CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN

CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN
Lyra.
Back to the present….
It wasn’t my memory but somehow I saw it all.
The ground beneath me felt more solid now, cold, damp and even more.. real. My heartbeat thundered behind my ribs, but I forced myself to breathe, to anchor back in the now.
Anna. Or Annastasyria.
She stood across from me, half-shadowed by the overhanging branches. Her hair was pulled back, her expression unreadable, like she hadn’t just dragged my soul through the memory of pain and betrayal.
“Finished digging through my mind?” I asked.
I straightened, wiping the dirt from my palms. “Good. Then let’s get something clear.”
Her brows rose slightly.
I took a step forward, closing the space between us. “You say you’re innocent. That you didn’t betray anyone. That everything that happened, Kael, Kade, their parents, wasn’t your fault.”
“I didn’t say none of it was my fault,” she said softly.
“You’re damn right it was,” I snapped. “But if you really want me to believe you were a victim in all of this, if you want me to even consider the idea that you were ever on our side, then tell me something.”
She folded her arms. “Ask.”
“Why,” I said, voice cold, “did you attack me that day in the forest?”
Her body stilled.
I didn’t stop. “If you were trying to help, if you were in it for the cause, if you were clean, then why did you lunge at me like you wanted me dead?”
Anna’s jaw tightened, but her eyes didn’t harden. If anything, they looked… tired. Tired and ancient, like she’d lived a hundred lifetimes in those two months of absence.
“I had no intention to hurt you,” she said finally, her voice hoarse. “If anything, I was trying to reach you. I didn’t handle it well. I panicked. Everything was moving too fast, and I thought—”
“You thought what?” I cut in.
“That you were slipping away from me,” she said, stepping forward. “That you were forgetting who you were. That the bond between you and your wolf was breaking.”
I blinked, my pulse stuttering. “What bond?”
Anna’s gaze held mine. “You have a gift, Lyra. One even I didn’t fully understand until after everything went to hell.”
She pointed a single finger, soft, slow, at my chest. “Your wolf… she’s been trying to speak to you since the day your family died. Since the blood soaked the floor and the stars went dark. She’s been clawing at the inside of you, trying to get out. Trying to warn you. Trying to save you.”
I wanted to scoff, to laugh, to shove her and scream—but the truth is, I’d felt it too. The tug. The ache. The sensation like something inside me was pacing, restless and restrained.
“Save me from what?” I asked. “From you?”
“No,” she said gently. “From all of them.”
I frowned. “Them?”
She exhaled like she’d been holding her breath for hours. “The Council. The Elders. The tribes that watched your bloodline be hunted and stayed silent. The people who called you a threat the moment you were born.”
I shook my head, frustration rising. “Why? Why do they want to exile us? What is so dangerous about us?”
There was a long pause.
“Because we are the last remaining white wolves.”
The forest hushed. Even the wind stilled.
I stared at her, the weight of her words sinking like lead in my chest. “What?”
She stepped closer. “White wolves are rare, Lyra. Almost extinct. And with extinction came fear. Myths. Stories that twisted the truth.”
“What truth?”
“That we were more blessed than any other tribe by the Moon Goddess. That our bloodline held gifts no other could access. That we could walk between spirit and shadow. That we could tear through veils others couldn’t see.”
I swallowed hard.
“They called us cursed,” she whispered. “But we were never cursed. We were coveted. Envied. Hunted because they feared the power they couldn’t control.”
A sharp chill cut through the trees.
I looked at her, my breath caught between disbelief and dawning dread. “And you? You’re one of us?”
She nodded. “My wolf is white. Just like yours.”
“And Kael?” I asked quietly.
“No,” she murmured. “Not Kael. Not Kade. Not anyone else in that pack.”
I stiffened.
“Which is why,” Anna said, voice growing steadier, “they were never going to protect you. They were going to use you. Break you. Silence you before your wolf awakens.”
Something hot surged behind my eyes.
Anna reached out, gently brushing her fingers over the back of my hand. “But I never would. I never wanted to hurt you, Lyra. I only wanted you to remember.”
The memory of her attack flashed in my mind, fangs bared, claws aimed and the violence.
“That’s a hell of a way to remind someone,” I said.
She looked down, ashamed. “I wasn’t in control. My wolf… she was screaming. I thought I was losing you. I thought if I could just spark something in you, it would pull you back to who you are.”
I was quiet for a long moment, torn between the anger still pulsing in my chest and the ancient, aching sorrow I saw in her face.
Then I asked, “Why now? Why come back now?”
She lifted her gaze. “Because time is running out. And if you don’t awaken fully… they will kill you.”
I stared at her, my heart pounding.
Not just for me anymore.
But for the truth I had never been told.
The truth is, my wolf had been trying to claw free.
Anna stepped closer, her voice soft but steady now.
“I can teach you,” she said. “I can train you to control it, all of it. The power. The pull. The voice inside you that’s been screaming for air. You don’t have to fight her anymore.”
I stared at her, heart racing. She looked different now. Not like the assassin in the forest. Not like the betrayer in my nightmares.
But like something older.
Something that remembered who we were before the world burned it out of us.
“Please,” she added, voice cracking. “Sister… give me the chance to show you who we are.”
That word. Sister. It hit me harder than any blade.
I should’ve turned away. Should’ve rejected it like I’d done so many times before. But instead, I found myself nodding once.
She smiled softly. I followed her.
The path curved into a clearing half-swallowed by trees, ancient and whispering. Moss draped from the branches like forgotten banners. The training ground sat beneath them, bare, silent, sacred. A large, flat stretch of earth marked by claw grooves, scorched stones, and a single, cracked totem carved with symbols I didn’t recognize but somehow understood.
The air thrummed.
Magic lived here.
Anna moved to the center and dropped to one knee, pressing her palm to the earth like she was greeting an old friend. Her eyes fluttered shut, lips moving in a silent prayer.
I hesitated.
Then stepped forward.
“This place…” I whispered. “What is it?”
“A remnant,” she said without opening her eyes. “Of our people. They buried their souls in this soil. That’s why it’s still awake.”
I looked around. “It feels like… I’ve been here before.”
She opened her eyes. “Because you have. In dreams. In fragments. Every moment your wolf tried to call you back.”
I swallowed hard.
Anna stood, then faced me directly.
“Call her,” she said.
“Call who?”
“Your wolf. She has a name.”
I stared at her, throat dry. “A name?”
“Yes.” Anna stepped closer again, voice low like wind through trees. “She’s not just your power. She’s you. The other half. The protector and the weapon. The one you’ve buried in fear and grief. But she’s still waiting and listening.”
I looked down at my hands.
Trembling.
How many nights had I woken up gasping, feeling the echo of a growl in my throat? How many times had I stared at my reflection, eyes flashing silver, only to blink it away like it was a trick of the light? I’d spent so long convincing myself that what I felt wasn’t real, that the pressure in my chest was just trauma, not something alive and ancient trying to break free.
I thought it was just grief. Just rage.
But now?
Now it felt like recognition.
A pulse that didn’t come from my heart, but from somewhere older. Somewhere deeper.
“I don’t know how,” I whispered, though part of me was already beginning to remember.
Anna’s fingers gently tilted my chin back up.
“Yes, you do,” she said. “You’ve always known.”
The air shifted.
And for the first time, I didn’t fight it.
swallowed hard, my voice barely a whisper. “If I let her out… what happens to me?”
Anna’s gaze held mine. “You become who you were always meant to be.”
A shiver traced my spine.
Somewhere deep within, I felt her stir again, awake insid
e me and aware. And what scared me was I wasn’t afraid. This place somehow made me calm.