Ashes of the Unbound Luna

POV: Nyra

I wake before the guards come. I always do.

The sound of chains rattling travels through stone walls, cutting through sleep like a knife. After three years, I've learned to tell the difference between restless movement and true rage. Between the nights when Caelum fights his restraints because he's uncomfortable and the nights when his bloodline tears him apart from the inside.

Tonight, the chains rattle unevenly. Metal strikes stone in sharp, frantic bursts that echo through the hidden corridors between the royal chambers.

Tonight will be worse than usual.

I push myself up from the thin mattress and swing my legs over the side of the narrow bed. The stone floor is cold beneath my bare feet, but I barely notice anymore. Cold is better than some of the alternatives I've learned to live with.

My cell is small. Barely large enough for the bed, a basin, and a shelf. There's no window. No natural light ever reaches this deep beneath the palace. Just the faint glow of a single ice stone mounted near the door, its blue light making everything look corpse-pale.

I move through my routine without thinking. My hands know the steps by heart now.

First, I walk to the small basin in the corner and wash the dried blood from my fingers. The water is always cold, always stale, but it does the job. I scrub carefully, making sure to clean beneath my nails where the red tends to hide. The guards notice things like that. They comment on it when I'm not clean enough.

"Defective and dirty," they'll say. "What use are you then?"

I learned quickly that staying clean, staying useful, keeps me alive.

Next, I examine the bandages wrapped around my forearms. They're stained brown in places, evidence of how fresh the wounds beneath them really are. The cuts from two nights ago haven't fully closed yet. They never get enough time to heal properly before I have to open them again.

I peel the bandages away slowly, wincing at the sting where fabric has stuck to partially scabbed skin. The wounds beneath are angry and red, but not infected. That's something, at least.

I rewrap them with clean cloth from the small pile I keep folded on the shelf. The palace provides these, at least. They need me functional, after all. Dead tools are useless tools.

The fresh bandages hide the truth better. That matters when the guards look at me. When anyone looks at me. The court can't acknowledge what they're doing if the evidence isn't visible.

Then I choose a blade from the small collection I keep hidden beneath loose floorboards near the foot of my bed. I run my fingers along the edges carefully, testing their sharpness. Some are duller than others, worn down from use. Some are still relatively new, their edges clean and precise.

This one is thin enough to cut cleanly but sharp enough not to tear the skin too badly.

That matters more than most people would think. A clean cut heals better. Bleeds more predictably. Hurts less in the long run. I've learned these things through experience, through trial and error written in scars across my arms.

The preparation is as natural as breathing now. Three years will do that to a person. Three years of the same routine, the same purpose, the same destination every time those chains start rattling.

I hear footsteps echo in the corridor outside my door before I'm quite finished. Heavy boots striking stone in a rhythm I recognize. Slow and deliberate, like they have all the time in the world. Like I'm not a person waiting but an object to be retrieved when convenient.

They never hurry. They never do.

I tuck the blade into my pocket and stand, smoothing down my dress even though it doesn't matter. The fabric is thin and worn, the kind of thing servants wear. Plain gray. Forgettable. That's the point.

The door swings open without a knock. It never does. Privacy isn't something defectives are entitled to.

Two guards fill the doorway, their bulk blocking out most of the dim corridor light behind them. Their expressions are caught somewhere between amusement and disgust. I've seen that look so many times it doesn't register anymore. It's just part of the routine, like the cold water and the stale air and the blade in my pocket.

The taller one, the captain with the scar across his jaw and cruelty in his eyes, sees the blade's outline against my dress pocket and laughs quietly. It's a sound that holds no real humor, just mockery wrapped in indifference.

"Defective," he says, the word rolling off his tongue like an insult he's repeated a thousand times. Like it's my name instead of what I am. Like it defines everything about me that matters.

He pauses, eyes flicking from the blade to my bandaged arms, then back to my face. His smile widens, showing teeth.

"Useful, though," he adds with a smirk.

I don't respond. I learned years ago that silence keeps me alive longer than protest ever could. Words are weapons here, and I have none worth using. The guards have all the power. I have only compliance and the blood in my veins.

