Chapter 4

I watched the carriage disappear along the road, carrying away the last people who might have cared whether I lived or died.

For a long time, I remained beside the boundary stones.

I couldn't move.

My mind kept searching for another explanation, some hidden reason why my father had ordered this, why my mother had allowed it, why Lucien had looked at me as though I were nothing.

But there was no explanation that could make their choices less cruel.

They had made their decision.

Now I had to make mine.

I could remain beside the road and wait for death, or I could enter the forest and fight for the chance to see another sunrise.

I looked at the trees.

My wolf pressed herself against the walls of my soul.

Something is there.

"I know."

Something old.

I swallowed.

"Then it can kill me quickly."

The words sounded braver than I felt.

I stepped over the boundary stones.

The moment my foot touched the forest floor, the wind stopped.

Not gradually.

All at once.

The silence was so complete that I could hear the faint crackle of ice beneath my shoes. The trees stood motionless. No birds called from the branches, and no animals moved through the undergrowth.

Then a shadow slipped between two trunks.

I turned sharply.

Nothing.

I took another step.

The shadow moved again.

This time, I was certain I had seen it. It stretched across the snow in the wrong direction, long and narrow, though there was no light source to cast it.

My wolf whimpered.

I forced myself onward.

The forest swallowed the sound of my footsteps.

I tried to follow the boundary stones, but after a while they disappeared behind the trees. I turned back, only to find that the path I had taken was gone.

Panic rose in my throat.

I stumbled toward what I thought was the eastern road, pushing past thorny branches that tore at my dress. Every direction looked the same. The trees twisted around one another, their branches forming a canopy so thick that I could no longer tell whether the sky was brightening or darkening.

I called for help once.

My voice traveled a few feet before disappearing into the silence.

I didn't call again.

By midday, my stomach cramped with hunger. My feet were numb, and the cold had settled into my bones. I found a narrow stream beneath a covering of ice and broke through it with a stone, drinking from the freezing water until my teeth hurt.

Then I kept walking.

I told myself that if I found a clearing, I could rest. If I found a river, I could follow it. If I could reach the southern edge of the forest, perhaps I could find a village where no one knew my name.

I clung to these possibilities because the alternative was unbearable.

The sun vanished behind the clouds.

Snow began to fall more heavily.

I stumbled over a root and struck my knee against a rock. Pain shot up my leg, and I collapsed into the snow with a gasp.

For several minutes, I couldn't make myself stand.

My body was exhausted. My hands shook uncontrollably, and my lips had grown so numb that forming words hurt.

I thought of my bedroom.

The warm blankets. The little fireplace. The window overlooking the rose garden.

I thought of the books I'd left unfinished on my bedside table, the letters I'd kept beneath my pillow, the dress I'd planned to wear when Lucien introduced me to the council.

Such foolish things to miss when I was dying.

A bitter laugh escaped me.

I'd spent my entire life trying to become someone worth keeping.

I'd obeyed my parents. I'd swallowed every insult. I'd hidden my anger whenever the other Omegas mocked my weakness. I'd convinced myself that if I were patient enough, useful enough, kind enough, someone would eventually choose me.

Instead, the people I loved had decided I was expendable.

Perhaps that was the lesson I'd been too stupid to understand.

The world did not reward goodness.

It rewarded power.

And I had none.

I pushed myself upright and continued walking.

By sunset, my feet were bleeding. By midnight, I had forgotten what warmth felt like. The forest seemed endless, and every path led deeper into the wilderness.

I stumbled over another root and fell against something hard.

A stone.

At first, I thought it was an ordinary boulder buried beneath the snow. Then I noticed the markings carved into its surface.

They were the same strange symbols I'd seen on the boundary stones, except these were deeper, darker, and arranged in a circle around a single image.

A wolf with its jaws open.

Its eyes had been carved from two black stones that reflected no light.

I should have moved away.

Instead, I reached out and brushed the snow from its surface.

Something pulsed beneath my palm.

I snatched my hand back.

The stone glowed faintly, a thin silver light spreading through the carved symbols. Then the light turned black, flowing through the grooves like ink beneath the skin.

My wolf rose abruptly inside me.

For the first time in my life, she did not seem weak.

She seemed terrified.

Run.

I tried to stand.

The earth shuddered.

A deep vibration rolled through the ground, rattling my bones and shaking snow from the branches overhead. Cracks appeared in the frozen soil around the stone, spreading outward in jagged lines.

Then everything stopped.

The silence that followed felt different from the silence before.

It was expectant.

As though the entire forest were holding its breath.

I backed away, but the ground beneath my feet had begun to warm. The snow melted in a widening circle around the stone, releasing a smell of damp earth and something ancient—something that reminded me of blood left too long in a sealed room.

Far below, something enormous inhaled.

I heard it.

Not with my ears, but somewhere inside my chest, where the remnants of my broken mate bond still throbbed.

A voice rose from the darkness beneath the earth.

It was neither male nor female, neither young nor old. It sounded like stone grinding against stone, like a thousand wolves howling from the bottom of a grave.

And yet, beneath that terrible sound, I sensed something almost curious.

Something that had been waiting.

Waiting for me.

"Little Omega."

I froze.

The voice curled through my thoughts like smoke.

I tried to answer, but my throat had closed.

"Look at you. Abandoned by your blood. Rejected by your mate. Thrown into the dark like a broken thing."

My hands began to shake.

"Who are you?"

The ground trembled again.

A low, ancient laugh echoed through the trees.

"Does it matter, little one? Would knowing my name bring your family back? Would it make your prince love you?"

"No."

The word escaped before I could stop it.

"No," I repeated, louder this time. "Nothing will bring them back."

"And yet you still want them to suffer."

I thought of Lucien's cold expression.

Evelyne's silver necklace.

My mother's lowered eyes.

My father's hand closing around my arm.

The chapel.

The rejection.

The carriage disappearing into the snow.

My chest tightened until I could barely breathe.

"I want them to pay."

The forest seemed to lean closer.

"Good."

The single word carried a terrible satisfaction.

"For centuries, your kind has knelt before stolen power and called it destiny. They have built their thrones upon blood, their kingdoms upon lies, and their laws upon the suffering of those too weak to fight back."

The symbols beneath my hand burned brighter.

I tried to pull away, but my fingers would not move.

"Tell me, Seraphina Vale. Do you know why the royal bloodlines fear the forbidden forest?"

I shook my head.

"Because they remember what they buried here."

A sharp pain tore through my palm.

I cried out as black veins of light spread from the stone, winding around my fingers and crawling beneath my skin. I tried to wrench my hand free, but the ground seemed to hold me in place.

My wolf screamed.

The sound was no longer frightened.

It was furious.

The earth split open beneath my feet.

I fell.

The stone vanished above me, along with the trees, the snow, and the last scraps of moonlight. Darkness swallowed everything, rushing past my face as I tumbled into a depth that should not have existed beneath the forest floor.

I reached for something to hold.

There was nothing.

I could not tell whether I was falling for seconds or centuries. The air roared around me, and the black light beneath my skin spread toward my wrist, burning without heat.

Then, suddenly, the fall stopped.

I hung suspended in absolute darkness.

Something vast stirred beyond the edges of my sight.

I felt its attention settle on me, immense and ancient, as though a creature older than the mountains had finally opened its eyes.

The voice returned.

This time, it sounded almost amused.

"Now, child, tell me how much you hate them."