Chapter 2 Run,Vayra Run
\[Vayra's POV\]
They found out this morning.
A hunter saw me near the lake, kneeling at the edge where the reeds whisper to the water. I’d gone there to cool the burn in my palms, to let the icy ripples soothe the heat crawling under my skin.
He stood at the tree line, silently watching me. He saw the sparks flicker — gold, not orange — like lightning trapped beneath the surface of the lake. He didn’t speak to me. He ran. Straight to the elders.
“Pure dragons burn white-hot,” they said. “Only wolves burn gold.”
So they gathered. By midday, the square was full, torches hissing in the drizzle, smoke curling like angry ghosts above their heads. The smell of wet wood and fear clung to everything. And I stood there, trembling, my hair plastered to my face, the mud sucking at my boots, while they shouted and spat and called for cleansing.
I tried to explain — that I didn’t ask for this, that I can’t control it, that I’ve hidden it all these years because I was afraid. My voice broke on the words, my throat raw with smoke and rain.
They didn’t listen. They never do. When I spoke, they only shouted louder, as if the sound of my pleading was an insult to them.
“Abomination!”
“Half-blood!”
“Monster!”
The stones came next. One after another. They didn’t even hesitate. Faces I grew up with, hands I used to hold. Neighbors who once fed me stew and bread now curled their fingers around stones as if they were weapons forged for this moment.
Children I shared my secrets with stood tall beside their parents, their small hands gripping rocks, their eyes gleaming with the same fear, the same hate.
Every hit took something from me — breath, strength, hope. My ribs throbbed where the rocks landed, my palms burned where I pressed them into the mud.
And when I fell to my knees, when my vision blurred and my own fire screamed to rise — I held it back. It clawed at my chest, a living thing, begging to be free.
Because if they saw it, if they saw the werewolf in me, they’d kill me before the moon rose.
So I bit my tongue, swallowed my fire, and let them cast me out. The mud swallowed my footprints as I stumbled away, and behind me their torches hissed like serpents in the rain.
Now, the gates stand before me—towers of iron and obsidian, their surfaces slick with rain, etched with wards meant to keep creatures like me from crossing back. They rise like a wall against the storm, a final, unyielding barrier between the world I’ve known and the darkness I must now face.
The runes carved into the metal glow faintly, pulsing like veins of fire under black stone, each one a promise of exile, each one a warning of what I am.
Once I leave, I can never return. The truth of it hums through the air like a low chant, carried on the hiss of falling rain. I stand there shivering, the storm soaking through my cloak, my hair plastered to my face.
The guards flanking the gates are still as statues, their armor gleaming in the dim light, their faces hidden behind steel masks that reflect nothing but cold indifference.
One of them shifts, a slight movement, but enough. I know that stance. I know the way his hand tightens around his spear, the tension in his shoulders. His voice breaks through the storm, soft but full of pain, a sound that does not belong in this place of steel and stone.
“Vayra…”
My name trembles in the air, a fragile thread trying to reach me through the tempest.
I lift my head. My mother stands behind him. Her cloak is soaked, her dark hair clinging to her face, her eyes shining with something between sorrow and fear. Even now, she looks like the memory of warmth on a winter’s night, like a dream of home I can’t quite hold onto.
“Mother,” I whisper.
For a heartbeat, I think she’ll run to me—that she’ll pull me close like she used to when nightmares clawed at my sleep, whispering that everything would be all right. But she doesn’t. She takes a single step forward, then stops as though the distance between us has become a chasm.
Her lips tremble. “You must go.”
The words cut deeper than any blade, deeper than the wards etched into the gates.
“You knew,” I choke. “Didn’t you? You knew what I was.”
Tears pool in her eyes, threatening to spill. “I hoped it would never come to this. I prayed your fire would stay quiet. That they’d never see the wolf in your blood.”
“Who was he?” The question tears from me before I can stop it. “Who was my father?”
She flinches, her gaze dropping as if the ground itself can shield her from me.
“Tell me!” My voice cracks through the rain like thunder.
Her answer is a whisper drowned by the storm, but I hear it anyway.
“A man I loved. A man I lost. And the reason you’ll never be safe.”
My breath hitches, sharp and cold. “So I’m to pay the price for your love?”
She shakes her head slowly, tears slipping down her cheeks. “No. For our sin.”
The guards shift beside her, their silence heavier than their armor. One reaches for the gate’s lever.
She swallows hard and meets my gaze one last time. “Run,Vayra. Run far. Don’t ever come back.”
“Mother, please....”
The gates groan open, a deep and hollow sound like an old wound tearing wider. The storm rushes in, fierce and wild, its winds curling around me like claws.
And just like that, she turns her back on me.
I stumble through the threshold, half-blind, half-broken, into the darkness beyond. The gates slam shut behind me with a sound like a closing tomb, and the echo follows me into exile. The echo follows me down the road.
The forest waits ahead, silent and black, its trees looming like silent watchers in the storm. Each step I take sends a spike of pain through my legs; my shoulder burns where a stone tore skin, my palms are raw, my breath ragged. The rain hides the blood, but not the hurt. Beneath my ribs, my fire stirs—restless, aching to escape.
I press a trembling hand to my chest and whisper through clenched teeth, “Not now. Please. Not now.” If they see it again—if anyone sees—it won’t be pity I’m met with. It will be a blade.
I push on, but my strength falters. The ridge rises ahead, slick with mud, the ground shifting treacherously underfoot. My vision darkens. My knees buckle. The world tilts sideways as I fall.
Pain explodes through me as my palms strike gravel and my body tumbles, limbs helpless, until I crash hard against the gnarled base of an old oak. I lie still, stunned and gasping, the rain falling harder now—drumming against the leaves, washing the dirt from my wounds in cold rivulets.
I close my eyes, my breath catching in my throat. I don’t know where to go. I don’t know who I am anymore.
Dragon.
Wolf.
Curse.
Sin.
Outcast.
The words claw through my mind. I am everything they fear—everything they cast me out for. And yet, the fire in my chest won’t die. It flickers, weak but defiant, as if it still believes in something I can’t yet see. As if it knows something I don’t.
Then I feel it—just beyond the trees. A presence. Heavy, unmistakable. It carries the scent of smoke, of metal and leather worn from travel. The air thickens, taut with something unseen but certain. Something is coming. Not just a hunter. Not just another enemy. Something that feels older than fear. Something that smells of fate.