Chapter 3 Chapter 3: Damarys’s Granddam.
Chapter 3: Damarys’s Granddam.
Damarys-
After leaving the Thornheart estate, I went straight to my granddam’s burial garden.
The air was still when I arrived. I lowered myself onto the grass beside her resting place. For a moment, I just sat there, staring at the stone. Then, slowly, I opened the basket in my lap. Inside was her favorite fried chicken and a bottle of Silver-Howl whiskey.
My throat tightened.
“I brought your favorites, Zelly…”
I poured two glasses, the amber liquid catching what little light filtered through the trees. I set one carefully in front of her grave. The other I raised and drank in one long swallow. It burned all the way down.
“I got out of prison today… Both of them.” My eyes stung, tears gathering but refusing to fall just yet.
“I want you to know… finding me all those years ago…” I swallowed hard,“It was one of the greatest gifts the Moon Goddess ever gave me.”
Silence answered. A breeze stirred the grass.
“I remembered everything you taught me,” I whispered. “Every single thing.”
The first tear slipped free, sliding down my cheek.
My gaze drifted to my phone resting on the ground beside me. The screen was still lit with Fiora’s message—coordinates to Zelda’s original manor in the Central Region.
“And I hope you can forgive me,” I said, my voice cracked on the last word, “for what I’m about to do with it.”
The tears came harder after that. My granddam had died in the second year of my imprisonment. I remembered it like it had just happened.
I had just been released from the infirmary after three days of recovery when the guard told me I had a visitor. For one foolish, fragile moment, hope bloomed. I thought it might be her. That she’d come to surprise me. That she’d beaten the moonsleep somehow. That she was standing on the other side of that door, smiling, ready to tell me everything would be okay.
But hope had never lasted long in that place.
When I stepped into the visitation room, I found Thailia. Her lips curved into a perfect, hollow smile.
“Oh my goddess,” she gasped dramatically. “Sister… you look so thin.”
Mockery dripped from every word. My stomach twisted. My fingers trembled as I glanced around the room, unease crawling beneath my skin.
“What are you doing here, Thailia?” My voice was barely holding together. Over a year of Vega's beatings had a way of doing that.
“I actually came bearing great news,” she said lightly. “It’s about your beloved granddam.”
“She woke up…?” I whispered.
Thailia’s smile widened. Twisted. Cruel.
“Oh, heavens no. She died,” she said.
The words didn’t land all at once. They seeped in slowly, like poison.
“She died!” She gave a soft, mocking laugh. “Isn’t that great? Now you don’t have to keep throwing that old bitch in Mom and Dad’s face, making them feel obligated to pay for her care just because she took you in.”
The room tilted. My ears rang. My chest tightened as if all the breath released from my body. I clutched the front of my shirt.
“She wouldn’t—she…” My voice broke apart. “She was supposed to—”
“She’s gone,” Thailia cut in, bored now. “Really, you should thank me for telling you. It seemed like something you’d want to hear firsthand.”
My world collapsed inward. She was gone.
Before I could see her again. Before I could tell her. Before I could say goodbye. And I was stuck here. Helpless. Useless. Trapped. Thailia straightened, smoothing invisible wrinkles from her clothes as if she hadn’t just shattered something inside me.
“Well,” she said brightly, “that’s all I came for. We are sisters, after all… right?”
She turned, then paused.
“Oh, and one more thing.”
She leaned closer, her perfume sharp and suffocating as her lips neared my ear.
“Thank you for going to prison for me,” she whispered.
My body went cold.
“It would’ve been a nightmare dealing with this disgusting place myself.” She chuckled softly. “Don’t worry, though. I’ll take good care of the family for you,”
A pause.
“…and Tristen.”
Something inside me broke. I sank back into the chair, my mind splintering under the weight of it all. Somewhere deep inside, I could hear my wolf howling painfully. She loved our granddam too. She was the reason I had agreed to take the fall.
And now she was gone.
A scream, jagged and total, ripped straight from the middle of my chest. Heads turned. The world blurred. Footsteps thundered toward me.
“Hey! Shut the hell up—”
SLAP!
My hand moved before I could think. The crack echoed through the room. For a second, everything went dead silent. Vega stared at me, disbelief flashed across his face.
“You dare—”
PUNCH!
His fist hit my nose before I could brace. Blood poured hot and immediate.
“You fucking bitch!”
He hit me again. And again. Each blow stole the air from my lungs. The world spun. Shouted voices rang out in the background, distant and useless.
“Vega, stop—!”
“You’re going to kill her!”
But he didn’t stop. Didn’t slow. He dragged me out of the chair, fists and boots crashing into me until I couldn’t feel where one strike ended and the next began. The floor rushed up to meet me. Still, he kept going. By the time they finally pulled him off, I was barely conscious. My body slack, my breath wet and broken as it rattled in my chest.
“Get him off her! she’s done!”
Their voices blurred into nothing. Darkness swallowed me whole.
