sleep again

ess, and every time she closes her eyes she sees the burning forest

d before you ever had

for morning chores, she h

when the warriors are training in the yard and the kitchen staff take

sh, and finds the narrow stair behind it that the map showed her - a stair s

little in her hand

e words for. The walls press close on either side, rough stone slick with damp, and

elf, voice small and swallowed up by t

s walkin

rns in the stone like it was drawn by someone who walked this exact path a hundred times before her. The deeper she go

r, so faint she almost mist

ezes. "

her own heartbeat, loud in her ears. She keeps moving, faster

of them mean anything to her - a language older than any she's heard spoken in the Keep. It doesn't

nd her voice cracks a little on the l

drawing her forward, until the tunnel opens into a small round chamber and h

ere at all - it looks like something that should be standing in a grand hall

ol carved into the center, the same cl

d the second her skin makes contact

hand back, staring at i

wing the shape of her palm print, and then, with a groan like somethi

ants to run right back up the sta

ent eighteen years wanting one honest answe

bly old, some of them crumbling at the edges just from being looked at too hard. In the cente

hake as she

rst, her heart pounding too loud to let h

Alphas as they stand now. Overthrown. Erased from record by order of the ruling cou

. Her own name, staring back at

can argue with paper. "That's not possible

d further down, in different ink, added l

a recent generation. Mother eliminated by order of Seraphine Dray to prevent f

rly slips out

roken, barely a whisper. "No, she

croll clutched against her chest, and for a moment all she can do is breathe, fast and shallow, while eighte

the halls. The Elder who once told her, almost kindly, th

ng how wrong and how true they both sound at once. "She killed

ide her chest

e doesn't have time to brace for it. Her skin prickles all over. Her vision blurs at the edges, ti

happenin

ack through the tunnels, the whispers rising around her now instead of leading her,

n is dipping low outside, gold light slanting

wo of his warriors, and he turns the moment she stumbles in, some

cutting through the usual iron calm he car

ng comes out but that same low sound fro

takes her s

It's fast, and strangely gentle, like her human shape was only ever a

e space of a few frightened heartbeats, Lyra

olf

hite fur catching the last of the sunlight, and her eyes, when sh

Hall moves. No

ul, like he's talking to something that might shatter or might tear his throat out, a

voice cuts through the silence, smo

light, her pale green eyes fixed on Lyra with an expression that isn't quite fear and isn't q

in her chest, rumbling out into the quiet Hall, and

the two of them, understanding dawning hard an

ice, only a kind of tired resignation, like she's discussing an old inconvenience finall

urious, and every instinct in her screams to attack, to make Seraphine a

urn on her the second they decide what she

e to run. Her bod

rough the huge open doors of the Hall and into the cou

after her, raw with something that

ent later, trees blurring past in a silver rush, and behind her

pers from the tunnels, still following her, still c

y. Run, and remember

s toward something instead of away from it - toward whatever