Chapter 3

Flora's tears slid down her cheeks. "Sister, I only love that ornament because Mother always said she hoped I would wear red and silver at my bonding ceremony."

"I only wanted to honor her wishes. I'm just a half-blood. I don't dare dream of much. Is even this small thing not allowed?"

Kael caught my wrist as I turned to leave.

His grip was hard — hard enough to bruise. "Lyra." His voice was low and taut. "Name a price for the moonsilver ornament. I'll buy it from you outright."

Before I could pull away, his other hand reached up and unpinned the ornament from my hair.

I hadn't moved fast enough. My hair tumbled loose over my shoulders.

For a highborn pure-blood daughter, to have her hair unbound before a crowd was one of the deepest humiliations a woman could suffer. It was an exposure — an unmaking.

Kael knew this. He did it anyway.

He passed the ornament to Flora. "Stop crying. I'll pay your sister for it. Consider it a bonding gift from me."

The fury that rose in me was clean and absolute.

I struck him across the face.

The crack of it rang through the room. Five marks bloomed red against his cheek.

"Flora," I said sharply, reaching out. "Give it back."

Flora stumbled backward. The ornament slipped from her fingers and hit the stone floor.

Then, deliberately — so deliberately — she stepped on it.

"Oh no," she breathed. "It broke."

The moonsilver shattered into fragments beneath her heel. The chain snapped. The carefully wrought links scattered across the floor like fallen stars.

She pressed her hand over her mouth. "Sister, if you didn't want to give it, you only had to say. I would have handed it back. You didn't have to grab — I didn't mean to drop it, I was startled—"

"Please don't be angry. I'll give you all my moon-allowance to buy a new one. All right?"

I lowered myself to the floor. I stopped thinking about my hair, about how I looked, about anything except gathering every piece. One by one I picked them up, my hands steady even as my eyes burned.

Tears fell on the backs of my hands and did not stop.

Kael crouched beside me, reaching to help, his voice awkward. "It's only an ornament, Lyra. Don't make this uglier than it has to be."

"Stop crying. I'll replace it — five pieces, ten if you want."

I shoved him away. I did not let him touch a single fragment. I folded them all into my handkerchief and held it tight.

I looked up at him, and my voice was flat. "Kael Dawnfang. You could not afford to replace this."

Flora opened her mouth again. I turned and struck her across the face before she could speak.

"Flora." My voice did not shake. "You knew this was the bonding inheritance my mother left me. She asked me, at the end, to wear it at my ceremony. You knew. And you destroyed it deliberately."

"Remember this. I will not forgive you. I will collect what is owed."

Kael stared at me. "What — Lyra — this was your mother's inheritance? Why didn't you say?"

I looked at him the way you look at something you once valued and no longer do.

"Saying anything further to someone like you makes me sick."

"Heir Dawnfang. You have made your choice. Live with it well. From this day, you are a stranger to me. Do not call me Lyra again. We are nothing to each other."

That night, I stood in the clan's sacred chamber before the royal mandate.

My father stood beside me, his eyes wet.

"Father," I said quietly. "I am willing to go to the Crown Wolf's palace."

He shook his head, his voice rough. "The Prince is gravely ill, Lyra. Going to him — it's not a bonding. It's a sacrifice. Please, if you are unwilling, let your grandfather find a young warrior in the Moonguard for you. Anything would be better than this."

I shook my head.

"The mandate stands. Had it been Kael Dawnfang, there might have been room to maneuver — the Queen knows our clans once had an informal promise. Anyone else would be defying the Crown."