When I woke, I was in a real hospital this time. Not the prison infirmary. Not that cold, lifeless room. It took weeks to heal.
Physically, at least.
After that, I stopped speaking.
The other inmates whispered. So did the guards. They all asked the same question. What made you snap? What made you hit Vega of all people?
I never answered. They wouldn’t have believed me anyway.
The present settled back around me as I sat in the burial garden. The bottle of whiskey was half empty. My tears had slowed, leaving behind a hollow ache in my chest.
“I miss you,” I whispered, my voice barely more than a breath.
The wind stirred again, brushing softly against my skin. For a moment, I imagined it was her. Then I stood.
“I’ll make this right,” I said quietly. “I promise.”
After finishing the meal beside her grave, I packed everything up and left. By the time the sun dipped below the horizon, I had booked an early morning flight to Vaelune, a small city in the Central Region.
Zelda’s home.
Fiora had already transferred more than enough money for whatever I needed. Which was good. Because there was something I needed to do first. Before I checked into my hotel for the night… there was one last stop I needed to make.
———
Third Person POV
Vega Cortez arrived home a little after eight that evening, fresh off his shift at Silver-Chain.
Like every night, he followed the same routine—pour himself a glass of whiskey and watch a little television before bed. Comfortable. Predictable. He never bothered to look around. Never questioned the quiet.
Never noticed the shadow in the corner.
"Alpha's Oak." The voice was low and almost pleasant, but something about it sat wrong in the silence. "My granddam never cared much for that one. Is it good?"
Vega froze.
The glass slipped from his hand. It shattered against the floor, whiskey spreading across his shoes.
"Who the hell is there?" He spun around. "Show yourself!"
For a brief moment, nothing moved.
Then the shadows shifted. Damarys stepped forward. Her expression was blank. Eyes empty in a way that made his chest tighten.
Vega stared.
“…Frostmere?”
Disbelief coated his voice. Then anger surged up to mask it.
“What the fuck are you doing in my house?!” he snapped, taking a step forward. “You got a death wish or something?”
Damarys didn’t answer immediately. Her gaze drifted across the room instead, taking in the furniture, the decor, the quiet normalcy of it all.
“Such a peaceful life,” she murmured. “For a sociopathic monster.”
Her eyes flicked back to him.
“Guess you just never know.”
“Hey!” Vega’s voice rose sharply. “I asked you a—”
He lunged.
And stopped. Mid-step. His body jerked as if hooked by something unseen. His foot wouldn’t lift.
“What the fu—”
“Did you know,” Damarys said evenly, stepping closer, “the woman who raised me was a wolf-mage, Vega?”
His head snapped up. Confusion flickered. Then fear.
“I thought they were extinct,” he muttered.
“They’re supposed to be. Forbidden. Erased.” She stopped just inches from him now.“But she wasn’t. And oddly enough, I was her apprentice. I’ve learned quite a bit from her. For example…"
Her gaze dropped briefly to his feet.
“Right now, you’re bound to your floor.”
Vega tried again to move. Nothing. Panic surged.
“You won’t be going anywhere,” she added. “And thanks to your little whiskey habit, you won’t be shifting either.”
“What the hell did you do to me, you bitch?!” he snarled, though the edge in his voice was gone, replaced by something thinner.
“I just told you.”
Damarys tilted her head slightly, studying him now.
"You know…Everyone thought I was insane for attacking you that day. Thought I had a death wish." Her lips curved into a faint smile. "But I knew exactly what I was doing.”
Vega swallowed hard.
“I knew you’d lose control,” she continued. “I knew you’d tear into me so badly I’d end up in a hospital. And I needed that.”
His breathing quickened.
“They don’t use silver bindings in civilian hospitals,” Her smile sharpened,“So for thirty days… I was free.”Her voice dropped, almost reverent.“I could build my mana without interference.”
Vega’s eyes widened as realization set in.
“The rest of you never noticed,” she went on. “Didn’t notice I stopped flinching. Didn’t notice the silver stopped hurting.”
A pause.
“I’ve been growing stronger for over a year. And now,” she said, her voice flattening, “you’ll be the first.”
“Wait!” Vega threw his hands up, his composure finally shattering. “Wait, please! I—it wasn’t me!” he gasped. “It wasn’t my idea! That girl—your sister—Thailia—”
“Oh, I know.”
Damarys didn’t blink.
“She paid you. Unfortunately for you, I don’t give a fuck.”
His breath hitched.
“ENGAGE.”
The word snapped through the room like a commandment. Invisible threads coiled tight around Vega’s throat, his chest, his heart. He tried to scream, but the sound died before it formed. His body jerked violently against whatever held him in place, veins straining, eyes wide with terror.
Damarys watched without expression as life drained from him piece by piece. Seconds dragged. Then stillness. Vega’s body sagged where he stood.
She remained there for a moment longer, staring at him.
Unmoved.
He was only the first.
