One of our pack elder stepped forward. His voice was deep but each word landed like a stone.

"Ramon Frostclaw and Selene Frostclaw are both loyal leaders and devoted parents. May the Moon Goddess guide them home."

He didn’t look at me, not even once.

When the earth began to fall over them as they were burying them, I couldn’t breathe. My hands shook so hard I dug my nails into my palms until I felt blood.

The ceremony ended quickly. My packs don’t linger over death especially when they think the killer is standing among them.

That’s when he came to me, Victor.

For a heartbeat, the sight of him made something in my chest lifted. He was the boy who used to sneak me sweet buns from the market, the boy who once told me he liked the way my laugh “tangled in the air.” The boy I thought would stand beside me when everything else fell apart.

But today, his face… gods, his face was carved from stone.

"Eira." He called.

I swallowed hard. "Victor, you have to believe me. I didn’t..."

"Stop." The word cracked like a whip. His jaw tightened. "Do you think I want to be seen with you? After what you’ve done?"

My stomach twisted. "You know me. You’ve known me since we were pups. You know I will never..."

"I knew a girl who loved her pack. I didn’t know a girl who’d butcher her parents in cold blood." His voice dropped lower, enough so the others wouldn’t hear. "I reject you, Eira Frostclaw. As my mate, as my friend… as anything."

The words hit harder than any blade. I thought I will cry but nothing came. Just a cold, expanding emptiness inside me.

They didn’t let me return home after the burial.

The council met in private and the verdict came fast, to be exile. No trial nor defense, just the Alpha’s decree that I was to be cast out by sundown. They gave me an hour to gather my things.

I went back home but I didn’t go to my room, I went to Diana’s.

She lay there in her bed, pale and still, her breathing shallow but steady. A strip of linen wrapped around her head where her golden hair had been matted with blood.

I sat beside her and took her hand.

"Di… it’s me," I whispered. "I don’t know if you can hear me, but I didn’t do it. Please… please wake up and tell them. I don’t care what happens to me, just tell them I didn’t kill them."

Her fingers stayed limp in mine.

By the time the guards came, the sun was a red smear on the horizon. They didn’t bother with ceremony, just marched me through the gates and left me standing on the dirt road that led into the Neutral Territories.

The wind was sharp, carrying the smell of rain. I had nothing but the clothes on my back and my dagger still tucked into my boot, the only thing they haven’t taken from me.

I don’t know how long I stood there, staring back at the place I once called home. Every shadow in the trees felt like it's watching me.

That’s when I heard the sound of hooves. A black stallion emerged from the dark, its rider tall and broad-shouldered, his hood shadowing his face.

The horse stopped a few paces from me. The rider dismounted, boots crunching against gravel. When he pulled back his hood, the torchlight caught familiar eyes.

Cyrus.

The boy who found me shivering in a river when I was eight and told me I was his now. The one who taught me to fight, to climb trees, to play cards badly on purpose so I will win.

"Eira." His voice was low, almost gentle.

I felt something inside me crack for the first time since that night. "They think I killed them."

"I know," he said, stepping closer. His gaze swept over me, lingering on the bloodstains that still haven’t washed out of my shirt. "They’re fools to think like that. You can never hurt your own."

He extended his hand. "Come with me. I’ll take you to somewhere safe. You won't be alone anymore, I will become your foster brother, I promise."

I took his hand and that’s the night my real prison began.

~

When I first stepped into Cyrus’s home, I thought I’d stepped into safety.

He gave me a room, not just a room but a sanctuary. It has silk curtains, a bed so soft it felt like falling into clouds and shelves lined with books. There was a lock on the inside of the door, for weeks, I slept with it bolted, clutching my pillow as if it's my wolf that come back to me.

Cyrus never tried to force himself on me, never shouted or made me feel like a burden. That mattered so much, because he could have been my brother-in-law. He was fated to Diana before everything fell apart. My parents trusted him, and in my grief, that trust was all I had left.

He called me little sister always, with his faint, bittersweet smile, like I reminded him of something he once lost.

“You’re safe here,” he kept telling me and brushing a stray strand of hair from my face. “But don’t go outside the gates. There are people out there who would kill you if they could.”

I believed him, what choice do I have. I am sixteen years old, my wolf have gone silent and my heart is fractured. I didn’t have the strength to doubt.

The only thing I ever asked about from him is Diana and every time, his answer was always the same.

“We’ll find her,” he promised. “But she’s probably gone far away. Hiding, it’s the only way she could survive after what happened.”

Months blurred into years. My world became the corridors of his estate, the library and the training yard. He first taught me how to use a dagger very well, then a sword.