CHAPTER 15

N Y X A R A

It’s the same cell as before: stone walls, iron bars, a narrow bench fixed in place. I take in the details automatically, the way I always do. I don’t notice anything new or missing. I turn my attention inward, cataloging the soreness in my wrists where the restraints were, the absence of injuries, the steady rise and fall of my breath. I sit on the bench with my back to the stone, letting the cold hold me awake as I tell myself to stay still and wait, trusting that it usually works.
“This isn’t just about you anymore.”
The words surface without warning and refuse to let go, so I push them aside and count my breaths, slow and controlled, in through my nose and out through my mouth, reminding myself that whatever they think I am, I’m still here—still me, for now.
I didn’t notice the occupant of the adjacent cell at first: a wolf slumped against the far wall, head tipped forward, hair matted with blood, his scent carrying old iron and something sharp beneath it. He shifts when I move, just enough to show he’s conscious.
“Did they lock you in for screaming?” he asks. His voice is rough, drained of any mockery.
“No,” I say.
He lets out a weak laugh that turns into a wet cough, then presses a hand to his side and keeps it there, as if that’s where the pain has settled.
“They always say it’s temporary,” he mutters, more to himself than to me. “Like the walls care how long you’re here.”
I watch him through the bars. I don’t respond. There’s no advantage to it. He shifts again, restless. His breathing speeds up.
“They shouldn’t make us change like that,” he says suddenly. “They shouldn’t do it in stone cells or with chains on, because the blood gets everywhere.”
The word change lands first, followed by blood, and the cell tilts just enough to send a sharp ringing through my ears, close and metallic, like iron struck too hard. I grip the edge of the bench, but my fingers feel distant, disconnected from me.
Something flashes behind my eyes, fast and blinding, and I can’t stop it. It isn’t a single memory but fragments colliding. Hands gripping my shoulders, forcing me down, someone saying my name in a voice that sounds wrong, uncertain, as if they’re guessing. A circle carved into the floor, its lines cut too deep, dark with old blood and slick with fresh blood layered over it.
Lucien is there. I know him before I see his face. His voice breaks first, torn out of him in a way that doesn’t belong to a man. His bones are wrong, hands are shaking and someone tells him to hold still while the other says it’s necessary.
The shift catches halfway, skin tearing as his teeth lengthen beyond what they should be. He screams, and then the sound changes into something else entirely. I smell fear, pain, heat and along with the brush of robes and the silver-stitched symbols woven into them. A command is spoken once, then again, louder, and though I don’t know the words, my body does, my chest locks, and I can’t move.
Blood spills across the stone and reaches my feet, and when I look down I realize I’m barefoot. Somewhere a child is crying—it might be me; I can’t tell. Lucien’s eyes find mine, and they’re still his, which is the worst part of all.
I’m back in the cell, but my body doesn’t seem to know that. My legs give out and I hit the floor hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. The sound I make isn’t planned but it rips out of my throat before I can stop it.
My hands clench into fists, then open, then clench again, refusing to stay still. My chest burns, every breath too shallow and too fast. The wolf is shouting now, or maybe it’s me. I hear boots, the rattle of keys. Someone grabs my shoulders and tells me to breathe, like it’s something I’ve forgotten how to do.
I try to speak, but nothing coherent comes out. The memory retreats as suddenly as it arrived, leaving only its residue, blood, stone, and Lucien’s eyes. I scream again and wake on the bench.
That’s the first thing I register: stone against my back. My head feels heavy, like I’ve been underwater too long, and my throat burns when I swallow. I don’t remember screaming, but the ache in my chest tells me I did.
Voices murmur outside the cell, low and controlled, their words indistinct. Someone is standing nearby; I feel it without looking. I reach for the memory, whatever cracked open inside me before, but it slips away immediately, as if it was never meant to stay.
Only the weight remains, and the certainty that something important has been taken from me. My lips move before I think about it and the word feels old in my mouth, familiar in a way that hurts.
“Lucien,” I whisper. The name settles into place, heavy and undeniable.
“Lucien is alive.”