~RYLAND’S POV~

She was on her knees now.

Eyes glowing. Fangs out. Both hands pressed flat against the stone floor with her knuckles white from the force of it. Her whole body was shaking.

Then her hand snapped.

The sound was wrong, a crack that didn’t belong in a room with people in it.

*Arrrghhhhhhhh." she screamed, raw and loud, and looked straight at me.

"Ry... Ryland... help me." Her voice broke on my name.

I was already moving toward her. "You have to fight this, Lyra."

"I can’t." She was gasping, barely getting the words out between breaths.

"I can’t do it."

"You can," I said. I crouched in front of her, close enough that she had to look at me. "I know you can. Stay with us."

Her breathing was getting worse. Sweat across her face and neck, soaking through the green gown that had looked so composed three hours ago. Silver fur had started appearing at her forearms, faint, like a suggestion, and then pulling back, then appearing again.

"Come on, Lyra," Eren said from behind me. "Fight it."

"I’m... I’m trying." She squeezed her eyes shut. "You should all leave. Before I do something I can’t take back."

Her second hand snapped.

The scream that came out of her wasn’t like anything from training. It filled the whole cellar, hit the stone walls, and came back at us.

"Arrrghhhhhhhh... Please." She was crying now, tears cutting through the sweat on her face.

"Eren, Ryland, Cade... just go. Please. I don’t want to hurt you."

"We’re not leaving you here alone," Eren said.

"Then chain me." She looked at the wall, the brackets, the iron hanging there. "Just do it. Chain me down."

"No chains." I said it before anyone else could consider it. "No chains, Lyra. We do this together."

She opened her mouth, and what came out wasn’t words, just another wave of pain breaking through whatever she had left, and she went back to her knees a second time, hair beginning to bleed silver at the roots like something seeping upward.

Then a sound from behind us. The cellar door.

I turned.

Kael stood in the doorway.

Nobody moved for a full second.

"How did you..." Cade started.

"The bond." Kael’s eyes were already on Lyra, reading the room in the way he read everything, fast, complete, nothing wasted. "Something felt completely wrong. I followed it."

"Things have been wrong for days," I said.

"Days." He looked at me. "You told me everything was fine."

"You had your own problems to deal with."

"True," he said. "But you should have told me."

"Should I?" The words came out harder than I planned. "You think you have a say in anything that involves her?"

"Enough." Eren’s voice came across the room. "Both of you. Not now."

Kael and I looked at each other for one second. Then we both straightened.

"What’s happening to her?" Kael said.

"She’s about to shift," Cade said.

"Shift..." Kael’s expression changed. "How? She’s..."

"Silver wolf," I said. "True born. I’ll explain later."

"Lyra’s a true born?" Kael said, genuinely stunned for a moment in a way I’d never seen on his face.

"Question for later," Cade said. "We deal with this first."

"Leave." Lyra’s voice came through gritted teeth, barely audible. "I can’t hold this much longer. Please."

"Why is it taking this long?" Cade said, turning to Eren. "This much pain... why?"

"First shift," Eren said. "The first transformation is always the most severe, the body doesn’t know the process yet. Every bone, every muscle is adjusting for the first time." He paused. "And given this is forced by a full moon. That compounds everything. Why am I explaining, you should know this."

"She’s fighting it," Kael said, watching her. He was still standing near the door. Something had shifted in his expression, the calculation behind it replacing the initial shock. "We’re helping her fight the transformation."

"Yes," I said.

"That’s the wrong call."

I looked at him.

"That’s how we were taught. Fight till you gain control."

"From where I’m standing, fighting it isn’t working for her," Kael said. "She needs to stop fighting and let it happen."

"No," I said. "She’s already..."

"She killed people when she shifted unconsciously," Cade said.

"You let her embrace it with us here, that another story."Ryland said.

"Then we give her a reason to come back."

"We don’t know what the full moon does to a first shift," Eren said carefully.

"We know what fighting is doing right now," Kael said. "That’s enough for me."

A moment of silence in the cellar. The three of us looking at each other. Lyra still on the floor, silver fur flickering in and out at her skin, her breathing ragged.

Kael walked toward her before anyone agreed.

He crouched low. Close. His voice, when it came, was different from anything I’d heard from him before, quiet and direct, nothing sharp in it.

"Lyra. Can you hear me? It’s Kael."

She heard his name. What came out of her was a growl, not human, something that came from lower in her chest, and she turned her head away from him.

"I don’t think she likes you," Cade said.

Kael didn’t flinch.

"Hey... I know I’m probably not the person you want to hear from right now. But listen to my voice."

He paused.

"Don’t fight it. Let yourself feel it. Embrace it, but while you do, don’t let go of who you are. Find something to hold onto. Someone. Family, friends. Anything that’s yours."

"I don’t have a family," she said. Her voice broke. "I... I have... have no one."

"That’s not true," Kael said.

"Ryland’s standing right behind me. Eren. Cade. Pack members back at Silverclaw who have been rooting for you for weeks." He placed one hand on her shoulder, steady, careful.

"They’re all here. Use them. Find your anchor."

The cellar went very still.

Lyra’s breathing began to slow. One inhale. One exhale. The silver fur at her arms pulled back slowly, like tide going out. Her fangs receded. Her claws pulled in. The glow behind her eyes dimmed, steadied and then went out.

"You’re doing well," Kael said quietly.

She looked at him. He nodded once.

Lyra closed her eyes. When she opened them, her hair had changed, still dark, but the tips had gone blue, a deep clean colour that hadn’t been there before and didn’t belong to either version of her we’d seen. Something new.

"How did you do that?" I said.

Kael stood. "The right words, I think."

Lyra tried to stand. Made it about halfway before her legs gave and she went down, catching herself on one hand. I was there before she hit. Got an arm under her and took her weight.

"I’ve got you," I said.

She didn’t argue. She leaned in and let me hold the weight, and I felt how completely she was running on empty.

—

The drive back to Silverclaw was silent. Lyra was asleep within ten minutes, head against the side panel, breathing slow and even. The four of us said almost nothing. There wasn’t much to say that the night hadn’t already said for us.

We pulled through the packhouse gates past midnight. The lights in the main hall were on, too many of them, the kind of lighting that happened when something had gone wrong and people needed to see.

Tyran was in the courtyard before we’d fully stopped.

One look at his face and I knew.

"Elder Voss," he said. "Found dead in his chambers an hour ago."

I went still.

"No visible wounds," Tyran continued. "No forced entry. Room completely undisturbed. He appears to have simply..."

He paused.

"Stopped."

I looked over my shoulder at Lyra, still asleep in the carriage. Unconscious at the Harrow ball but with us the whole time. No possible way she was here.

And Voss had been the loudest voice on the council against her. Every meeting, every session, never missing a chance to question her right to stand where she stood.

I looked at Cade.

He looked back.

Whoever had done this knew exactly who to remove and why.

That wasn’t coincidence.

That was planning.