Lyra's Pov

Pain was the first thing I felt, then a weird smell. 

Rogue wolves. My body knew something was wrong before my mind did.

Sitting up, my back against a rough wooden post, inside what appeared to be a run-down house. My wrists were bound with heavy chains behind my back and my ankles with chains that dug into my skin as I moved. There was only one lantern burning in the room around me and through the weak light, I saw five masked people standing in an unconfined circle around me.

There was fear in my stomach, but I did not let it show on my face. I had been studying at the Royal War Academy for three years learning how to control myself when it mattered. I would never give up that discipline.

"Who are you?" My chin lifted, my eyes pounding, I demanded. "Have you got an idea what you've done? I'm Silvercrest's Alpha."

There was a low voice from the biggest of the masked men that said, "We know exactly who you are." He came forward, his demeanor exuding command over the others. "That is why you are here, "

"Then tell me yourselves," I said. "What possible reason could there be for kidnapping the Alpha of the most powerful pack in the empire? It's either you are very powerful or very stupid." 

The leader ignored my insult, "You gave permission to build a military fortress on the northern border.  But now you will sign the papers that give it over." 

I looked at him for a considerable time before I started laughing. I could tell from his stiffened shoulders that it wasn't the reaction he was looking for.

"Do you want me to give Ashthorne land to criminals wearing masks?" I said. " do you know the battles I and my family went through to get that land? I fought off three different packs challenging my ownership of it. I earned that fortress, and I will not give it up just because some rogues threaten me in some decrepit house." 

The leader  hissed and his voice lowered. "Your pride is going to get you killed."

"My pride?" I said, I looked him in the eye, I didn't flinch. "More than my pride, it is survival I should be concerned with; my royal guards are already looking for me, my knight won't rest until he finds me and when he does, I promise you, all of you will be hunted down and executed for treason against the crown."

His mask glinted in the light of the lantern and for a while, there was a stillness between us. Then his hand moved so fast that I did not have time to brace myself. I got hit in the face and my head snapped to the side, and I felt a burning sensation on my face.

He ordered the others to leave her; his voice was tight with anger. "Leave her to sit alone until she remembers her place."

As they walked away the steps went back, the door creaked shut and the lantern light went out, leaving me alone in the dark. The headache, the pain in my neck and other body parts  were too great to withstand. My vision was hazy at the corners, and again darkness had taken me over.

The second time I awoke, the odour of wet wood had been superseded by the aroma of wet earth and pine. The cold air hit my skin and I could see above me a dark canopy of branches reaching up to a starless sky, but instead of a cracked ceiling there was none. They had taken me to a forest.

My chains were still on my wrists and ankles, but now the rogues around me were hastening to pack up as though they were about to leave.

"Where are we heading to now?" I demanded, my voice strong although exhaustion tugged at my body. My guards will find this place, my knight will not cease searching. "Running away already? You can run but you can not hide. My knight will haunt you down and I will make sure my face is the last thing you see as I end your miserable lives."

This time, when the leader turned to me, he was not angry, but rather he laughed. The sound was cold and hollow and it chilled me, no more than the air of the night.

"It's okay, you can stop daydreaming , nobody is coming for you," he said.

"You're lying," I said, but my voice tightened with fear in my chest at his tone.

"Am I?" he asked, bending down to my height. "Tell me, Alpha, did it never occur to you how easily we took you? It was like taking candy from a defenseless, helpless, little baby!"

"What do you mean?" I asked, sealing the knot that formed in my throat. 

The leader stood up straight and smirked, spitting on the floor before he spoke again, "Someone inside your own pack sold you to us. Were you sure that all the council members attended your coronation liked you? Do you think those guards who swore to protect you with their lives like you? Do you think everyone who had been by your side all along did that cause of love or duty? No!" 

I shook my head, refusing to let his words get to me even though deep down I know he is not wrong, "You're lying," but my voice broke again. "Someone close to me? I pay my guards well and take care of them, your filthy gold will never make them sell me!" 

"What makes you think it's about money? Sometimes it's personal and not business!" The leader mocked. 

"Who? Who has a score to settle with me?" I demanded.

•That's not information you are entitled to," he replied, straightening himself back to standing tall. 

He pulled a knife  from under his coat and drew it out.

As soon as the knife  absorbed the light of the moon, I froze. The dagger was made of pure silver and had no flaws; silver that only exists in the mines of Silvercrest. The ability to craft an ideal blade was possessed by only one master blacksmith throughout the empire.

When I got a flash of recognition, my mind scrambled for an explanation as to how a rogue would have such a weapon!

I knew that dagger.

It was my own commissioning. I had seen the blacksmith make it for weeks, every detail, every curve of the handle insisted upon. It was an original gift from my hands!

It was Kael's dagger.

Even before I could speak, before I could even grasp the horror that was unfolding before me, the rogue leader moved. In one motion, the blade cut across my throat.

Pain cut through me, a hot sharp sting, taking my breath away. I felt my body slump against the chains and all around my vision blurred until it was clouded with darkness.

Yet in my darkening world, my eyes never strayed from that dagger, stained with my own blood.

I'd given that blade to the only man I had ever trusted my heart to. The only man that I ever loved.

