The first thing Lyra felt was weight—a strange heaviness behind her eyes, as if sleep had been replaced by damp wool. Something warm pressed against her cheek, maybe a pillow, maybe a cloth. Her breathing felt thin, dragging in and out like a reluctant whisper.
Then came the voices.
Not loud. Muted, muffled, like echoes coming from behind a closed door. But familiar—servants' feet shuffling, healers murmuring in their low tonal growls, the crisp ring of a metallic bowl beside her bed.
But none of these sounds mattered.
Because the moment she became aware of the world again, her mind instinctively fled backward—far beyond the small infirmary chamber she lay in, far beyond her current age, beyond the political chaos she had unknowingly triggered.
She slipped into the past with the ease of someone who had been swallowed by it her whole life.
Lyra remembered the day she finally understood she was wrong.
She had been five. Small. Barely the height of her mother's knee. Her two older sisters—Serene and Callia—were watching her with narrowed eyes, their three flowing tails swaying gracefully behind them like banners at a royal parade.
Meanwhile hers—her single, pitiful, lonely tail—stood out like an ugly birthmark.
Her father, Lord Ulfo, had looked at her with thinly veiled disappointment from the moment she was born. But on this particular day, he said the words she would never forget.
"She is incomplete."
A servant had gasped softly. One of the guards had averted his gaze.
Her mother, delicate and soft-spoken, held Lyra close and whispered, "You are not incomplete, sweetheart. Just… different."
But even as a child, Lyra saw the fear in her mother's eyes. A fear that she was trying desperately to bury beneath kindness.
Different meant defective.
Different meant a burden.
Different meant a stain on the bloodline of the ruling house of Feleris—a clan defined by elegance, agility, political sharpness, and three tails, the sacred number of balance and destiny.
Lyra's single tail broke the pattern.
So they broke her spirit in return.
When her mother was alive, Lyra lived in a soft bubble—thin, fragile, but present. Her mother defended her, shielded her from gossip, corrected the servants when they dared speak sideways about "the one-tail princess."
But when her mother's illness worsened, everything changed.
At first, it was subtle.
A servant refusing to meet her eyes.
A guard stepping around her as if she were a stain on the floor.
Her sisters whispering deliberately loud enough for Lyra to hear.
"Why is she still allowed in the main hall?"
"She brings misfortune. Look—Mother is sick again."
"She was born wrong. Maybe that sickness leaks from her."
Children absorbed blame like air.
Lyra was no exception.
She believed them.
Because it was easier to blame herself than to accept the truth: that people could be cruel without reason.
She learned to walk quietly so she would not be scolded.
She learned to speak softly so she would not irritate anyone.
She learned to bow her head so no one could say she was defiant.
And on the worst days, she learned to hide her tail beneath long coats so she wouldn't be reminded of what she lacked.
But the tide of cruelty rose regardless.
By the time she was eight, even the palace guards—once firm but honorable—had begun openly sneering at her.
"You walk like a human child."
"No balance. No grace. She's practically half-blood."
"Her mother's sickness… no wonder."
Each sentence carved itself into her bones.
The memory hit Lyra with painful clarity.
She remembered sitting beside her mother's bed, holding her frail hand, the warmth fading little by little. Her mother had been a beacon in a sea of hostility—a lone figure who believed Lyra's existence was not a mistake.
When her mother's final breaths came, the palace seemed to exhale in relief.
Not sorrow.
Relief.
Lyra did not cry when her mother died.
She was too stunned.
Too hollow.
But she cried later.
Not because her mother was gone—though that agony was deep and sharp—but because she finally realized what her mother's presence had protected her from.
The palace turned on her instantly.
Her father stopped speaking to her.
Her sisters sneered openly.
The servants whispered with no effort to hide their disdain.
The guards called her "the cursed one-tail" to her face.
And worst of all…
Her mother's last words became her only lifeline.
The memory of that secret conversation—her mother's voice trembling, her fingers gently tucking Lyra's hair behind her ear—returned to her like a warm echo.
"Lyra," her mother had whispered, "your life will be difficult. People fear what they do not understand. But someday… someone will come for you."
Lyra had blinked up at her, her eyes round and wet.
"Come for me?"
"Yes. A prince."
Lyra had frowned. "From our people? But everyone hates me."
Her mother smiled—a smile soft enough to break the sky.
"Not a beastman prince," she said. "Someone different. Someone who stands apart from destiny. He will appear under the moonlight, handsome and radiant… and he will take you away from this sadness."
Lyra had clung to that prophecy.
It was strange. Uncertain. Childish, even.
But it was the only kindness that ever promised her escape.
So she waited.
Night after night.
Year after year.
Looking at the moon and whispering her mother's promise back to herself.
"A prince will come for me. A prince will take me far away."
Growing older did not make her life easier.
If anything, it sharpened the cruelty around her.
Her sisters excelled in politics, diplomacy, and combat—each flaunting their three tails like golden trophies.
Lyra learned etiquette, literature, negotiation strategy, and the subtle dance of noble presentation. But none of it mattered.
Because no matter what she achieved, people whispered:
"She is still one-tail."
"She will always be a defect."
"No one will ever want her."
"She should be grateful she is allowed to live in the palace at all."
She grew up learning more about loneliness than love.
More about duty than dreams.
And far more about cruelty than compassion.
Her one comfort was the moon.
It was the only thing that made her feel seen.
Lyra remembered that day with bitter clarity.
She had been returning from a diplomatic mission—one she wasn't really trusted with, but forced into because no one else wanted to negotiate with a minor border clan.
The attack came swiftly. Brutally.
Her escort had been overwhelmed.
Her carriage overturned.
Her body thrown down an embankment.
She would have died.
She truly believed that.
But then…
A boy—no, a young man, human, barely her age—appeared like a sharp blade through fog.
He fought alone.
Fought as if death itself feared him.
When Lyra woke from her faint during the chaos, the last thing she saw before losing consciousness again was that same young man standing under the moonlight, blade dripping, gaze sharp but oddly serene.
His hair caught the light.
His eyes glowed faintly.
For a moment—
Just a fragile, fleeting moment—
He looked exactly like the prince from her mother's prophecy.
Her breath had snagged in her throat.
"Is it… him?" she had whispered before blacking out.
---
Lyra blinked.
Her vision finally sharpened. The infirmary's dim lanterns glowed warmly above her. The rhythmic clang of guards patrolling outside reminded her she was still in Felinte Dominion, still trapped in the palace that despised her.
Her body ached. Her throat felt dry. She could barely move.
And then, memory sliced into her chest.
The elders' debate.
Her father's humiliation.
Her own role as a pawn.
Erry being dragged into this mess.
Erry.
The human boy.
The swordsman who saved her.
Her breath tightened.
He wasn't the prince her mother described.
He was… ordinary, in appearance. Polite, stoic, calm, annoyingly unreadable. And yet, strong beyond reason. Full of a quiet resilience.
But he didn't glow under the moonlight.
He didn't feel radiant.
He didn't feel destined.
He felt… accidental.
And the disappointment that flooded her chest was sharp and disorienting.
Her mother's prophecy…
Her only hope through childhood…
The dream she clung to for survival…
"Was I wrong all along?" Lyra whispered to the empty room.
Her vision blurred with tears she didn't want to shed.
"Is he… not the one? Not the prince meant for me?"
She curled her fingers weakly around the blanket, her chest trembling.