Chapter 5

“Now, child, tell me how much you hate them.”

The question drifted through the darkness, soft as a whisper and heavy as a tombstone.

I could not see the creature speaking to me. I could barely see my own hands. Yet I felt its presence surrounding me, pressing against my skin, my bones, and the deepest corners of my soul.

I swallowed.

“Enough to want them dead.”

The darkness stirred.

For a moment, there was no answer. Then a low laugh rolled through the endless void, so deep that I felt it vibrating inside my ribs.

“An honest answer. How refreshing.”

Something moved beyond my reach.

I tried to pull away, but there was nowhere to go. My feet touched nothing. My hands grasped nothing. I was suspended in a place that seemed to exist outside the world I had known.

“Who are you?” I demanded.

“Does a name matter to a dying girl?”

“I am not dying.”

“Your body freezes above my prison. Your wolf trembles inside your soul. Your mate has severed the bond that connected you to his bloodline, and your own family has delivered you to a place from which kings themselves turn away.”

The voice grew quieter.

“Tell me, little Omega. What reason do you have to believe you will survive?”

I thought of Lucien's face when he rejected me.

Of Evelyne's tears.

Of my mother's trembling lips.

Of my father's hand tightening around my arm.

I remembered the carriage disappearing into the snow, leaving me alone beneath a sky that had never seemed so merciless.

“I don't need a reason.”

The words surprised even me.

“I only need a chance.”

Silence.

Then something brightened in the distance.

Two eyes opened in the darkness.

They were enormous, silver at their centers and black around the edges, like moons drowning in a bottomless lake. I could not see the creature's body, but I sensed its size. Whatever it was, it could have swallowed the palace whole and still had room for the mountains beyond it.

My wolf pressed herself against my consciousness.

Don't look at it.

But I couldn't turn away.

The creature tilted its head.

“You were born weak.”

“I know.”

“You were mocked, neglected, and taught to mistake obedience for virtue.”

My jaw tightened.

“I know.”

“And now you want revenge.”

“Yes.”

“Then why do you tremble?”

Anger flared through me.

“Because I'm freezing. Because I've been betrayed by everyone I've ever loved. Because I don't know where I am, and something that sounds like a thousand dead wolves is asking me questions instead of helping me!”

The last words tore out of me.

For one terrible second, I expected the creature to destroy me.

Instead, it laughed.

Not mockingly this time.

Almost approvingly.

“There you are.”

The darkness shifted. Beneath my feet, a faint silver light appeared, spreading into a circle of symbols. They resembled the markings on the stone I had touched, but these were older, their lines twisting into shapes that made my eyes ache.

“You have spent your life lowering your head,” the creature said. “Even when they hurt you, you searched for a way to excuse them. You called their cruelty a misunderstanding. You called their neglect a lesson. You called your own suffering patience.”

My throat tightened.

“Stop.”

“Why? Does the truth hurt more when spoken by a stranger?”

“I said stop!”

The silver symbols flared.

For the first time, the darkness recoiled from me.

My wolf lifted her head.

Something passed through my body—not warmth, exactly, but a fierce, unfamiliar current that made every hair on my arms rise. The ache in my chest faded. The cold disappeared from my fingers.

I stared at my hands.

Thin threads of black light curled beneath my skin.

“What have you done to me?”

“Nothing you did not permit.”

“I never permitted anything!”

“Then perhaps you should learn to recognize the difference between being powerless and surrendering your will.”

The words struck deeper than I wanted them to.

I remembered the chapel floor beneath my knees. My father's grip. My mother's averted eyes.

I remembered how I had begged.

How I had promised to leave quietly, as though my willingness to disappear might finally make me worth protecting.

Shame burned hotter than the cold ever had.

“I won't beg them again,” I whispered.

The creature leaned closer. Though I could not see its face, I felt its attention settle upon me.

“Good.”

The word echoed through the void.

“Then listen carefully, Seraphina Vale. Your family believes you were sent here to die. Your prince believes your death will erase an inconvenient problem. The council believes the forest will keep its secrets.”

A pulse of silver light traveled through the symbols beneath me.

“They are all mistaken.”

My heart began to pound.

“What do you know about the council?”

“I know what their ancestors buried. I know what their crowns were built upon. And I know why your blood has frightened them since before you took your first breath.”

I stared into the enormous silver eyes.

“My blood?”

“Your weakness was never what they feared, child. It was what slept beneath it.”

I thought of my wolf, who had always seemed smaller and weaker than the wolves of other Omegas. I had spent years wondering what was wrong with us.

