Lyra's POV
Silverfang isn't gone. It's awake. Kaelan's words didn't echo. They settled. Like a blade laid across my bones.
The healer's chamber was suddenly too small too quiet as though the walls themselves were listening. I stayed still. Too still.
"What does that mean?" I asked, carefully. Kaelan's gaze lingered on my face like he was memorizing it. As if I might vanish between one breath and the next.
"It means," he said slowly, "that the North has known where you were hiding longer than you think." My throat dried. "That's not possible." I had been careful.
I had worn another name like a second skin buried Lyra Hale beneath Lila Vance, the omega nobody noticed, and grieved my family in silence.
No one was supposed to know. No one ever did. Except I turned my eyes toward Luna Aeryn instinctively. She did not flinch.
