POV: Soraya
It feels like my skull is splitting.
I double over, clutching my head, the cup slipping from my grasp. Stone shatters against stone as it hits the edge of the basin. Water splashes onto the sand and onto Zarek’s boots.
Gasps ripple through the gathered crowd.
“Soraya!” my mother cries.
“Soraya, stand up,” my father hisses. “Now.”
But I can’t. The pain is too much. It races down my spine, bursts behind my eyes. I squeeze them shut, but light still sears through my lids—cold, sharp moonlight, forcing its way out of me.
My wolf is no longer pacing, she is roaring. A scream tears from my throat.
Then the world explodes into color.
It’s as if a hand strips the night away. I feel my hair burn cold where it frames my face. When I blink my eyes open again, everything looks wrong—too bright, too clear. The lanterns glare like suns. The sweat on people’s faces glimmers like tiny mirrors.
I see it first in the water. Despite the spilled portion, a thin layer remains in the basin, reflecting my face.
Not my face. A stranger looks back at me—same features, same mouth, same bones. But my dark hair now bears a distinct, stark streak of white from temple to nape, glowing against the rest like a bolt of lightning.
And my eyes… they are no longer Saren brown.
They blaze a clear, unnatural blue—the color of desert ice, of ancient stories whispered at night.
Someone inhales sharply. “Zehrael.”
The word slams into me. Another voice, higher, panicked: “She’s moon-marked! Look at her eyes!”
“The cursed tribe—”
“Get away from her—”
Feet shuffle backward. The circle around the basin widens as people recoil. The wedding guests who were smiling and murmuring minutes before now stare as if I’ve grown fangs.
“Zehrael,” someone repeats. “In Saren?”
My heart stutters.
“I’m not—” My voice shakes. “I don’t know what this is—”
Darron steps forward slowly, like a predator approaching a wounded animal. His face is unnatural in its stillness.
“Lysara,” he says quietly, too quietly. “What did you do?”
My mother moves before I can. She comes to my side, one hand reaching to steady me, the other pressed against her chest. “Darron, she needs a healer—”
He rounds on her with sudden fury, eyes burning. “What did you do?” he roars. “Answer me!”
Lysara flinches. “She’s your daughter. Our daughter. She—”
“Zehrael,” he spits, as if the word itself is poison. He jabs a trembling finger at my face. “Look at her. Look at her eyes. Look at her hair.” His voice rises, wild. “I have no Zehrael blood. None. So tell me, Lysara—how did this happen?”
The murmurs around us grow louder. People are no longer pretending they can’t hear.
“I never—” Lysara’s voice cracks. “Darron, please, listen to me—”
He draws his sword. Time slows; the silver blade comes free of its sheath with a hiss that sounds like finality.
“Father,” I choke. “Stop—”
He doesn’t look at me.
“This union was meant to strengthen Saren,” he says, tone sharp as flint. “Not reveal that my House has been polluted by a cursed tribe.”
“Polluted?” My knees wobble. “I didn’t choose this—I didn’t know—”
“Silence!” he snarls.
My mother steps in front of me fully now, arms spread as if she can shield me with her own slight body.
“Do what you want with me,” she says. Her voice shakes, but she does not back down. “But she is innocent. She’s just a girl, Darron. Your girl. Whatever blood she carries, she is yours.”
His face twists. “Mine? No. She was never mine, was she?”
Lysara’s lips part. “I would never betray—”
The sword flashes. For a heartbeat, I think he’s only swinging it through the air in warning. Then the steel bites.
There is a wet sound, a small gasp, and my mother’s body lurches backward into me. I catch her by instinct, arms wrapping around her waist as we both collapse to our knees.
Warmth spreads over my hands. I pull them back and they are red.
“Mother,” I whisper.
She blinks slowly, as if the world is becoming very far away. “My star,” she breathes, voice barely a whisper. “I’m sorry.”
“Stay with me,” I gasp. “Please, stay with me—”
Her fingers curl weakly into the fabric of my dress. Her head tilts against my shoulder. Her blood seeps into the pure white silk, staining the salt-sewn hem.
Then her hand goes slack and the world tilts—I scream.
The sound rips through the dunes, through the gathered guests, but everything feels muffled, as if I’m underwater. The scent of blood overwhelms jasmine and salt. My wolf howls, a sound of pure grief, rattling my bones.
“You killed her,” I choke, looking up at my father. “You—how could you—”
Darron stares down, chest heaving, sword still dripping. For a moment, shock flickers in his eyes. Then it hardens into something uglier.
“She killed herself the day she brought Zehrael filth into my House,” he says. “I only corrected the mistake.”
My breath shudders. Beyond him, I see Zarek Kharad watching, his expression grim but detached. No horror. No outrage. Just calculation.
He steps forward, cloak shifting around him like a slab of moving night.
“This changes things,” he says.
My arms tighten around my mother’s body. “Please,” I rasp. “Please—someone help her—”
No one moves. They are all staring at my eyes. At my hair. At the blood.
“What does it change?” Darron asks, face pale.
Zarek’s gaze flicks to me, then back to him. “I will not tie my House to Zehrael corruption, nor to a man who cannot even control his own breeding line. Our agreement is void.”
Darron pales further. “You can’t—The contract—”
“The contract said I would take your daughter as Luna,” Zarek cuts in. “Your daughter is a cursed defect. That you did not know is… unfortunate. But the desert cares little for your ignorance.”
His eyes settle fully on me now. For the first time, there is something like distaste there.
“She cannot properly shift,” he continues. “Her blood is questionable. Her father just killed her mother in front of half the noble houses. Do you truly think I would put my Dominion at risk over this mess?”
Darron’s hand tightens on his sword hilt. “We can fix this. The mark—her eyes—maybe it’s temporary. We can—”
“We?” Zarek’s brow lifts. “There is no ‘we’ anymore, Lord Saren.”
The title lands like an insult. He turns partly away, cloak swirling.
“The Kharad Dominion withdraws from the engagement,” he says loudly enough for everyone to hear. “I will not take a cursed girl as my Luna. Let Saren manage its own shame.”
Something in my chest cracks.
The binding I never wanted, the future I dreaded—it’s shattered. But instead of relief, all I feel is a hollow, yawning terror. Because if he won’t take me as Luna, if my father has just killed my mother in front of everyone to prove a point…
What am I now?
I clutch Lysara tighter. Her hair smells like rose oil and smoke. Tears blur my glowing blue vision, making the torches smear into streaks.
“You can’t just leave her like this,” I whisper, voice hoarse. “Please—”
Zarek’s gaze slides back to me one last time. His lip curls, a fraction. “You are a Zehrael defect. A cursed wolf who cannot even handle her first shift properly. You are nothing to me.”
He gives a sharp gesture.
“Warriors. We ride.”
The Kharad drums crash into life again. Warriors turn in unison, marching back toward their dark banners, their canyon fortress, their world where I will never belong.
They leave us in a ring of stunned silence—my father standing over my mother’s body, sword slick with her blood, and me kneeling in the sand, marked as something I don’t understand.
Something the desert has already decided to hate.
Far above, the moons stare down, cold and indifferent, as if they knew all along that the girl in white would never leave this dune as anyone’s promised bond.
Only as the defected wolf.