Maeron did not take me to a tower or a hidden coven, as I half expected.
Instead, he led me deeper into the highlands, away from known paths and borders, to a stretch of land that felt deliberately overlooked. The terrain dipped into a wide basin ringed by stone outcroppings, the air strangely still. Wildflowers grew here in defiance of the harsh climate, pale and luminous under the late afternoon sun.
"A null ground," Maeron said as we descended. "Magic settles quietly here. It will not echo as loudly."
"Convenient," I muttered.
"Necessary," he corrected.
I felt it the moment we stepped fully into the basin. The power under my skin did not disappear, but it quieted, like a restless animal soothed by familiar surroundings. My shoulders eased without my permission.
I hated how much I needed that relief.
Maeron stopped near the center of the basin and turned to face me. "Before we begin, you should understand something."
I crossed my arms. "I don't take oaths."
"Good," he said calmly. "Because this is not instruction. It is survival."
He drew a small blade from his belt and held it out to me, hilt first.
I stared at it. "No."
"You will bleed whether you accept it or not," he said. "The question is whether you do so by accident."
Reluctantly, I took the knife. The metal was cool, humming faintly against my palm.
"Your power responds to threat and emotion," Maeron continued. "That makes it dangerous. Not because it is evil, but because it is honest."
I clenched my jaw. "I've survived worse than honesty."
"Not like this," he said softly. "Now cut your palm."
Every instinct screamed against it, but I obeyed. The blade bit cleanly into my skin. Pain flared sharp and bright, and a bead of blood welled instantly.
The ground reacted.
Light rippled outward in a perfect circle, flowers bending away from me as if pressed by an unseen wind.
Maeron's eyes sharpened. "You see?"
"I didn't do anything."
"Yes, you did," he replied. "You existed."
Heat surged beneath my skin, angry and defensive. The light brightened, pulsing erratically.
"Lyra," Maeron snapped. "Breathe."
I inhaled sharply, then exhaled, forcing the breath out slowly. Again. Again.
The pulsing eased. The light dimmed.
Sweat dampened my spine.
"This is control?" I asked bitterly.
"This is the beginning of it," he said. "You do not suppress power like yours. You anchor it."
He stepped closer, pointing to my chest. "Here. Not here." He tapped my temple.
I laughed humorlessly. "That would be easier if my life hadn't taught me to think first and feel later."
"Then that is the wound we start with."
The words hit harder than I expected.
Training did not look like anything I imagined. There were no chants, no elaborate spells. Instead, Maeron pushed me until my temper flared, until exhaustion frayed my patience, until memories clawed their way up from places I preferred to keep buried.
"Again," he said after I lost control and cracked a boulder clean in half.
"I can't," I gasped, dropping to one knee.
"You must," he replied evenly. "Because next time, it won't be stone."
I hated him for that.
I hated him more for being right.
By the time night fell, my body shook uncontrollably. My palms burned, raw from repeated minor cuts and forced releases. Each time, the power answered faster, stronger, less wild.
Progress measured in pain.
We rested beside a small fire Maeron conjured with a flick of his fingers. The warmth felt undeserved.
"You don't treat power like a gift," I said quietly.
He stared into the flames. "Because gifts can be returned."
Silence stretched.
Finally, I asked, "What happened to the White Wolf you mentioned?"
His jaw tightened. "She trusted the wrong people."
That was all he said.
Sleep came hard and shallow. When it did, it dragged me into fractured dreams. Faces without names. Knees hitting stone. Voices telling me I should be grateful.
I woke snarling.
The sound startled even me.
Maeron was already awake, watching me carefully. "It's starting."
"What is?"
"The instinct to stop apologizing for surviving."
Days passed in a blur of training and bruises. I learned how to draw my power inward instead of outward. How to let it pool instead of surge. How to listen when it warned me rather than when it reacted.
I learned other things too.
Like how far the effects of my awakening had spread.
Maeron brought news reluctantly, always watching my reaction.
"The northern packs are restless," he said one morning. "Borders are tightening. Alphas are asserting dominance aggressively."
I said nothing.
"The Alpha heirs of your former pack have challenged their father."
My hands stilled.
"And?" I asked carefully.
"And lost," Maeron replied. "But not quietly."
A strange emptiness opened in my chest. I did not know what I had expected to feel. Satisfaction. Guilt. Vindication.
Instead, there was only distance.
"They are searching," he added. "All of them."
I met his gaze. "Including him."
Maeron nodded. "Especially him."
I looked away, focusing on the steady rhythm of my breathing.
"He won't find me," I said.
Maeron did not argue.
That night, the bond flared without warning.
Pain speared through my chest, sharp and intimate, like a hand closing around my heart. I cried out, collapsing to my knees as heat surged violently through me.
Images flooded my mind.
Claws digging into stone. Blood on snow. Steel-gray eyes burning with fury and fear.
Caelen.
I gasped his name before I could stop myself.
The bond tightened, pulsing with urgency.
He was hurt.
Not wounded beyond healing, but pushed close enough to danger that the connection screamed for acknowledgment.
I pressed my palm to the ground, anchoring myself the way Maeron had taught me. "No," I whispered fiercely. "You do not get to pull me back."
The bond resisted.
I pushed harder.
Slowly, painfully, it loosened.
When the sensation finally faded, I sagged forward, shaking.
Maeron was beside me instantly. "You resisted a mate bond surge," he said, disbelief coloring his voice. "That should not be possible."
"It is," I replied hoarsely. "Because I chose to."
Something like awe crossed his face.
Far away, Caelen staggered, breath tearing from his lungs as the bond snapped back like a severed rope. He roared, the sound echoing across his territory, fury and something dangerously close to despair twisting his features.
"She's rejecting me," he growled.
"No," one of his warriors said quietly. "She's standing."
Back in the basin, I rose unsteadily to my feet.
My hands were still shaking.
But for the first time since my awakening, the power inside me felt like it was listening.
And that terrified me far more than being hunted ever had.