Chapter 1 Ch 1
Narnia's POV
"Oh, where is that stupid wench, Narnia!"
I straightened up and moved away from the sink, wiping my hands on my tattered dress.
The door flew open, and standing there was my aunt, gazing at me like I was a cockroach from the waste bin.
"Why are you still here?" She bawled. "Didn't I tell you to finish up with the food and join the other maids in cleaning the compound?"
"Yes, but you also told me to wash your clothes..."
A slap landed across my face.
"How dare you talk back to me?"
"But I didn't talk..."
Another slap!
My cheek still burned where her hand had landed. The sting was nothing new. It was the way of this house, pain was the only language they used to remind me that I did not belong here.
I fell onto my knees and continued scrubbing the floor, but I could feel my aunt still standing there— her eyes roaming glaring at me with hatred. It's the same with everyone in this pack. I might as well be the evil they prayed to the moon goddess against.
"You are disgusting and your ugliness grows worse by the day." Lady Anna continued. "I wonder why my husband had to house the daughter of a traitor under my roof. We should have left you to join your whore mother in the pit of hell. You were conceived in evil and so you are full of it."
"No," I quickly answered, cowering out of fear of another slap. "I am not full of evil."'
"Oh really?"
She walked closer, her perfume cutting through the smoke of the stew I’d been stirring. “You think I don’t see it? Those eyes of yours, too odd, too strange. That hair, too silver for a girl born under the moon. Tell me, Narnia, when you sleep, do you dream of tearing us apart?”
I swallowed hard and shook my head. “No, no, my lady.”
She smiled then, a thin, cruel line on her lips. “Good. Because if you ever do, I will cause you so much pain you would wish for death, but you would not find it”
Her words squeezed my throat, tears gushing down my face.
“Now finish the food,” she said, turning away. "Lysander's room needs cleaning. And don’t think I don’t hear you muttering at night. Whatever you pray to, stop. The gods don’t listen to monsters.”
Monster. That word again. Or some other times, the traitor's daughter or the usurper's seed, or ugly bitch. The entire park was a furnace, and their hatred burned me every day. It all lived in the stories they told.
A few years after I was born, my father, Alpha Romulus, tried to steal the throne of the Regal Wolf Pack from his brother, Alpha Corvin, who was said to have been handchosen by my grandfather, the patriarch of the pack. My father and his team of rebels caused a rift in the pack but he died in the uprising.
No one knew my mother. My father brought me into the pack as a baby, caring for me on his own before his death. Some say she was a succubus demon who seduced my father in his libraries. According to them, this explained my pale skin, silver hair and my unusual eyes.
Two different colours. One blue, the other grey.
Others say she was a tavern prostitute, while many people accepted that she was a servant from an unknown pack.
Either way, I was left in the care of my uncle and my life has been nothing but distress. Yet in the midst of my troubles, I dream of freedom, love, and reuniting with my mother no matter what she might turn out to be.
By the time I finished washing and sweeping the floors, night had fallen over the Regal Moon Pack’s territory. The other servants had gone to the central yard to feast and gossip, but I stayed behind in the servants' quarters
War was in the air, The Shadowborn armies attacked our walls every day, attempting to annihilate us all. Even though they don't possess shifting abilities like us, they were physically stronger. They also had sophisticated ammunition, silver bullets that killed Lunar wolves instantly.
Every day, their legions advanced closer, and my kind could do nothing but train harder. There was so much unrest that even the younger wolves had begun carrying blades.
The smell of death was in the air and I wondered how long till they conquered us like the other packs.
Just then, I heard footsteps outside the door and voices, speaking in hush tones.
“The King of the Shadowborns has moved past the border,” one said.
“They burned the river camps yesterday.” the other replied.
“Is it Elias Varron?” the other asked.
“The same. They say he wears wolf blood as his perfume.”
I looked away quickly, heart pounding. That name… Elias Varron. Even the sound of it felt like an execution. The one whose silver blade was said to glow in the dark when it tasted wolf blood.
He was coming for us. And there was nowhere left to run.
