Chapter 2: Ambervalley

The silence of my room—which was nothing more than a moldy, damp cubicle at the back of the servants' quarters—felt suffocating that night. I stared at the old canvas backpack on the bed. Inside, I placed my few worn changes of clothes and the small diary where I jotted down the properties of the medicinal plants I saw Healer Knox use. It was all I had. My entire existence reduced to almost nothing.

A soft, hesitant knock on the door made me startle. Before I could answer, the wood creaked and Ethan’s slender silhouette slipped through the crack. He looked around in terror and locked the door immediately after. If our father or his mother ever dreamed he was here, the consequences would be dire.

"Are you really going..." Ethan’s voice cracked. He rushed to me and wrapped me in a tight embrace. I felt his warm tears wet my shoulder. "I'm sorry, Alia. I'm sorry for being weak. For not being able to stand up to Father to protect you."

"Don't cry, Ethan," I murmured, returning the hug tightly, feeling my own chest burn. He was the only good thing in Bleakwood. "You aren't weak. You're only sixteen. Facing the Alpha would be suicide. Even Chloe, at seventeen and being his and her mother's favorite, wouldn't dare make a wrong move against our father. I'll be fine... the peace treaty will keep me alive. They need me for the heir."

"But the Alpha of Ambervalley is dying, according to the rumors." He pulled back, wiping his face with the sleeve of his shirt. His eyes scanned the tiny room before he reached inside his jacket. He pulled out a bulky object wrapped in dark cloth. "I... I took this for you, Alia. It was locked away at the bottom of the old relic vault in the main hall. I managed to get the key while Father was drinking with the Betas. If he or my mother find out it's gone..."

He held out an old book, its leather cover worn by time and tied with a faded ribbon. When I took the object, my fingers trembled.

"It's your mother's old notebook," Ethan whispered tensely, glancing at the door as if expecting the ceiling to collapse at any moment. "It has notes on healing, plants, and curing rituals. I tried to read it, but the formulas and symbols are very confusing; they don't make sense to me. But I know she hid it like it was the most precious thing in the world before she left. I overheard my mother saying that," he let out a small chuckle, as if it had been a grand prank. "I want you to have it. So you can remember that... that you had a mother who loved you."

I pressed the notebook against my chest, feeling a surge of gratitude that almost suffocated my sorrow. I truly didn't understand the strange symbols drawn on those yellowed pages, but I decided I would preserve it at all costs. It would be my amulet to remind me of where I came from and to keep alive the only memory of the woman who gave me life.

[...]

A few hours later, dawn arrived without a shred of mercy. I was dragged out of Bleakwood without the right to formal goodbyes or a single backward glance. Two of my father's brutish guards threw me into the back seat of a black car with tinted windows, speeding off toward the southern border.

The journey lasted for hours of torturous silence. I kept my backpack firmly clutched against my legs, protecting my mother's notebook as if my life depended on it. And perhaps it did.

When the car finally slowed down, I looked out the window and lost my breath.

The gray, cold, and dead landscape of Bleakwood had vanished. Before us, massive iron gates swung open to reveal a completely different territory. Vast rolling hills stretched as far as the eye could see, covered in trees whose leaves shimmered in brilliant hues of gold and orange under the sunlight. The air slipping through the cracks of the window didn't smell of blood or oppression; it smelled of damp earth, wild blossoms, and a vital energy so pure it made my chest ache.

It was Ambervalley. The Golden Valley.

The car cut down the main road and drove up the hill toward an immense mansion built of white stone and noble wood, perfectly integrated into the surrounding nature. But the warmth of the landscape did not lessen the panic that froze my stomach when the vehicle finally came to a halt.

The door was opened by a tall warrior with a severe expression.

"Get out," he commanded, his voice firm but devoid of the gratuitous cruelty I was used to. "Alpha Demetri is waiting for you in the glass pavilion."

I swallowed hard, adjusted the backpack on my shoulders, and wiped the cold sweat from my hands onto my worn trousers. My fingers, wounded by the shards of glass from the previous day, were still throbbing. I took my first step into enemy territory, knowing that from that very second, my life would change forever.