I step toward them without being told. They don't bother with restraints anymore. They used to, in the beginning, back when I still had fight in me. Back when I still thought someone might come for me, might save me, might tell me this was all a mistake.

They stopped after the first few months. After I stopped resisting.

Where would I run? What would I run to?

The world outside these walls doesn't want me. The world inside them only wants my blood.

The guards turn and I fall into step behind them, my bare feet silent against the stone. They escort me through the hidden corridors that run beneath the royal hall like veins beneath skin. These passageways were carved centuries ago for servants and secrets, for the people and things the court above never has to see or acknowledge.

Above my head, I can hear the faint sounds of the evening gathering. Music drifts down through cracks in the ceiling, something elegant and complex played on strings. Laughter follows it, bright and careless. The soft murmur of nobles discussing politics and power and which alliances will benefit them most.

They're celebrating something tonight. A birthday, maybe. Or an engagement. The court always finds reasons to celebrate.

They don't know what waits beneath their feet.

Or maybe they do and just don't care. Maybe they know exactly what's happening down here in the dark, and they've decided it's worth it. That one defective girl's suffering is a small price to pay for stability.

For their precious heir's control.

I know this path by heart now. Every turn. Every slope. Every place where water drips from cracks in the ancient ceiling and pools on the floor, making the stone slick and treacherous. I could walk it blind if I had to.

The corridors wind deeper, taking us further from the light and warmth above. The air grows colder with each step, heavy with moisture and the smell of old stone.

The temperature drops noticeably as we descend into the deepest levels. Ice stones begin to appear along the walls, their cold blue glow casting everything in an eerie, otherworldly light. They're placed here deliberately, expensive and rare, harvested from the northern territories at great cost.

They're meant to slow blood flow and dull supernatural senses. To make control easier for those who are losing it.

To keep monsters in check.

The guards' breath mists in the frigid air, but mine doesn't. Another sign of what I am. What I'm not. My body doesn't work the way theirs does. Doesn't work the way anyone's does.

Defective.

The guards stop at a reinforced door at the end of a particularly long corridor. This one is different from all the others we've passed. Thicker. Heavier. Marked with symbols carved deep into the metal, wards meant to contain what's inside.

One of the guards pulls a heavy key from his belt. The lock grinds as he turns it, metal scraping against metal in a way that makes my teeth ache and my stomach twist.

The door swings open with a low groan of protesting hinges.

Caelum's chamber spreads before me like a warning written in stone and blood.

The space is larger than my cell, but it feels smaller somehow. Oppressive. The walls are clawed so deep that metal supports show through in places, exposed like bones beneath torn flesh. Claw marks score the stone in frantic patterns, evidence of how many times he's lost control in this room.

Blood is smeared across the floor in dark streaks from earlier attempts at restraint. Some of it is old, dried to brown. Some is newer, still red enough to glisten in the ice stone light.

Silver chains are embedded into the walls at multiple points, pulled taut and glinting dully. They're attached to restraints around his wrists and ankles, meant to keep him from doing too much damage.

To himself. To others.

More ice stones glow faintly in each corner of the room, their cold presence meant to help him hold on to whatever humanity he has left when the rage takes over.

It's never enough. It's never been enough.

Caelum stands at the center of the room, and even from here I can see he's already losing the fight tonight.

He's half-shifted. His shoulders are too broad, muscles straining beneath skin that's pulled too tight over a frame that's trying to be two things at once. His hands are tipped with claws instead of fingernails, dark and curved and sharp. They dig grooves into his own palms as he clenches his fists over and over, blood welling up and dripping to the floor.

His breath comes in ragged gasps, each one rattling in his chest like a growl trying to break free. Like something animal trapped inside a human shell.

His eyes glow with feral light when he turns his head toward the door. Gold and wild and burning with something that isn't quite human anymore. Something that's all instinct and hunger and rage.

When he looks at me, there's no recognition in those eyes.

Not tonight.

No warmth. No memory of the boy who used to smile at me. No trace of the prince who once promised I mattered.

Only hunger.

Only fury.

Only the monster his bloodline is turning him into, piece by piece, night by night.

He lunges before I can take another breath.

The chain snaps free from the wall with a sound like thunder cracking the sky. Metal screams as it whips through the air, deadly and fast, flying straight toward my throat.