Now she was staring at the creature with an expression I had never felt from her before.

Recognition.

And beneath it, a fear so ancient that it could not possibly belong to me alone.

What are you? I whispered to her.

She gave no answer.

The creature's voice interrupted my thoughts.

“I can give you the strength to survive.”

My breath caught.

“Strength?”

“The power to stand before those who cast you aside without lowering your eyes. The power to discover what they have hidden. The power to make kings answer for the sins that built their thrones.”

For the first time since entering the forest, I felt something dangerously close to hope.

“How?”

“By opening the door your blood was born to unlock.”

The silver symbols began to rotate beneath me.

I looked at the black veins of light winding around my wrists.

“And what do you want in return?”

The creature went still.

At last, a question worth asking.

“Nothing is free, little Omega.”

“I know that.”

“Do you? Your prince offered you promises. Your sister offered you love. Your parents offered you a home. You accepted every gift without noticing the chains hidden beneath the ribbons.”

Painful truth had a cruel way of finding its target.

“What do you want?” I repeated.

The enormous eyes narrowed.

“Your hatred.”

I almost laughed.

“You already have it.”

“No. I have your anger, your grief, your humiliation. Hatred is different. Hatred is a flame that consumes everything placed before it, including the hand that carries it.”

The creature's voice became a whisper.

“Give yourself entirely to revenge, and I will make you powerful. Powerful enough to burn their kingdom to the ground.”

Images flashed around me.

A throne room drenched in crimson light.

Lucien kneeling before an unseen figure.

Evelyne screaming as silver chains wrapped around her wrists.

My father reaching for me, his face twisted with terror.

For one intoxicating heartbeat, I wanted it all.

I wanted them to feel every moment of helplessness they had forced upon me. I wanted Lucien to beg for the love he had thrown away. I wanted Evelyne to look at me and understand what it meant to lose everything.

Then I saw my mother.

She stood among the flames, crying.

And I realized that even in my revenge, I was still searching for her to choose me.

The vision shattered.

“No,” I whispered.

The creature's eyes flashed.

“Choose your words carefully.”

“I want them to pay. But I won't become something that destroys everyone just to punish them.”

The darkness grew colder.

“You would deny yourself power because you fear what you might become?”

“No.” I lifted my chin, though my entire body trembled. “I refuse to let them decide what I become. And I refuse to let you decide either.”

For the first time, the creature did not answer immediately.

The symbols beneath me stopped turning.

Then the darkness split with a sound like ice breaking across a frozen lake.

A long, clawed hand emerged from the void.

Its fingers were formed from shadow and silver fire, and ancient runes crawled over its skin. One enormous claw hovered before my chest.

“Then make a different bargain, Seraphina Vale.”

I stared at the hand.

“What bargain?”

“I will give you the strength to survive. I will show you the truth buried beneath your kingdom. I will teach you to recognize the chains hidden inside every promise.”

The claw moved closer.

“But you will not command the power you awaken. Not at first. It will answer your will, but it will also answer your wounds. Every time you break a blood oath, something precious will be taken from you in return.”

“What will it take?”

“That depends on what you have to lose.”

My stomach twisted.

I should have refused.

I should have demanded answers, demanded guarantees, demanded proof that the creature wasn't simply another monster waiting to use me.

But above me lay a forest that had already begun to devour my life. Beyond it stood a kingdom that wanted me erased.

And I had no intention of dying to make their wishes come true.

I raised my trembling hand.

“One condition.”

The creature's eyes gleamed.

“You bargain with something you do not understand?”

“I bargain with something that needs me.” I forced myself to meet its gaze. “If you want my blood, my hatred, or my help, then you will tell me the truth. No lies. No hidden chains. No pretending that taking my choices is the same as giving me power.”

The void trembled.

For a moment, I thought I had gone too far.

Then the creature bowed its enormous head.

“A dangerous demand from a little Omega.”

“Is that a yes?”

“It is a beginning.”

Its claw touched my palm.

Pain erupted through my hand.

Black light raced up my arm, spiraling around my wrist before forming a mark beneath my skin: a crescent moon split by a single jagged line.

My wolf threw back her head and howled.

The sound shook the darkness.

And somewhere far above us, beyond the earth and the roots and the ancient stones, something answered.

Not a wolf.

Not a voice.

A howl so powerful that I felt it tear across the mountains.

The creature withdrew its hand.

“Your first lesson begins now, Seraphina Vale.”

The mark on my wrist pulsed.

“What lesson?”

“Survive.”