PAIN.

KAEL.

My chest burned.

Not from a physical wound, but from the memory of Lyra’s eyes.

When I’d told her to stay away from my daughter and me, I’d seen her soul fracture right in front of me. For a split second, the man who used to love her more than his own life had screamed at me to reach out. To pull her into my arms and bury my face in the curve of her neck and let the world disappear. I wanted to apologise and I wanted to sob in her arms.

Then, the smell of smoke and the memory of my Family’s screams curdled my blood.

She killed them, I reminded myself, my jaw tightening until it ached, she destroyed everything. Do not let the veil fool you, do not let the hurt in her eyes make you forget the blood on her hands.

I hardened my resolve, pulling my cold and stoic mask back into place as I reached Freya’s door. I pushed it open an inch, expecting to see the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest in sleep. Instead, she was sitting up, her small hands fiddling with the edge of her blanket.

“Freya,” I whispered, stepping inside. “Why are you still awake, little bird?”

She looked up, her large eyes reflecting the moonlight. She didn’t speak, she began to sign, her movements fluid and hesitant. I couldn’t sleep. The air felt heavy.

I sat on the edge of her bed, my heady softening in a way it only did for her.

“Are you okay? Did….did that woman try to hurt you?”

Freya shook her head quickly. She paused, her fingers hovering in the air as if debating whether to tell me her thoughts. Then, she signed again, and the words made my breath hitch in my throat.

“She didn’t hurt me. She was kind. I like the woman in the veil, Father. She feels familiar.”

A surge of white-hot protective rage flared in my gut, warring with a sickening sense of betrayal. Familiar? Lyra was a wildfire that had leveled our home. She was the monster who killed your mother, but I couldn’t say that.

“No, Freya,” I said, my voice sharper than I intended. I caught myself and took a breath, softening my tone, though the edge remained. “You must stay away from her. Do you understand me? She is dangerous and don’t let the veil fool you.”

Freya looked at me with that unnerving childhood intuition, but she gave a small and slow nod. I leaned down, kissing her forehead, lingering there for a moment to ground myself. “Sleep now. I’m right down the hall.”

I walked out, my pace quickening, the moment I crossed the threshold of my own bedroom and the lock clicked into place, I broke.

My knees gave out. I hit the floor hard, the impact jarring my bones, but I didn’t care. I stayed there, forehead pressed against the cold stone, gasping for air that wouldn’t come. Out there, I was a King, a formidable fucking force, but in here? In here, I was a hollowed-out shell, crumbling under the weight of a thousand things.

Then it started.

A low, guttural snarl vibrated in my chest, but it wasn’t mine. It was my wolf, again.

“Traitor.” The beast hissed in the back of my mind.

The pain hit like a physical blow. It wasn’t a transformation, it was an internal flaying. My wolf began to claw at my insides, trying to tear its way out, or perhaps, tear me apart from within. I let out a choked scream, my fingers digging into the rug, my nails drawing blood from my own palms.

It was a chaotic sensory, nightmare. I saw flashes of Lyra laughing in the summer sun, I saw the High Priestess standing cold and distant, I saw my mother’s lifeless eyes. My wolf lunged again, a mental bite that felt like hot iron searing my ribs. I rolled onto my back, arching my spine as my bones creaked and groaned under the pressure of a shift that I wouldn’t allow to happen.

“Stop.” I wheezed.

But my wolf wouldn’t stop. He was raging, confused and it was taking all that agony out on me. Why? What did I even do to him?

Then a thought appeared in my mind. It was her.

It had to be her. She was the one who caused all these things.

This had been happening for years, ever since the two nights after she left. But ever since she stayed back on my lands, it got worse. Very worse. She was the poison, she was the reason my own soul was trying to kill me.

I guess killing my family wasn’t enough for her, she still needed to kill me too.

“Damn you.” I gasped, clutching my stomach as a fresh wave of agony ripped through me. I crawled toward the wardrobe, my vision blurring with tears and blood. “Damn you, Lyra.”

I needed the one thing that could quiet the beast, the one thing I hated myself for keeping. Behind the heavy clothes in the wardrobe was the hidden scrap of her old garment, the one she wore before she left.

I reached out, my fingers trembling, inches away from the wood. But my strength failed. My arm fell uselessly to my side, splashing into the crimson pool growing beneath me.

The world tilted. The last thing I felt was the cold floor against my cheek and the taste of copper in my mouth.

“Damn you……”I whispered into the darkness, before the blackness finally took me.