I moved away from the door, but just as I was about to head back to the window, the door suddenly opened. It was one of the other servants in the castle.
"Luna Lysandra has requested your presence." She said to me, "Run along now."
I found Lysandra in her quarters sitting by the fire. She looked every bit like luxury, her hair braided with jewels and pearls, her gown bearing a sharp contrast to the rags around my neck.
"Good evening Luna," I greeted.
She didn't respond; instead, she stared at me from head to toe, her eyes flashing with the same contempt she had since we were kids.
"I thought I told you to cut your ugly hair." She eventually sneered.
"I'm sorry, but I forgot."
"I will soon be married, Narnia," she suddenly announced, clapping gleefully. "Didn't mother tell you, of course, she wouldn't want you to feel bad. We're just waiting for this stupid war to end and those Veylar canines extinguished. I do hope you get to witness it, Narnia, since good things never happen to you."
She continued staring at me, hoping to incriminate me with my response. But I was smarter now, 21 years among my enemies didn't leave my wits undeveloped.
"The maid said you needed something," I said, lowering my head. "What do you need, Luna?"
I wasn't permitted to call her by name.
“Fetch my cloak,” she said without looking at me. “Father says we leave at dawn. You’ll come with me to the border outpost.”
I froze. “The border?”
“Yes. Those idiots are moving again." She said, "He wants us to travel with the supply carts and bring back medicine to the camp. You’ll serve as my handmaiden.”
Her voice was sweet, but her eyes said what she didn’t: I was coming because I was a slave, less than a werewolf, weak and pitiful.
"Oh, okay."
"Maybe one of the poor border guards will see you and show interest in you."
She burst out laughing and I left the room. Heading back to my quarters, I packed the little I had left. A faded shawl, a comb, and a small moonstone pendant my father left behind. I could sleep. I stayed up listening to gunshots, bombs and battlecries between our soldiers and the soldiers of our pack.
We set out the next morning. The convoy consisted of a cart bearing food, water and medicine. The second cart carried our bodyguards, while Lysandra and I stayed in the third.
"Stop shivering Narnia," Lysandra snapped halfway into the woods. "We're safe here."
"I don't know, Lysandra. I have a bad feeling about this. Can't we turn back?"
"Of course not!" Her lips tightened. “ Those wolfless cats won’t dare come this far. Father says our borders are secure. Now keep quiet, I don't want to hear anything more.”
We continued the journey, with Lysandra blabbing about her marriage, making sure to throw jabs and insults at me. She was going to marry the Alpha of the second biggest pack in the kingdom. Everyone desired love, but I only wanted to be free.
All of a sudden, arrows rained from the hills. One struck our driver and he fell to the ground, dead. Explosions burst out of nowhere, smoke rising from the trees. A gasp escaped my throat, metal bombs. Then out of nowhere, hooded figures covered in masks swooped out of the trees and surrounded us.
“Ambush!” a soldier yelled. “It’s the Shadowborns, run!”
Lysandra screamed. The carts overturned.
The soldiers shifted into their forms, leaping to fight—but the silver bullets melted into their flesh like acid. One by one, they fell.
I stumbled to my feet, coughing through the smoke. A bullet caught my arm, while another grazed my neck. I made to run into the smoke, but a pair of hands grabbed me from behind and pushed me back to the ground.
“Which one of you is Lysandra Corvin?” a soldier barked. "Alpha Corvin of Regal Wolf's daughter? Answer!"
Lysandra’s eyes met mine. Wide, and terrified. Then—she turned to me and whispered, her lips trembling.
“Narnia, say it’s you.”
“What?”
“Say you’re Lysandra." She repeated, her fingers and lips chattering. "Say you are me. I'll tell my father about it. He'll gather the soldiers and come for you.”
I hesitated, my eyes roaming the angry and hateful faces of the soldiers.
"Are you all deaf?" The soldier growled again, cocking his gun. "Which one of you is Lysandra Corvin?"
“I am,” I said, stuttering. “I am Lysandra Corvin.”
He seized me by the hair, yanking my head back. “Take her,” he ordered. You will answer for your father's crimes."