The pain of the wound was less compared to  the pain of my heartbreak. I knew somewhere in the last morsels of my failing mind, that Kael had sold me to my enemies. All we had shared, all the quiet times, all the stolen moments, all the touches had been fake.

"Sometimes it's not business but personal." 

There was one thing I believed when I died.

Kael was the one who betrayed me.

Lyra's POV

"No!" I screamed as I woke up, covered in sweat.

My hands were reaching toward my throat, trying to stop the bleeding but there was no wound. My skin was smooth and smooth, and wet with sweat, and my heart pounding wildly under my fingers.

I couldn't breathe.

The coldness of the silver slicing through my throat came back again and again and again in my mind, and it was as if I were stung all over again. My chest rose and fell in my struggle for air, my eyes scanning around the new darkness, until I saw the outline of my dormitory desk, packed suitcases by the door, the moonlight falling on the same window it had fallen on before.

The door burst open.

"Lyra!" I heard yelling and frantic movement as Kael quickly went into the room, still dressed for the night, looking around for anyone who looked dangerous, then settling on me. "What happened? Are you hurt?"

My voice broke and I said, "I-". I struggled to get the words out of me. How was I going to tell him that I had just witnessed my own death?

"Lyra, " he said again but this time softly, and he came across the room and knelt by my bed. "Talk to me. What happened?" He asked as he placed gentle kisses on my hand. 

Finally I could get the words out, my voice shaking, "A nightmare. It was a nightmare."

He looked at my face closely, opened his mouth to say something but he closed it. Instead, he came up to me and stroked slow circles over my back, as he had done many times before when I was tired or stressed out during our time at the academy.

He whispered, "You are safe. Whatever it may have been, it was not real, you are here and you are safe."

Slowly, my breathing evened out, though the fear coiled tight in my chest refused to fully release its grip.

"Stay," I whispered, and I couldn't stop myself. "Please, I don't want to close my eyes again. Please stay with me...please don't leave me." 

Kael paused, his eyes darting to the door. "Lyra, if anyone sees me here after dark, it's against all academy rules."

I looked him in the eye, " I don't want my knight, I want my man." 

He appeared to be slightly off balance in his expression, the formal calmness he seemed to always have.

"Alright," he said as he pulled me closer to his chest and placed a kissed on my forehead, slowly running my back. 

Soon, sleep once more took me.

When I opened my eyes and the sun was shining through the window and Kael stood  beside my bed, wearing his ceremonial armor. 

"Good morning ." I greeted as I sat up. 

He replied, "Good morning little  miss alpha . The heads asked you to be with them  and complete your  clearance, your uncle wants you to be home before the coronation."

Something was off. 

Those words. That exact wording. I had heard them before, word for word, on a morning that was supposed to have ended long ago.

"What did you say?" I whispered, "I ask...".

"Your clearance," Kael repeated, giving a slight frown at my response. "Is something wrong?"

"No," i  said and forced myself to move and breathe  despite the fear in my stomach. "Nothing's wrong."

I walked from the grounds dressed in silence, silently, and silently, alone, to the administration building, each step of the way being a rehearsal of what I had already experienced. The clearance process went through as usual. My steps turned back to the dormitory, following the same rhythm. I knew who was calling before I even saw the caller's name on my phone before it rang.

I replied "Uncle Regulus".

"There she is ," my uncle said with that same warm pride in his voice. "The girl who made history..."

It was exactly as I remembered, every word, every joke, every saying to hurry home, my people awaited me. As the call ended, my hands were shaking.

It was not déjà vu. This was a repeat of something I know for sure happened.

The confusion morphed into fear as I scrambled into the car that would bring me back to Silvercrest. I looked out the window, trying to calm my frantic mind, and the world around me fell still. 

The journey back home began. For a weird second, I could have sworn everything tilted.

All turned to a sea of dazzling white light, and in front of me was a faceless figure, his shape and outline lost within the light that surrounded us.

"Kael... I think I'm hallucinating again." I mumbled. 

The stranger replied, "You are not hallucinating. I come bearing important message. Your death ... the nightmare was true, but you have been given a second chance to change your fate."

"Who are you?" I demanded, my voice becoming sharp with fear and desperation. 

He didn't answer. Rather it was the white light around us that changed, and I got a vision that turned my stomach over. I saw  my parents, many years younger, surrounded by silver blades stained dark with blood. My mother's face was frozen in fear, my father's body fell to the ground.

As the vision receded, the stranger said, "There is a connection between your parents' deaths and your own murder. Don't mis use  the opportunity you have been given."

"Wait" I said, extending my hand toward him as his shape fuzzed out even more. "Tell me more please. Who did this? Who-"

He pressed something into my hand before he disappeared altogether. A small shiny stone. 

I blinked my eyes open.

I was in the moving car  again, with the sunlight coming in through the window, just as it had been before the vision started. A pounding in my ribs, in my heart, as I gazed at my hand.

The stone  was still in my hand.

I just sat there, unable to move, unable to breathe, as the truth sank in.

I raised my head slowly to Kael's, who was sitting across from me, his gray eyes placid, oblivious to the battle raging within my mind. It had all changed, and now I felt nothing for him but coldness and emptiness.

It was the image of that silver dagger that I had given him, with my own hands, that had taken my life, that came back behind my eyes.

I made just one discovery.

Kael had me killed.