My nails dug deeper into my collarbone, piercing the blistering skin. The golden energy from my remaining Moonvein surged upward, funneling into my fingertips.

"Lyra, stop!" Kael lunged toward the altar.

I dragged my claws down, tearing through the crescent-moon scar. The scent of winter frost and pine—his scent, the anchor of my soul for twelve years—ignited. Smoke plumed from my flesh. It smelled like a forest fire, suffocating and thick.

"You are insane!" Kael roared, his hands hovering inches from my shoulder. He refused to touch me. He was afraid of the golden fire.

"Insane?" I laughed, the sound wet and jagged. "I am just cleaning house."

The tether inside my mind snapped. The constant, comforting hum of his presence vanished, leaving a hollow, echoing void. For the first time since he claimed me, the psychic link went dead.

Kael stumbled back. His chest heaved. He stared at his own hands, then up at my face.

"I feel nothing," he whispered, his eyes wide. "Your pain... it is gone."

"I kept it all for myself," I told him.

He reached out again, his fingers brushing the space above my collarbone. A flake of charred, blackened skin drifted from my shoulder and landed in his palm. He stared at the dead ash, his expression twisting into absolute shock.

"You destroyed the mark," Kael said, his voice hollow.

"You destroyed the marriage," I corrected. "I just finalized the paperwork."

Light footsteps echoed against the damp cavern floor. Not Kael's tread.

"Kael, the extraction is destabilizing. We need to go."

A woman stepped into the dim light near the blood basin. Selene.

She wore a pristine white dress, untouched by the slaughterhouse mess around her. Hanging from her neck was a silver guest token. The exact token I had signed eighteen months ago.

"You let her in," I said, my voice dropping to a dangerous register.

Selene touched the silver token resting against her collarbone.

"You were so generous, Lyra." Selene's lips curved into a thin, satisfied smile. "When I showed up crying about my broken Moonvein, you asked zero questions. You just handed me a guest pass and opened the gates. You even gave me a room in the upper keep."

"I pitied a crippled rogue," I replied, keeping my eyes locked on hers. "I should have let the winter rot your bones."

"Pity is a weakness for a Luna," Kael interjected. "Selene possesses the tactical mind Silvercrest requires. She understands sacrifice."

"Sacrifice?" I spat, pointing a bloody finger at the half-moon black scar on my left shoulder, right next to the ruined mate mark. "Six years ago at Frost Gorge. Seventeen wolfsbane arrows, Kael. I took seventeen arrows in the back to cover your retreat. I bled black mud for a month while you secured your Alpha title. Did she do that?"

Kael’s jaw tightened. "That was the past. You survived. This is about the future of the pack."

"And my son carries the loot," I noted, shifting my gaze to the shadows.

Orion stepped forward slightly. He hugged a silver box tighter against his chest. The faint, silvery-blue light of my extracted Moonvein illuminated his small face.

"Aunt Selene needs it, Mom," Orion said, his voice steadier now. "She promised to teach me how to cast the moon-shield. You never have time to teach me. You are always too busy healing the border guards."

"I heal them so they can keep you safe, Orion," I said, my chest tightening.

"Aunt Selene says a real leader does not act like a medic," the boy shot back. "A real leader takes power."

I stared at the child I had birthed. The child I had bled to protect.

"Then take it," I whispered. "Take it and run."

I pushed myself up. The silver chains clattered against the stone. Kael had said they would release once the wound clotted. The golden light from my remaining vein had already sealed the worst of the butchery. The metal locks clicked, and the cuffs fell away from my wrists and ankles, slamming against the altar.

Kael took another step back, positioning himself between me and Selene. "Do not try anything, Lyra. You are weak."

"Weak?" I swung my legs over the edge of the altar. My bare feet hit the freezing stone.

"Stay down!" Kael commanded, using his Alpha tone.

The command washed over me and dissolved into nothing. Without the mate bond, his authority was just noise.

