Chapter 1

Audrey Bennett

Bound in heavy iron chains, I was dragged onto the judgment dais. My face was ghost-pale, but my cheeks burned with an unnatural flush. My fingers twitched beyond my control, and an unbearable itch crawled through every vein in my body, as if millions of insects were gnawing at my skin at once.

Eugene frowned at the sight, disgust flickering across his face.

"Edna, what's wrong with her?"

Edna sighed. "Withdrawal, most likely."

The crowd erupted. The fury in their eyes was almost a physical force, ready to nail me to the dais.

If you asked what the people of the Flame Pack despised most, even a random three-year-old could tell you: the Blue Ghost.

It was a blue powder, viciously addictive. Stirred into water or food, it turned colorless and tasteless, nearly impossible to detect.

The powder produced an unparalleled euphoria. In large enough doses, it could also cause hallucinations of every kind. But once someone stopped taking it, the pain of withdrawal became unbearable, just as mine was now.

Fifteen years ago, that blue powder found its way into the Flame Pack and spread everywhere like a plague.

Countless addicts bankrupted themselves for a single packet of Blue Ghost. Some overdosed, hallucinated, slaughtered their entire families, and then killed themselves on the spot when they came to.

The Alpha at the time, Klein Bennett, was my brother. He worked himself ragged trying to stop it, but he never discovered how the powder was entering the Flame Pack, much less how to keep the Blue Ghost from spreading through our territory.

The whole Flame Pack became a living hell, everyone trapped in hallucinations, waiting to die.

And at the pack's most desperate hour, I vanished.

No one knew where I had gone. Then, just as Klein traced the Blue Ghost back to the Dark Moon Pack, I murdered him in cold blood.

Only then did people learn that I had long since betrayed the Flame Pack, defected to the Dark Moon Pack, and helped them smuggle the Blue Ghost into our lands.

For thirteen years after that, I never came back. Until two months ago, when I collapsed on the Flame Pack's border, gravely wounded.

For those thirteen years, everyone in the Flame Pack loathed me. They wanted to flay me and drink my blood.

Now that I had finally fallen into their hands, how could they ever let me go?

"Alpha, start the trial! Let everyone see this traitor's crimes!"

"That's right, the Memory Crystal will prove her guilt. She'll die in the worst agony there is, and it's exactly what she deserves!"

"Today, we take revenge for Klein!"

"And for Hilary! She was the Alpha's best friend. She did so much for the Flame Pack, and she died at this vicious woman's hands too!"

That last line pierced Eugene's heart. His fists clenched at his sides.

He remembered how I had killed Hilary as she tried to save him, how she had slowly died in his arms. At last, his final hesitation vanished. "Begin the Memory Crystal trial!"

I panted in short, ragged breaths. The voices cursing and condemning me surged toward me like a tide, then blurred into background noise, not even loud enough to drown out the ringing in my ears from the withdrawal.

Traitor. Monster. Scum...

For thirteen years, I had heard those words more times than I could count.

I thought my heart had long since turned to stone. I had forgotten that I was still flesh and blood. How could it truly not hurt?

I struggled to lift my head. My gaze swept over Eugene's cold face, over the furious crowd below, and finally found the one person who had carried me through those thirteen years: my daughter, Hermia Carter.

When I left, she had just learned to say Mommy.

Now she looked at me exactly the way everyone else who hated me did. No difference at all.

Years of loneliness and darkness had never crushed me. But in that moment, I suddenly felt tired.

I stopped resisting the Memory Crystal's pull on my memories. In an instant, it felt as though ten thousand red-hot steel needles had pierced my brain. Even I, accustomed as I was to pain, couldn't hold back a scream.

"Aaah!"

There wasn't a shred of pity in the eyes watching me. Only angry, self-righteous murmurs followed.

"Justice has finally caught up with her! She's getting what she deserves!"

"If you ask me, dying like this is letting her off easy. They should drag her out and let the beasts of the Phantom Forest eat her, bones and all!"

"Exactly! Letting her die inside the Flame Pack would defile our land!"

Eugene watched my agony without a ripple of feeling and said nothing. Edna patted the back of his hand soothingly.

Then white light flared, and the first memory finally unfolded before the crowd.