, when he finds out he can’t?”

I close the distance between my father and I, and I cup his gristled cheek. He’s not that old yet, only fourty-five, he can still take a second mate, have another heir, someone who can take over from him one day. “I can’t keep sacrificing my body for this pack. I’m sorry, and you are cruel for asking me to do that.”

“I know. I just wish… you came to me first” he says, not accusing, not shouting, just resigned. “You can’t stay here now. You do know that, right?”

The floor feels unsteady under my feet. I open my mouth, but no sound comes out. I don’t know what I expected him to say. I don’t know what I thought would happen the moment I spoke the law. But I did not expect him to tell me that I would have to be the one to leave.

The world starts swaying a bit.

Or maybe it’s me, because my father grips me by the upper arm and everything steadies.

Before I can form a response, he straightens, his Alpha authority settling back over his shoulders like a mantle.

“We have no time,” he says. “Go to my rooms and wait for me there.”

“What?” I ask.

My father’s voice drops so low that I can barely hear him. “Do not argue with me Lyric Greyheart.”

“I am not arguing, I just want to know why.”

“We need to get you away from this place as fast as we can, and we don’t have a lot of time to do it.”

Then he turns and disappears into the roar of the chamber. Stunned, I stare at the door he closed behind him.

I didn’t know what would happen when I invoked the decree, but it was not this. It was not my exile.

Invoking the law didn’t end anything.

It just opened the door to the part where I pay for it yet again. Bryce gets away. He gets his wife, his children and pack.

And what do I get? 

Is this my destiny? Will I forever pay the price for Bryce’s sins?