Chapter Three – Blood, Lies and Shadows
Elara’s POV
“My daughter, Elara,
If you are reading this, then they’ve found you. The seal is broken. The power you carry will awaken soon.
You are not what they think. You were born of fire and moonlight. A child of the last great Witch and the rogue warrior who betrayed his blood for love. I know you've believed for so long that you're the child of a nobody. But you were wrong.
You must leave. Before they kill you too.”
My lungs seized.
My mother is a witch?
The pendant glowed brighter. I could feel something inside me stir..
Then I heard footsteps outside, fast and heavy.
“Open the door!”
My head snapped up. Guards. What are they doing here?
“By order of Lady Morwen, you are under suspicion of witchcraft!”
Witchcraft?
I bolted for the back exit but it was too late.
The door shattered inward and the guards came pouring in. As if they knew exactly where to search, they went straight to my bedside and produced a bloodied cloak the size of a child and some portions and charms.
“That…that does not belong to me.” I cried. I was being framed.
The silver chains burned as they clasped it around my wrists and dragged me away.
“I didn’t do anything!” I shouted, struggling as two warriors slammed me onto the hard floor.
“Silence, witch!” one barked, yanking my arms behind me with enough force to make my shoulders scream.
“I’m not—” My words were lost as one of them shoved cloth in my mouth.
The pendant around my neck pulsed, humming with a strange warmth as the guards tore the place apart. My herbs were trampled. My mother’s letter snatched from where it had fallen near the hearth. One of the guards picked it up, sniffed, and then tossed it into the fire without a second glance.
“No!” I tried to lunge toward it, but the chains pulled me back. I watched helplessly as the flames devoured the only piece of truth I had.
“You’ll pay for what you did,” a woman guard sneered, dragging me to my feet. “Harming a child? How dare you show your face here again.”
“I didn’t—” I croaked but they didn't listen. They never do. Just like that, I was thrown into the Silver Keep’s lower dungeons.
Cold stone. Iron bars.
I curled into the corner, chest heaving, skin stinging, wrists blistered from the silver. I looked down at the pendant. It no longer glowed, but I could feel it—something deep inside me trembling, calling out.
“Get up, witch.”
Lady Morwen's voice sounded out. I looked up. Her eyes were hard as onyx. No warmth. No mercy.
“I wanted to look at you one last time,” she said softly, stepping inside the cell. “The little girl who thought she could reach above her station. Who dared to touch a bloodline she was never meant to see.”
I forced myself to sit up. “I didn’t hurt anyone.”
“No,” she agreed. “But that was never the point.”
I stared at her, confused.
Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “You were wrong for being bonded to my son. I needed you to be guilty. And now… you are.”
“You framed me.”
“Of course I did,” she said simply. “Did you think we would allow a half-blood, wild-born witch to take the Moon’s bond with my son?”
“Why?” My voice cracked.
“Because you are a mistake. A smudge on our legacy. And now, the people fear you. You’ve become exactly what I needed you to be. A threat. A monster.”
“You’ll never get away with this.”
“I already have.” she smiled brightly.
—
The trial was held at dusk, in the center of the pack’s sacred courtyard.
Hundreds of wolves gathered—betas, omegas, warriors, elders. The temple priests chanted prayers while warriors formed a ring around the stone platform where I was thrown to my knees.
The Council sat on high thrones, cloaked in ceremonial robes. And at the center, in the Alpha’s seat, sat Kade.
He looked like a statue carved from steel. Armor strapped over black clothes. Cold, silent. And yet, his eyes flickered the moment they met mine.
Regret?
Pity?
It didn’t matter.
He wasn’t here to save me. He was here to complete whatever cruel plan they had against me.
He was here to bury me.
Lady Morwen stood beside the priestess, her face solemn, but victorious. The crowd was restless, murmuring about blood, curses, missing children, and the wrath of the Moon.
A tall priestess stepped forward, silver staff in hand.
“Elara, daughter of no blood, accused of witchcraft, treason, and the harming of a noble child—do you deny these charges?”
I lifted my head. “Yes. I deny them. I’m not a witch. I’ve never harmed anyone. I only ever tried to heal.”
The crowd hissed.
Lady Morwen stepped forward. “A liar. A deceiver. We found blood magic carved into her walls. A child’s cloak in her hearth.”
Kade stood. “Enough.”
The courtyard stilled.
He stared down at me like he was seeing me for the first time. “Elara,” he said. “If there is anything left to say—say it now.”
I laughed bitterly. “You’re no Alpha. You’re a coward hiding behind your mother’s skirts.”
Gasps rippled through the crowd. Kade’s fists clenched. Still, he said nothing.
The priestess raised her staff. “The judgment will be carried out at dawn in the Forest of Judgment with our Alpha as the executor. May the Moon witness our justice.”
The guards pulled me away, and I didn’t fight this time. But as I was dragged past Kade, I looked at him one last time.
“Don’t forget,” I said softly. “The Moon sees everything. Even you.”
—-
The next morning, a maid came to my cell. She said her name is Naomi.
She didn't look at me like I was a monster. She slipped through the bars with a cloth bundle and knelt beside me. Her eyes were red, wet with tears.
“I don’t have long,” she whispered. “I brought food, and something else.”
She pressed something into my palm. My mother’s pendant.
“I found it,” she said, trembling. “In Lady Morwen’s chambers.”
My breath caught. “She has it? How?”
Then it dawned on me that she must have taken it when she came to the cells the next day.
“She wanted it hidden. I don’t know why. She said it has power.”
I closed my fingers around it. My chest ached.
“Naomi…” I met her eyes and wrapped my palm around her fingers. “Thank you.”
She nodded and left, eyes wet.
Few minutes later, the guards returned. Not to escort me away but to throw another girl into the cell across mine.
It was Naomi, sobbing and covered in bruises.
“What happened?” I asked, moving to closer to the bars.
“They said I saw too much,” she wept. “I saw a guard sneaking a child into Lady Morwen’s house. The missing boy.”
My breath stopped.
“Did you tell anyone else?”
She shaked her head to the side, sobbing.
I stared at the darkness past her shoulder. My blood turned to ice.
Lady Morwen was behind it all. The pieces began to click. She knew who I was. My parents, my bloodline. That was why she framed me. That was why she wanted me gone.
Still it wasn't the thought of her that made my blood boil. It was that of Kade. He was supposed to defend me. To accept me. To stand by me.
When I return, I'll come for him. For Kade.
