The silence after Sion's declaration was not empty.
It had substance. It pressed.
Cold and thick, like standing water filling Lyra's mouth and lungs.
She tasted it.
The gold in his eyes burned against the blue-dark of the hall, too steady, too alive.
She was stuck there, held in place by it, like something trapped mid-preservation.
She couldn't move.
She didn't blink.
Somewhere inside her, the part that was still only Lyra—Omega of No Clan, unremarkable, forgettable—was screaming itself raw without making a sound.
This is wrong.
This should not be happening.
Then he moved.
Not stepping. Not really.
More like unfolding. A body remembering how to be dangerous.
He left the dais the way a predator leaves cover, smooth and inevitable.
His silhouette cut through the blue light as he descended the three steps, and there was no hurry in him.
No doubt. Just the quiet assumption that the world would get out of his way.
It did.
The seated Alphas leaned back before they realized they were doing it.
Chairs shifted. Shoulders angled away.
A hollow opened around his path.
The arrogance had drained from their faces. What replaced it was sharper.
Respect, maybe. Or the beginning of fear dressed up as curiosity.
Lyra stayed frozen.
Her feet felt sewn into the carpet.
Her heart hammered so hard she felt it in her throat, in her ears, a relentless rhythm that flattened thought.
With every step he took toward her, the air grew heavier, charged, like a storm pulling itself together in too small a space.
The torches flickered, nervous.
Five meters.
Three.
When their eyes met again, that close, something inside her gave way.
It was not a memory.
It was not an image.
It came all at once.
A rush that erased the hall, the cold, the fear, and replaced it with something raw and ancient that had never learned how to be gentle.
Blood.
The smell of it first. Not fresh.
Old blood, soaked into earth, mixed with rot and rain and bodies left where they fell.
Soil, torn open. Mineral and deep and unforgiving.
Metal on her tongue. Ash.
Copper flooding her mouth, smoke scraping bitter along her throat.
Dust sticking where it didn't belong.
Weight on her shoulders. Chainmail. Rough, dragging.
The damp chill of leather gloves.
Then fingers. Firm. Certain.
Turning her chin toward the light, not tender, not cruel.
Possessive.
The detail was wrong, too sharp. A raised seam in the leather, near the thumb.
Fire against a black sky.
Not one blaze but a consuming one, swallowing the towers of a castle built from dark stone.
Above it, three moons hung in a crooked triangle.
White. Blue. Rust-red.
A man stood before the flames, heat warping his outline.
His eyes caught the fire and held it.
Gold.
The same gold watching her now.
Her body lurched back as if struck.
A sound tore out of her, low and broken, something animal.
Her stomach rolled.
The hall wavered, blue light bending and blurring like it was seen through churning water.
Then pain took over.
The ache in her clavicle, the one she had ignored all day, didn't burst.
It burned.
White-hot, precise, as if something had been pressed directly to the bone and left there.
Her vision went blank, flooded with white.
She clawed at the spot, half-expecting to feel ruin under her fingers.
There was only skin. Hot. Wet with sweat. Whole.
The pain stayed anyway. Alive. Feeding.
Through it, she saw him stop.
He stood close now. Too close to pretend distance still mattered.
His face, unreadable from the dais, resolved into sharpness.
Jaw set. Mouth controlled. Dark brows drawn just enough to matter.
And his eyes—
The gold was real. It floated there, steady and bright, like metal suspended in amber.
He watched her without surprise.
There was something like confirmation in his gaze. A quiet, grim satisfaction.
As if this was how it was always supposed to go.
The hall slipped away.
Sound, scent, movement dissolved.
There was only the space between them, tight and charged, and the echo of a past that did not belong to her but had claimed her anyway.
Her mouth moved before she could stop it.
The words came out rough, thin, barely there.
"I know you."
It wasn't a question. It scared her more than if it had been.
Sion tilted his head. Barely a gesture.
His mouth didn't smile. What crossed his face was smaller than that.
More intimate.
"Yes," he said.
Up close, his voice carried weight. It settled into her bones.
"You always do. Somewhere."
He stepped closer.
He didn't touch her. Just leaned in enough that his shadow wrapped around her.
He breathed in near her temple, slow, deliberate.
Not the ritual scenting the others used.
Something else.
As if he were breathing in the damage. The smoke of memory. The heat under her skin.
"It's beginning again," he said softly, only for her.
There was no pleasure in it. Just exhaustion held together by iron.
"The Harvest never fails."
The word hit her like a blow.
Harvest.
Darkness surged. A sense of being swallowed whole.
She tried to move back. Her legs refused.
Her eyes dropped to his hand.
Black gloves. Fine fabric. Not leather.
But the curve of the fingers. The angle of the thumb.
The same.
Her stomach twisted.
The truth settled inside her, cold and heavy, undeniable.
She did not know him from this life.
She knew him from another.
The thought was too much to hold. But her body already had.
Her marrow understood. The fire in her clavicle understood.
These weren't visions. They were memories.
And he stood in the center of them.
Under three moons. In front of a burning castle.
Touching her face with the same claim he held her with now.
The Master of Ceremonies cleared his throat, scraping dignity together from habit.
"The bond is recognized. Lyra of No Clan is now—"
"Be silent."
Sion didn't raise his voice. He didn't look away.
The old man stopped like he'd been struck.
Only then did Sion extend his hand.
Not to take her. His palm hovered between them, open.
Waiting. Command and invitation tangled together.
Lyra stared at it.
Over it, she saw the other hand. Leather. Ash-stained.
Her clavicle pulsed in time with her heart, the burn spreading, shifting under her skin.
She didn't choose.
Her arm lifted on its own, shaking. Her bare fingers rose.
Before they touched, heat tore down her arm.
Sharp. Blinding.
She cried out and grabbed her shoulder, fingers digging in.
Sion lowered his hand. His face didn't change. His gaze followed her movement.
"The first," he said.
This time there was an edge to it. Something darkly pleased.
"The first Scar shows itself. The Lone Alpha Wolf. Righteous fury."
He knew.
He had known before she did.
Lyra gasped.
Tears broke free, pain and confusion spilling together.
She looked at him through the blur.
"Who," she whispered, "who are you?"
He straightened.
His eyes swept the silent hall once, then returned to her.
"I am your sentence," he said.
Flat. Final.
"And your only refuge. In every life, Lyra. Every one."
Then he turned and walked away.
The hall rushed back in, loud and wrong. Nothing fit anymore.
Under her shaking fingers, her skin was no longer smooth.
It was raised. Rough. Hot.
The first scar.
Proof that she was not broken. That the past had only been sleeping.
And now, it was awake.