Mira’s POV

The snap inside me was instant. No warning. One breath, steady. The next, gone.

My knees gave. The bond flared, then frayed. My wolf vanished. A tearing sensation spread through my chest. Pain, not physical, raw, internal. Someone shouted my name. Arms caught me. Kael’s voice. Maybe others. Then blackness.

I heard voices before I saw light. “She was fine this morning!” Kael. Frantic. Angry. “You brought her back too early.” Cyrus. Cold. Accusing. “She collapsed in front of me!”

“Because of you!” Their words tore through the haze. Blame. Guilt. Confusion. I knew the pain wasn’t from either of them directly. Something else. Someone else. A presence I didn’t know. Cold. Ancient. Watching.

My mind yanked backward. The seer’s voice echoed, quiet, unshaken: “You will collapse. Someone close will undo you.” At the time, I’d thought she meant Kael. Or Cyrus. But maybe she’d told them the same thing. Maybe we’d all been set up to distrust one another. A planted seed. A designed fracture.

Whispers. My name. Lyra’s tone. Focused. Urgent. “We found it.”

“A third mark,” someone said. “Overlaid. Hollow Claw influence.”

“Suppression?” Lyra again. “She never consented to this.” My wolf stirred, barely. Distant. Trapped. “She’s pulling against two bonds,” another voice added. “This third mark is drawing her in a third direction. Unaligned. It’s destabilizing her core.”

I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. But I felt everything. Kael’s guilt poured over me like acid. He was blaming himself, replaying something. Cyrus’s fury vibrated next, barely contained. Lyra’s fear came in waves, sharp and personal. She’d seen this before.

I tried to scream. Nothing. My body was gone. My mind was awake and drowning. Used. That’s what I felt. Not broken, used. Marked. Modified. Changed without permission. Not by an enemy. By someone close enough to reach my soul.

One of them had let it happen. One of them had stood by. One of them broke me. I knew it wasn’t just Hollow Claw. Someone opened the door. Someone watched them enter.

Darkness surged again, but this time I fell into it willingly. Not Kael. Not Cyrus. Taller. Slimmer. Voice slick. “Her collapse is timely. The fracture will divide them. Let the wolf sleep. Let the bond rot.”

When she rises, she will rise to destroy all three.” The map showed my face. And three black lines carved through it. The voices above pulled me back. “She’s crashing.”

“Pull her back, now!”

“Shock her, do it.” Silence. Then a jolt. Then breathing. Lyra’s voice cut through it: “The mark has to be undone. Her wolf won’t return otherwise.”

“How?” Kael demanded.

“Find the caster. Only they can reverse it.”

“She doesn’t trust either of us anymore,” Cyrus said flatly. Silence again. They both knew it was true. In my mind, I hovered over the edge. The war outside me didn’t matter now. The war for me had already begun. And I didn’t know whose side I was really on.

The war for me had already begun. And I didn’t know whose side I was really on. My body lay still. My mind surged in every direction, pulling memories, pain, fragments of truth I didn’t want. I wasn’t unconscious anymore. I was trapped.

I felt the weight of Kael’s presence at my bedside. He hadn’t moved in hours. I heard the shift of his breathing whenever the healers came in. He didn’t sleep. Cyrus didn’t stay. But he sent others. Quiet. Efficient. Watchful. Spies or protection, I couldn’t tell. Lyra moved constantly. Her voice came often, ordering tinctures, herbs, and heat stones. She was trying to fix me. They all were. But none of them saw the real damage.

The third mark wasn’t just suppressing my wolf. It was dividing me. My bonds were being pulled apart from the inside. Torn. Opposed. One side, Kael. On one side, Cyrus. The third, a void. I remembered when it began. Not the collapse. Before that. Weeks ago. A dream. I'd thought it was just a nightmare. I hadn’t told anyone.

Now I knew. That was the moment. They touched me while I slept. A door opened in my memory. Something I wasn’t supposed to recall. Kael. A negotiation. War time. He was in chains. I was unconscious. He was offered a choice: my life, in exchange for “a key.”

He said yes.

He didn’t know what the key was. But they took it from me. I felt the memory crack and vanish again. Like it wasn’t mine to hold. Kael’s voice broke the silence. Low. Breaking. “If you come back, I’ll fix it. I swear I’ll fix it.” He thought I couldn’t hear him.

“I didn’t know what I was giving away. I just… I couldn’t lose you then. I never thought it would cost this.” I wanted to scream. You should have told me. Cyrus entered. The door clicked behind him. “She’s not getting better,” he said. “I know,” Kael answered. “You’re hiding something.”

“So are you.” Cyrus stepped closer. “I found a Hollow Claw operative in the east. Said the mark isn’t just suppression, it’s transformation.” Kael stood. “What does that mean?”

“They're trying to rewrite her core. Make her something else. Something that serves them.” I heard Lyra step between them. “If either of you fights in this room again, I will exile you both.”

The silence was hard. Then Lyra whispered, more to herself, “The mark didn’t just bind her wolf. It’s feeding on her emotions, her pain, her confusion, her memories. It’s becoming her.” I felt it too.

I couldn’t cry. But I felt the ache, the hollowing inside me. Someone let them in. Someone watched it happen. Someone close. I didn’t know who. But the betrayal was a living thing now. I drifted again, not into blackness, but into somewhere else. There was a corridor. Endless. Lined with pieces of me. Childhood memories. Training wounds. Kael’s hand is reaching for mine. Cyrus’s first gift, a silver ring.

I walked toward it. I saw myself, older. Stronger. But my eyes weren’t mine. My wolf stood behind me, chained, snarling. The reflection whispered, “You’ll burn them all if you don’t break it.” Then, behind me, the cloaked figure again. Whispering to someone unseen.

“She’ll wake soon. Too fractured to trust. That’s when we move.” I turned, but there was no face beneath the hood. Only a voice. “She was never meant to survive both bonds. That was always the flaw. She was only ever a vessel.”

I woke to chaos. Lyra shouting. Someone is calling my name. Machines blaring. I couldn’t move. But I was awake. Kael grabbed my hand. Cyrus stood frozen. “She’s back,” Lyra said. Relief, but not joy. “But she’s fading. The wolf isn’t returning. The suppression mark is anchoring her in a split state.”

“Reverse it,” Kael said.

“You can’t just reverse it,” Lyra snapped. “It has a caster. We need them.”

“Then we find them,” Cyrus said. “No.” Lyra turned. “You earn her trust back first. Because until she wants to live, none of this will matter.”

Kael looked at me. Cyrus looked away. I closed my eyes. I didn’t trust either of them. I didn’t trust myself. I didn’t know if I wanted any of them to succeed. Because something had broken inside me. Something none of them would ever be able to fix. I let the numbness wrap around me.

The war wasn’t just for the kingdom anymore. The war was for me. And I had no idea whose side I was really on.