MORANA
What?
The Elder walks towards me, studying me with a grave expression. "This one… she is not what she appears to be. The ring was designed to hide her nature until she turned eighteen. But now the seal is broken, and the truth has surfaced."
I flinch, the weight of his words crashing into me. "What truth…?" The words escape my mouth before I realize it.
Another Elder answers instead, his voice flat. "That you are half-human."
Gasps erupt across the room, piercing my ears like a blade.
Half-human.
Wolfless.
It takes a second for the word to register, but once it does, it echoes inside my mind like a war drum. My knees threaten to give way, but I force myself to stand.
Tonight, I was supposed to awaken my wolf during the ceremony but I merely thought it's taking me some time to hear her. Nothing felt amiss… until now. Yet, I am unwilling to believe it.
"No… no, that's not—" My voice cracks. "That can't be true... My mother was—"
"She was human," the First Elder cuts me off, his voice dignified and aloof. "Your father used the ring to hide it. He knew what she was and he knew what you were. That ring suppressed the truth until today."
The accusation slices through my chest. All my life, I thought I was just fragile. Just a little different, nothing close to the defect that father calls me.
The crowd feels like it's closing in. Whispers swell around me like a rising tide, drowning the air I need to breathe.
"She's wolfless?"
"Half-human? How is that even possible that nobody noticed?"
"Didn't you see that ring? It was some strange cursed artifact!"
"So, all along… she was manipulating the Alpha…"
Zacreus is still behind the wall of Elders, a storm brewing in his eyes. But he doesn't push forward again. He just… watches as something unreadable flickers across his face.
No.
I shake my head, heart clawing at my ribs. This isn't real. This can't be real.
My father wouldn't—
Would he?
An Elder turns, speaking urgently to another, but I barely hear them.
And then, I hear someone speaking behind me.
"Beta Hale is gone. We can't find him anywhere."
The words seem to ignite the room and my blood turns cold.
A few guards rush past. A scout howls an alert, echoing through the corridors.
"Gone?" the First Elder snaps. "During the Rite?"
They're panicking now. I see it in the sudden stiffness of their shoulders, the way they exchange glances like wolves who've sensed a trap too late.
The Second Elder turns back to me, his voice sharp, "I doubt this scheme was only orchestrated by your father. As his daughter, how could you not know anything?" He doesn't mince his words, "I believe you had known it all along too."
I glance at Zacreus, desperate for something, anything, in his eyes to tell me he doesn't believe it. That it doesn't matter. That I'm still his.
But his gaze has changed.
He isn't looking at me the way he did moments ago. His expression has hardened as the betrayal swims in his eyes, sharp and unmistakable.
As if he doesn't know me anymore.
As if… I've lied to him.
'Thump'
A person drops to his knees in front of Zacreus suddenly, "Alpha, as the Third Elder of the pack, I do not deserve forgiveness for what I have done," he howls, and gazes at me with hatred.
An uneasy feeling stirs in my chest.
"Years ago, I had uncovered signs of the former Alpha's death not being the accident it was claimed to be. During that mission years ago… someone tampered with the route, the escape plan. All the trails led to one name."
Zacreus's jaw clenches, a storm stirs in his eyes.
"Beta Vale," The third elder finished.
The world seems to tilt.
I feel cold all over.
"And… you are telling me now?" Zacreus's voice is unnervingly calm.
The Third Elder trembled, ''The Apha has been on close terms with Beta Vale and his daughter so I did not dare to… It's all my fault. It's all my fault…"
"Guards, drag the Third Elder out!" Zacreus's voice rings through the hall like a death's knell.
The First Elder steps forward, his voice cutting through the stunned silence. "Beta Hale orchestrated the former Alpha's downfall. And all along, it appears he planned to position his own daughter… close to the Alpha."
My ears ring and my vision turns blurry by the tears that obstruct my gaze.
The Ancestral Hall is still echoing with voices when a strong hand clamps around my wrist.
Zacreus storms out of the Ancestral Hall with my wrist caught in his iron grip.
The world blurs around me, flashes of stunned faces, whispers slicing through the air but I can't process any of it.
My heart pounds like a war drum, and my legs scramble to keep up with his long, furious strides.
He doesn't speak and neither does he look at me.
He just leads me deeper into the woods behind the Hall, away from the murmuring crowd, the elders, and the questions I still can't find answers to.
"Zacreus—" I start, breathless, but he whirls around and slams me into a tree before I can finish.
The bark bites into my back. His chest heaves, wild and strained. His eyes, those storm-dark eyes I've dreamed of for years, are blazing and unreadable.