🍂 The warm days of Autumn had turned cold, sharp enough to sting as it swept across the mountain keep. Evening wrapped the war room in gold firelight, maps and scouting reports strewn across the central table where Fin, Jax, and Aeron shared a quiet drink over the day's work.
A courier burst through the doors without ceremony.
He bowed, breath harsh, and presented Fin with a sealed letter marked in Cael's hand. Fin cracked the wax, scanned the message, and the room shifted.
Ten elite scouts lost in the forest barrens.
No return signal.
No trace—except signs of a rogue escalation unlike anything they'd seen in years.
Fin rose before the others could speak. Jax followed. Aeron tore open a portal with a flick of his hand, the air splitting like fabric. All three had bled beside Cael in war. If Cael sent word, it meant something had gone terribly wrong.
Fin, Jax, and Aeron stepped through immediately.
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Hours later, while the keep slept under a cold pre-dawn sky, Nova slipped out of bed and changed into her training suit. It was early, still dark, and the corridors were silent. Elle slept in a peaceful heap of blankets.
Nova was awake because she had been too tired to read what Aeron assigned last night. She picked up the book, sitting on her bed, and started to read.
The door slammed open.
Two guards stormed into her quarters without warning. Nova screamed, high-pitched and terrified, the sound cracking through the quiet room like shattering glass. One guard seized her by the arm, the other by the back of her shoulder, yanking her off the bed so hard the book flew from her hands.
Elle bolted upright, eyes wide, hair tangled. "What are you doing? On what charges?" She scrambled across the blankets toward them. "She hasn't done anything! She's been here all night. Let her go!"
The guards didn't even spare her a look. They dragged Nova backward, rough and unyielding, as if she were a criminal rather than an omega girl barely awake.
"Elle—" Nova gasped, breath shaking, but the grip on her arms tightened until her fingers went numb.
"Answer me!" Elle snapped, furious now. "You cannot haul her off without cause. What is this?"
The guards remained silent.
Silent and merciless.
They pulled Nova into the hall, the torches guttering in weak drafts. No one was awake to see, no advisors, no warriors, no servants. Just the echo of bootsteps and Nova's stumbling breaths as they forced her down the empty corridors toward the lower keep.
Elle's voice rang out behind them, frantic and breaking. "She didn't do anything!"
But the guards didn't stop.
They never even looked back.
They took her to the dungeons. Down to the lowest level, with no windows. Nova blinked stunned. She tried to recall if she had done something.Â
The castle dungeons yawned before her—dark, silent, abandoned. She had always been told these cells were never used. Shadowclaw kept its criminals in the external prisons, far from the royal keep.
She stumbled as they dragged her to the lowest level, the cold biting through her thin training suit. Her breath fogged in the air, her pulse a frantic drum in her ears.
"Please, can you tell me why I am here?" Her voice trembled despite her effort to steady it.Â
They didn't answer. One guard shoved her to her knees. The other left. A moment later he returned with protective gloves and silver cuffs.
Nova's heart stopped.
The metal clamped around her wrists with a harsh click, and the burn ignited instantly. It seared into her skin, crawling up her arms like poured fire. She gasped, the pain ripping the air from her throat. She knew this pain. She was all too familiar with it. Ashbane's favourite method of obedience.
She swayed, breath thin. "Please… I don't understand."
The closer guard kneed her and struck her across the face. Hard.
Her head whipped to the side, her cheek exploding with heat, her vision fracturing. She hit the stone floor with her shoulder, pain ricocheting through her too-thin body.
Her ribs ached. Her jaw throbbed. Her wrists sizzled beneath the silver.
Nova's thoughts blurred, sharp edges dissolving into a haze of fear and pain. The cold stone pressed against her skin. The world tilted—once, twice—and then slipped away from her entirely as darkness dragged her under.
She passed out, the silver continuing its merciless bite.
Nova woke, unsure how much time had passed. Hours? A full day? Her head throbbed with the familiar, sickening fog that always came with silver. In Ashbane, when they cuffed her like this, she would lose time—sometimes whole days. She swallowed hard, refusing to let the memory claw its way to the surface.
Her wrists burned. Her mouth felt dry. Her stomach twisted.
Footsteps approached.
The same guard who had cuffed her stepped into the cell, torchlight casting his silhouette against the wall. Nova pushed herself up with trembling arms.
"Please… sir," she managed, her voice cracking from thirst and fear. "Can you tell me what I did?"
He didn't hesitate. His tone was cold, almost bored. "You assaulted a member of the Shadowclaw Royal Family. That is the charge."
Nova blinked, confusion slicing through the haze. "There must be some mistake, I didn't—"
He struck her before she even finished speaking.
The back of his hand cracked across her cheek, sharp and merciless. Her head snapped sideways and pain burst along her jaw. She hit the ground on her knees, breath knocked from her lungs.
"That is what you get for assaulting and stealing from our future Luna." He punctuated the words with a kick to her ribs, sending her staggering against the stone wall.
She stared at him, stunned and breathless, her mind scrambling to make sense of his accusation. Meredith? Assaulted Meredith? Stolen? The thought was so absurd she nearly laughed—if she'd had the strength.
Should she try to explain again? Or was that just plain stupid?
He stared back at her, eyes narrowing. Without hesitation, he struck her again.
The blow was harder. Brutal. Her vision burst white. Her knees buckled.
She fell forward, her cheek smacking the cold stone floor, her breath leaving her in a sharp, helpless gasp.
The silver bit deeper into her skin and all she could do was endure.
His footsteps faded down the corridor, swallowed by the stone.
Silence pressed in around her.
And in that silence, Ashbane memories clawed back into her mind.
The silver cuffs biting into her skin.
The taste of blood in her mouth.
The cold stone under her cheek.
The feeling of being alone, forgotten, punished for things she never did.
A memory snapped forward—Ashbane's guards dragging her by her wrists, silver burning deep, her body too weak to fight. A boot in her ribs. The sound of the tower door slamming. The same emptiness. The same helpless, breathless terror.
Panic flared inside her so violently she almost choked on it.
Her chest tightened. Her lungs refused to expand. Her pulse hammered, too fast, too loud, drowning out thought. She tried to inhale, but the air caught sharp and thin, like her throat had closed.
Her breaths came quick, shallow, useless.
She had never hyperventilated before. She didn't even know this was what it felt like. She just knew she couldn't breathe—couldn't get air—couldn't steady herself. The stone floor seemed to tilt beneath her, her vision swimming as the panic strangled her from the inside.
Her fingers curled against the ground.
Her shoulders shook.
The burn of the silver spread like fire through her veins.
Her body remembered Ashbane far too well and it betrayed her completely.
She started seeing spots and somewhere lost consciousness.