I stood upright. The gaping hole in my stomach stretched. Beneath the smeared black blood, a bright golden line fractured across my skin. It spider-webbed outward, tracing glowing veins up my ribs and down to my hips.

Selene gasped, taking a step behind the blood basin. "Kael, look at her skin. What is that?"

"A side effect of the extraction," Kael said, though his voice wavered. He drew his bone-handled blade again. "Lyra, I will not warn you twice. Stand down."

I ignored his weapon. I walked past him, dragging my bloody fingers along the edge of the silver basin. The thick crimson liquid rippled.

"Take the box, Orion," Kael ordered, his eyes locked on me. "Go to the upper keep."

The boy scurried toward the iron doors, Selene close behind him.

"Enjoy the stolen goods, Selene," I called after her. "Let us see if it rots inside you."

The iron doors slammed shut, echoing through the cavern.

I stood alone by the basin. The golden cracks on my abdomen pulsed in rhythm with my heartbeat. The heat radiating from my core was immense, burning away the lingering chill of the stone altar.

I leaned over the thick, dark liquid. My reflection stared back. Pale face, hollow eyes, a chest smeared with gore and ash.

Then, the reflection shifted.

The liquid rippled outward. The image of my face dissolved. Deep within the mirrored surface of the blood, an enormous golden eye snapped open.

"Leave this slaughterhouse, little wolf."

The ancient voice vibrated through the damp stone floor.

I gripped the edge of the silver basin. The thick crimson liquid rippled. Deep within the mirrored surface of my own extracted blood, the golden eye blinked.

"Who are you?" I demanded, my throat raw.

"Leave." The command hit my skull like a physical blow.

My inner wolf threw herself against my ribs. Bone cracked. Pain flared, sharp and blinding. Without Kael's pine scent to anchor the change, my beast remained trapped inside, thrashing blindly. She wanted to shift. She needed to tear through the cavern and rip the throats out of the wolves who had betrayed us. But the physical transformation refused to trigger.

I coughed, spitting a wad of dark blood onto the stone.

I snatched my silver High Warden badge from the floor. The metal felt freezing against my palm. I turned my back on the golden eye and walked out into the biting night wind.

The wooden doors of the Moon Temple stood wide open.

Inside, a woman swept gray dust from the obsidian floor. She wore robes of deep indigo.

"You bleed on my clean floor," she noted, leaning on her broom.

"Iona," I read the name stitched on her collar. "I need sanctuary."

"Silvercrest Lunas do not need sanctuary," Iona replied, her gaze dropping to my stomach.

"I am no longer Luna." I tossed the silver badge onto the altar steps. It clattered against the stone. "I severed the bond. I have nowhere else to go."

I pulled back the torn remnants of my shirt.

Three years ago, I sat at the Moonwell for seventy-two hours, bleeding my Moonvein dry to hold the barrier against a shadow-stalker siege. Three hundred and twelve Silvercrest members survived because of me. Three hundred and twelve tiny silver dots had tattooed themselves across my ribs in gratitude.

Now, only smooth, unblemished skin remained. The broken Luna bond had wiped away every trace of my sacrifice.

Iona stepped closer. She ignored the discarded badge. She stared at the glowing golden cracks webbing across my abdomen.

"You saved three hundred and twelve lives," Iona said, her voice flat. "Where are they tonight?"

"Sleeping safely in their beds," I replied. "Following their Alpha's orders."

"Loyalty is a fragile currency." Iona pointed to the stone bench. "Sit."

I collapsed onto the hard surface. My wolf rammed my ribs again. I grabbed my chest, gasping for air.

"My beast is trapped," I rasped. "The mate bond is gone. I cannot shift."

"You severed a twelve-year bond. Your wolf is in mourning." Iona turned to a wooden cabinet. "She will tear you apart from the inside if she does not find a new anchor."

"I do not want a new anchor. I want to survive."

"Survival requires understanding the weapon inside you." Iona pulled out three oval glass panes framed in tarnished bronze. Moon mirrors.

