Lyra woke to the sound of birds.
Soft, distant, almost unreal. For a moment she didn’t know where she was. Her body felt heavy, her limbs stiff, her throat raw as if she’d been screaming for hours.
Then she felt the rope burns on her wrists.
Memory hit her like a blade.
The moon.
The bells.
The scream that wasn’t human.
Rowan’s voice cutting through the haze.
Her eyes snapped open.
She was lying inside the ruined shrine, wrapped in Rowan’s cloak. Morning light filtered through the broken roof, painting pale gold across the floorboards. Dust drifted lazily in the beams.
Rowan sat beside her, back against the wall, sword across his lap. He wasn’t asleep. He was watching her — not with fear, but with something far more dangerous.
Concern.
Lyra pushed herself upright, wincing. “Did I… hurt you?”
Rowan shook his head. “No.”
“Are you lying?”
“If I were, you’d smell it.”
She blinked. “You know about that?”
“I know enough.”
Silence settled between them, thick and awkward. Lyra pulled the cloak tighter around herself, suddenly aware of how exposed she felt — not physically, but emotionally. She hated waking up like this. Hated the shame. Hated the fear.
Hated that he’d seen her like that.
“You should have run,” she whispered. “When the rope snapped. You should have left me.”
“I don’t run,” Rowan said simply.
“That’s not bravery. That’s stupidity.”
“Maybe.”
She stared at him. He didn’t look away.
His armor was still smeared with dirt and dried blood. His jaw was shadowed with stubble. His eyes were tired, but steady. He looked like a man who’d fought a war alone and expected to fight another before breakfast.
“Why did you stay?” she asked.
Rowan hesitated — just for a heartbeat.
“Because you were fighting it,” he said. “Harder than I’ve ever seen anyone fight anything.”
Lyra swallowed. Her throat tightened. “You don’t understand. The moon… it wants to take everything. My mind. My body. My memories. I’m not strong enough to stop it.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“You were last night.”
“No,” she whispered. “You stopped me.”
Rowan didn’t answer.
He didn’t have to.
Lyra looked down at her hands. Her claws were gone. Her fingers were shaking. She curled them into fists.
“I’m dangerous,” she said. “You should keep your distance.”
Rowan stood.
Lyra flinched — instinct, not fear.
He didn’t move toward her. He simply walked to the shrine entrance, scanning the treeline.
“Dangerous doesn’t scare me,” he said. “But ignorance does.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
Rowan turned back to her, expression unreadable.
“I was taught your kind were monsters,” he said. “Mindless. Bloodthirsty. Beyond saving.”
Lyra’s stomach twisted.
“But last night,” Rowan continued, “I saw someone fighting harder to protect others than any knight I’ve ever known.”
Her breath caught.
“Don’t say things like that,” she whispered. “You don’t know me.”
“Then let me.”
The words hung in the air like a blade suspended by a thread.
Before Lyra could respond, a distant horn echoed through the forest.
Rowan stiffened.
Lyra’s ears twitched. “That’s not a village horn.”
“No,” Rowan said. “It’s the Silver Oath.”
Her blood ran cold.
“The knights?” she whispered. “Here?”
“They track Moon-Wraith activity,” Rowan said. “They’ll find the village soon.”
Lyra’s heart pounded. “If they see me—”
“They won’t,” Rowan said, already grabbing his gear. “We’re leaving.”
Lyra stared at him, stunned. “You’re… helping me?”
Rowan met her eyes.
“I’m not handing you over to men who’d kill you for something you can’t control.”
Lyra’s throat tightened. “Rowan… if they catch us—”
“They won’t.”
He offered her his hand.
Not as a knight.
Not as a hunter.
As something else entirely.
Lyra hesitated.
Then she took it.
The bells in her hair chimed softly as they stepped out of the shrine together, into the shadowed forest, just as the Silver Oath closed in.
