Chapter 4 The Shared Cage

Kael’s grip on the silver locket was harsh enough to bruise, his fingers digging into the heated metal as if it might explode in his hand, and the panic twisting across his face looked wrong on him because Kael never lost control, never raised his voice, never let emotion spill anywhere near the surface, yet here he was staring at me with a wildness that made my heart slam hard against my ribs as he kept repeating the same question over and over. "What did you do Lyra, what exactly did you do".

I backed up on the cot, my legs tangled beneath me, trying to breathe through the heat still burning under my skin.

"I didn’t do anything", I said again, my voice breathless, shaking, "I only heated it, I thought it was a key, I was trying to open it, that’s all".

"A key". Kael repeated the word as if it offended him, as if it was blasphemous, as if the idea of me having a key to anything was an impossible sin.

"A key to what, Lyra, do you even understand what this is".

I shook my head, my hands trembling. "My mother gave it to me, Kael, I begged, just tell me what it is".

He flinched, the reaction small but impossible to miss, then quickly crushed the faint blue glow with his fist until the pulsing light finally died. He shoved the locket deep into his inner coat pocket like he was trying to hide the existence of it from reality itself. "You don’t get to ask questions", he said harshly, the cold slicing back into his tone though it wasn’t as stable as before.

"You have proven beyond any doubt that you are not safe alone, that you cannot be trusted with anything, not even your own curiosity".

He grabbed a blanket from the floor and tossed it at me, his movements clipped and agitated. "Get your things, Lyra, you’re moving".

I stared at him stunned. "Moving where, I followed all the rules, I did everything you told me to do".

He spun so fast his coat snapped behind him. "To somewhere I can watch you breathe", he said bluntly. "The attic is too far away, too isolated, too dark. You’re moving to the third floor suite between Caspian’s wing and mine.

We need you contained where you cannot experiment or interfere or accidentally destroy something because apparently leaving you alone is a risk none of us can afford anymore".

He walked out without waiting for my answer, and I followed because what else could I do, my hands scrambling to gather my few belongings. The walk up the stairs felt like walking into a trap, every step echoing with dread as I entered the gleaming hallway where Caspian’s and Kael’s doors faced each other like twin blades, and Kael ushered me into a smaller but luxurious guest suite that suddenly felt like a velvet-lined prison.

He stood in the middle of the room pointing to a security panel near the door.

"Don’t mistake any of this for comfort, Lyra, this is containment, pure and simple, a shared cage because you are a volatile variable none of us can predict. You leave this suite only for meals in the staff kitchen and your tutoring sessions, any attempt to wander or contact anyone or touch that locket again and I will personally lock you in the sub-basement until the walls drive you insane".

I stared at him, hurt and angry. "Why are you all terrified of the locket, if it’s so worthless why didn’t you let the Beta crush it at the Gathering".

Kael stepped forward, his face inches from mine, his voice low and sharp. "Because it isn’t worthless. It is a symbol of a promise and a trigger for a truth we cannot allow to surface. You holding that thing is a threat, Lyra, a threat we cannot explain to you because you are not prepared for the consequences".

Before I could answer a door across the hallway slammed open.

Caspian.

He walked out of his wing dressed in a black dressing robe that looked richer than anything I had ever touched, his expression carved with irritation and disbelief. "What is happening here Kael, have you lost your mind, why is the filth on my floor, why is she beside my door". He strode into my room without waiting for permission, bringing the icy scent of his power with him. "Move her now, I will not tolerate this, her scent alone is an insult, the cheap soap, the metallic sickness, it is unbearable".

The shock of the words stung but the heat in my body was building again, the pressure behind my eyes growing thicker as I stood in front of him. "I didn’t ask to be put here, I said quietly", trying not to break under his stare.

Caspian laughed bitterly, stepping so close I felt his breath against my cheek. "You don’t get to speak to me like that, look down", he commanded, his voice laced with raw Alpha force, look down now.

"I didn’t". I held his gaze, the pressure slamming against me like a wave, but I didn’t drop my eyes and something in the air snapped tight.

Kael touched Caspian’s shoulder. "She stays here, the move was approved, stop making this worse".

Caspian glared at me, his expression unreadable but violent. "Fine, but if she makes a single sound that irritates me, if I hear her footsteps, if she disrupts anything in this wing, I will make her regret existing here". He stormed back into his room, the slam of his door rattling the chandelier.

Kael shot me a final look. "Now you see why you must not make noise, Lyra". And then he walked out locking the door behind him.

The room grew hotter as the night dragged on, the fever climbing until it felt like my skin was burning from the inside. I tossed on the bed unable to cool down, the heat spiking in waves that made my breath come out in broken gasps. At some point I cried out without meaning to, a thin desperate sound that slipped past my clenched teeth.

The lock clicked.

The door opened.

Caspian entered.

He moved straight to me, his frustration turning into something sharper when he saw me curled on the sheets drenched in sweat. What is this, he demanded, "why are you making that sound". He pressed a hand to my ankle and recoiled slightly. "You’re burning, this is not normal".

He pulled me toward him suddenly, dragging me across the bed with one quick motion until he had me lifted in his arms, the shock of the contact mixing with the fever until I couldn’t tell where my body ended and the burning started.

He carried me into the bathroom and set me into a bathtub half-filled with ice cold water. The cold hit me like electricity and I screamed, instinctively trying to climb out, but Caspian held my shoulders down, his grip firm but controlled. "Stop fighting, he snapped, you will cook your insides if this fever keeps going".

I stared up at him, confused, shivering violently, my hair plastered against my face. Caspian’s breathing was uneven, his jaw clenched, his eyes flickering between anger and something else I could not name. The cold water jolted the fever down just enough for my vision to stop spinning.

"Why do I feel like I’m breaking a promise every time I look at you", he whispered suddenly, his voice almost lost beneath the sound of water. He looked at me as if searching for something he couldn’t understand, then jerked back from the intimacy of the moment and straightened. "You need to get out now, dry yourself before you freeze".

He left without looking back.

I climbed out of the tub slowly, shaking so hard my knees almost buckled. When I returned to the bed wrapped in a towel he was gone but something was on my bedside table.

A black glass vial filled with ruby liquid. Wolf medicine. Expensive. Restricted. Rare.

Beside it a small scrap of paper with one word written in Caspian’s sharp handwriting.

Stay.

I stared at the vial, the note, the empty doorway.

I was still a prisoner.

But something had shifted.

And it terrified me more than the fever ever could.