"Hold still," she instructed, arranging the mirrors in a semi-circle around my torso. "Let us see what your Alpha actually left inside you."

"He took my Moonvein. He gave it to Selene."

"Did he?" Iona adjusted the left mirror.

The glass flared with a blinding white light. Instead of reflecting my ruined shirt, the mirror showed the inside of my abdominal cavity.

I stared at the reflection. A thick, glowing golden root pulsed in the center of the wound. It was not bleeding out. It was moving.

"What is that?" I asked, my voice tight.

"Your second vein," Iona murmured, tilting the right mirror. "But it is not just sitting there."

The second mirror magnified the image. The golden tendrils were wrapping around the lingering pockets of black, necrotic blood left by Kael's bone-blade. The gold light hissed, dissolving the dark fluid and absorbing it into the root.

"It is eating the dead blood," Iona said.

"That is impossible," I countered. "A Moonvein only channels energy. It does not consume."

"Clearly, you do not know your own bloodline." Iona adjusted the third mirror, angling it over the core of the golden light.

"What do you know of my bloodline?" I challenged, gripping the edge of the bench.

"I clean the temple floors. I listen to the prayers of hypocrites. I see many things." Iona tapped the bronze frame. "This vein is hungry."

A high-pitched whine split the air. The bronze frame of the first mirror fractured.

A jagged line split the glass.

The second mirror shattered, showering the stone floor with glittering shards. The golden light from my stomach flared, rejecting the scrying magic.

Iona threw a hand over her eyes and kicked the third mirror away before it could explode.

"Your power is volatile," Iona stated, brushing glass dust from her indigo sleeves.

"Can you stabilize it?" I asked. The heat radiating from my core felt like a furnace.

"I am a temple keeper, not a god." Iona walked back to the wooden cabinet. She rummaged through the lower shelves.

My inner wolf clawed at my chest cavity again. The sheer force of her panic threatened to snap my sternum. I doubled over.

"Make it stop," I gritted out.

"I cannot soothe your wolf," Iona said, turning back around. She held a brass hourglass filled with shimmering black sand.

She walked over and slammed the hourglass onto the stone bench beside me.

"What is this?" I stared at the falling sand.

"A timer," Iona replied.

"For what?"

Iona flipped the brass hourglass over, resetting the black sand. "If you do not let the gold vein complete its first cycle within seventy-two hours, your heart will burn first."

The first grain of red sand dropped through the narrow neck of the brass hourglass, hitting the glass bottom with a sharp tick.

"Lie flat," Iona ordered, shoving my shoulders down until my spine pressed against the cold obsidian floor inside the circle of moon mirrors. "If you flinch when the metal touches your skin, the golden root will puncture your heart."

"Do it," I gritted out, gripping the edges of the stone bench above my head.

Iona knelt beside me, holding a velvet pouch filled with twelve flat, circular discs of cold silver. She pulled the first disc out and pressed it against the glowing skin beneath my right ribcage.

A hiss of steam rose from my flesh. The golden light inside my abdomen recoiled from the pure metal, swerving sharply to the left.

"That is one," Iona said, her voice steady. "The silver acts as a wall. We herd the vein into a loop around your chest cavity until it learns its new path."

"It burns," I rasped through clenched teeth.

"Everything burns when you rebuild from nothing," she replied, pressing the second disc above my hip, then the third near my sternum. "Tell me when the pressure hits your lungs."

"Now," I gasped as the fourth and fifth discs slapped onto my skin. The golden tendril surged upward, fleeing the cold silver, thrashing wildly beneath my ribs like a trapped snake.

"Hold your position, Lyra." Iona grabbed my wrist, pinning my arm flat to the floor as she laid down the sixth, seventh, and eighth discs in a tight arc around my left collarbone. "We are steering it past the main artery now. Do not move."

She reached into the pouch for the ninth piece of silver.

