Thalia
I was still recovering from the betrayal I received from my mate. From the pain of severing my mate bond. It was more like a heavy blow when he chose my sister to be his mate and claimed her in front of me. My fated mate felt nothing for me and it made my heart ache.
In spite of these things my father was only interested in passing judgement.
"Your sentence is death." he had said. His voice booming over the gathering.
I could not refute it. I wasn't given a chance to speak or explain myself. No trial, nothing.
My only crime was refusing to be a servant. I was only standing up for myself and now I was going to die immediately.
The guards seized me. I tried to fight back but my efforts seemed futile as I was tied to the stake. The clearing's firelight roared with sinister promise. The ceremonial stake, scorched at its base, waited like a silent sentinel. I stood at its center, wrists bound with coarse rope that bit into flesh, my chains rattling against the wood. The smoke churned at my face as the High Priestess stepped forward, lantern in hand. Around me, the council, warriors, and pack members watched on. Making a huge gap between them and the stake. No one dared linger near the flames.
My mother's necklace lay against my chest. The only heirloom on my battered body. Cold comfort. A reminder of what had been lost. Now it felt like the only living thing I possessed. I was drew strength from this necklace. And hope that after all these is over I'll finally be with her. The only one who loves me.
"Let the sentence be carried out," Father's voice rang out, distant and hollow. Then the lantern's flame moved toward the fuse at the stake's base, and in that moment time slowed. I swallowed the bitter tang of bile that felt stuck in my throat and forced my knees to hold me steady. My wolf shivered at my heart; she had whispered of surrender. She was sad she couldn't save me. But I didn't need her too.
"The Moon Goddess receive my soul," I whispered, voice ragged. I closed my eyes. The fire leapt up, licking the ropes, climbing the stake. Heat roared into my lungs. My hair caught aflame. Pain exploded through my arms and chest.
But it wasn't over. This wasn't the end. Inhaled the choking smoke and felt the flames consume me. It envelopes my whole being and wrapped around me like a warm blanket. My wolf whimpered but I did not. I had accepted it. The world blurred, and darkness closed around me.
Then the pain shifted. It didn't fade, it changed. It didn't burn away, it burned through. The flames began to burn from inside. A strange light unfurled within me. A resonance. A hum.
I felt my skin blaze, but rather than sear me, it felt like… an awakening. A forging. Fire crystallizing steel inside me. I felt stronger, I felt like I had just become alive. The fire didn't hurt. It surged through my veins like molten metal, charging my blood. My wolf rose, alert, no longer in pain. I felt great power with me. I wasn't alone in the flames, there was someone I couldn't see, strengthening me. A force that wouldn't let harm come to me.
Then the flames rose higher. It begins to spread, it began to consume everything around me. Everything in it's way. I blinked when I heard the High Priestess scream. I glanced upward: her silver robes had ignited in the searing wind that had erupted. She danced in the flames, arms flailing like a marionette, but even the fire refused to claim her. She staggered, screaming, and fled the platform with stinged hair and smoldering skin. Her wails echoed in the night.
I staggered to my feet. I felt the power. A force swirling around me, protective, angry, wild, more intense than anything I'd felt before. I am not the victim. I am not a disgrace. I roared, a low, fur-knitting sound filled with rage and triumph, and the flames leapt like obedient dancers.
The world blurred in orange and ash as the fire spread upward, ripping through the priestess's podium. Pillars collapsed. The sacred stones cracked. Torches toppled, spilled embers. Smoke rushed through the trees.
People scattered. Screams pierced the night. Warriors sprinted away, pulling their pups and lambs. Werewolves snuffed out lanterns, gathering their gear, fleeing into the forest's edge.
My father stepped forth, face ashen. Seraphina clung to Cane's arm, just as I'd imagined she would. But her bravado crumbled when the flames curled around her hems. She bolted like a hound chased by a hawk, dragging Cane behind her.
They fled through the crowd, heads held down, terror in their eyes.
Even Cane.
My heart sank as I watched him retreat. The one I had mourned and betrayed. He ran like every other, trembling before the power I had awakened.
The fire surged again, answering my quiet will. It whirled around me. But when I closed my eyes, it retreated. As if asking me permission. It bowed to me. The clearing burned, but I stood untouched.
My necklace smoldered faintly, mother's gift feeding into the emberstorm inside me. I felt fragile yet unbreakable. The flames died down as if realizing containment. Smoke billowed, but the bonfire splintered, then fell, leaving only scattered embers and ash in the hushed clearing.
It was silent. I stood alone among charred wood and broken stone.
💫
I touched the stake. It cracked under my fingertips. A memory of my intention to burn. But there was no pain. Beyond the charred circle, I glimpsed the bodies of a few wounded in the distance. The Priestess among them, dragged by guards toward the infirmary, her robe smoking, shape distorted. She had been touched, but not taken by the fire. Vengeance had burned for me, but I remained unscathed.
I looked skyward. The moon had passed its zenith. Silver light poured over the clearing and onto my face. I inhaled the wet scent of forest night. The flames fed the dark like creatures awakened.
But I had to leave.
I would never see Greenwood Park again. Not now. Not ever. My mother's necklace pulsed. I wrapped my fingers tighter around its chain, soothing the ache of everything I'd lost. Among the ashes lay the remains of my world. My shackles, my dream of belonging, my everything.
If the park believed I had died, they would not chase me. Exactly what I needed. I turned toward the forest's edge. My body was scratched from chains and guards. Bruises bloomed across my back. But none of that mattered. None of it made me bleed.
I stepped into the dark. The night silent and watching. I rose from the flames with no one to witness my rising. I was deserted. Left to burn to ashes, alone. Only that I didn't burn. I was reborn.
💫
The woods welcomed me as I disappeared into the woods in the dark of the night. The undergrowth was soft underfoot. The air smelled alive again.
With every step, my fear melted. My pain, the bindings, the betrayal. All became living memories rather than chains. I stumbled once, tripping on a root but i kept moving. Moonlight gilded my path home for now, my new home.
I thought of the pack. Their fear. The priests healing their wounds. My sister crowned Luna in my absence.
Would cane ever come back to me?
I doubted it. My death would be their salvation, their story. They would assume I was born to ashes afterall no one could escape that fire. tell tales of the cursed Omega who fought the flames until… until the fire claimed her.
But they were wrong. I still lived. I was alive and free.
A strand of flame flickered in my heart, powerful and restless. It pulsed with promise, wings of power unfurling where once I held nothing but pain.
A shepherd of fire. I could control fire. I paused under a canopy of trees and raised my arms to the moon. I whispered thanks for the unexpected gift. The Messenger of flame, the Moon Goddess had not taken me. She had made me.
I felt her in my bones. I whispered into the night:
"I am free." And I walked further into the night, leaving nothing behind but embers and ruin.
A new life began for me the very day they tried to end me. I ran deeper into the woods until I changed into my wolf. For the first time since I was born, my wolf was happy. She was beautiful, she was energized. This ends my life as an Omega. A new life has begun.