Before her fingers could touch my skin, a violent crimson flash tore through the high arched windows of the temple. The ancient protective barrier around the obsidian pillars groaned, sparking with jagged violet energy before ripping wide open.

A glowing red parchment materialized in the air above my chest, stamped with the unmistakable impression of the Silvercrest Alpha signet.

"A Rogue Seal," Iona said, dropping the ninth silver disc onto the floor. She stepped back, her eyes wide. "He signed a formal banishment order."

The red parchment dissolved into a shower of burning crimson sparks that rained down onto my body. The sparks bypassed the glowing golden vein in my stomach and gravitated to the ruined crescent-moon scar on my left collarbone.

My throat locked up. A scream fought to tear out of my mouth, but my lungs refused to expand.

The Rogue Seal recognized the remnants of Kael's mate mark as an illegal brand on an outcast wolf. The crimson sparks began to scorch the exact same patch of raw, blistered skin I had clawed apart an hour ago, burning deep into the muscle.

"He is stripping your remaining transit rights," Iona yelled over the crackle of burning flesh. "The seal is cutting off the temple's ambient energy! I cannot place the last four discs!"

To my right, the tallest moon mirror vibrated under the pressure of the Alpha's curse. A hairline fracture split the center of the glass, and then the entire pane exploded outward, showering us in sharp, tarnished fragments.

The golden root inside my gut sensed the gap where the mirror had stood. It whipped toward the opening, aiming straight for my heart.

"Lyra, stop the flow!" Iona lunged for the scattered silver discs, but the crimson sparks from the Rogue Seal whipped toward her hands, forcing her back. "If the root touches your heart valves now, you will incinerate!"

I did not waste energy screaming at Kael's cruelty. I did not waste time cursing the red seal that continued to fry the flesh of my collarbone.

I slammed my left palm into the open, bleeding wound on my abdomen.

"What are you doing?" Iona shouted.

"Building a bridge," I snarled.

I scooped a handful of my own thick, dark blood from the cavity and slapped my wet palm against the empty bronze frame of the shattered moon mirror. I dragged my bloody hand in a circle across the metal border, sealing the gap with my own life fluid.

The golden root paused. It sensed the fresh blood coating the frame and turned away from my heart, rushing toward the crimson smear instead.

"Guide it!" I commanded, pointing my free hand at the remaining silver discs on the floor. "Place the ninth piece now, Iona!"

Iona grabbed the silver disc from the stone and slammed it down over my lower ribs, right where the golden light tried to branch off.

The root hissed, bouncing off the silver wall, then followed the path of my blood along the bronze frame. It looped safely around the outer edge of my chest cavity, completing its first full circuit just as the red sparks from the Rogue Seal finally fizzled out against my blackened collarbone.

My head fell back against the obsidian floor. I stared at the ceiling, my chest heaving as the golden light settled into a steady, rhythmic pulse inside my veins.

"You used your own blood to feed the circuit," Iona whispered, staring at the red-stained bronze frame. "You should be dead from shock."

"It takes more than a piece of paper to kill me," I said, wiping a streak of sweat from my forehead.

A cloying scent drifted through the broken temple windows, rolling over the sharp metallic tang of my blood and the lingering smoke of the Rogue Seal.

Gardenias. Thick, sweet, and suffocating.

Above the iron gates at the entrance of the sanctuary, the bronze guardian bell rattled. It rang once. Twice. Three times, echoing through the hollow hall without a single breath of wind to stir the clapper.

I pushed myself up onto my elbows, ignoring the protest of my freshly burned collarbone.

The iron doors creaked inward, pushing aside the scattered gray dust on the floor.

Selene stepped over the stone threshold. She wore a thick wool cloak over her white dress, and hanging front and center against her chest was the silver guest token I had signed for her eighteen months ago.

She smiled, her gaze dropping to the bloody circle on my stomach, and then to the shattered glass surrounding my bare feet.

"Sister," Selene said, her voice echoing brightly across the temple walls. "I am here to take you home."