POV: Soraya
If I stay very still, the fortress almost forgets I exist.
That’s the lie I’ve been feeding myself for three days.
I keep to the narrow back corridor between my chamber and the tiny washing room. I only open my door when I hear a tray scrape the floor and the servant’s footsteps fade. I stare at the same strip of sky through the lattice until the pattern brands itself into my eyes. I listen to the fortress breathing without me—boots on stone, distant shouts from the training yard, the muted hum of a life I’m no longer sure I’m part of.
It’s easier than facing how they look at me now.
Demon wolf. Zehrael curse. Monster.
I only heard the words once, hissed on the other side of my door when they thought I was asleep. I don’t need them repeated. They live in the cracks of the walls now. In the seams of my blanket. In the tight hollow under my breastbone.
Every time I close my eyes I see the market alley instead of rest—blood on stone, torn flesh between my teeth, the exact moment a man’s fear went flat and empty forever.
The worst part isn’t that I killed them.
The worst part is how simple it felt. How right.
Hunt. Kill. Protect.
If that beast wakes in the courtyard instead of the alley, if I lose control near packmates instead of assassins, it won’t be enemies under my paws. It’ll be my own people.
So I hide.
On the morning of the fourth day, someone starts hammering on my door like they plan to take it off the hinges.
“Storm girl. Open up.”
Vienne.
I curl tighter on the bed. “Go away.”
The pounding doesn’t stop. “You have three options,” she calls. “Open the door. Wait until I pick the lock. Or wait until I drag Kaide here and he kicks it in. I recommend the first. Your hinges have done nothing wrong.”
“I don’t want to see anyone,” I say.
“Too bad. I brought bread.”
My stomach betrays me with a very loud growl. I glare at the door. “Bribery is low.”
“Effective, though.”
I last another thirty heartbeats before my resolve crumbles. With a sigh, I swing my legs over the side of the bed and shuffle to the door. It opens with a soft scrape. Vienne stands there with a basket on one hip and an expression that says she will get her way one way or another.
She takes one long look at me. “You smell like old blanket and fear. Unacceptable.”
“That’s rude,” I mutter.
“True, though.” She pushes past me, sets the basket down and starts uncovering things. Fresh flatbread. Slices of melon. A clay cup of spiced tea that steams in the cool air. “Eat,” she orders. “Then we’re going out.”
I flinch. “No.”
“Yes.”
“They hate me,” I whisper.
“They also owe you their lives,” she says. “They’re allowed to be afraid and grateful at the same time. Complicated, but possible. Eat.”
I sit because she’ll stand there until I do. The first bite hits my empty stomach like fire. Only then do I realise how hollow I’ve been. Vienne waits in silence until my hands stop shaking.
“You shifted,” she says at last. “Alone. Under attack. You didn’t kill me. You didn’t kill any Ashra wolf. That counts as a win.”
“I ripped those men apart,” I say.
“They came with chains and knives,” she replies flatly. “They wanted to drag you back to the alpha who killed your mother and call it fate. If you’re hunting for tears on their graves, you won’t find them here.”
I wrap my fingers around the warm cup. “They don’t see that. They see a monster.”
“They see power they don’t understand,” she corrects. “Different word, same fear. There’s a cure.”
“What cure?” I ask.
She grins. “We teach you to look like you own it.”
***
I don’t agree. I just run out of arguments faster than she runs out of stubborn.
Ten minutes later she has ransacked my chest. A plain sand-coloured dress flies over her shoulder. “No. You looked like prey in that even before you grew fangs.”
“Hey,” I protest.
She pulls out a deeper blue gown, simple but well cut. “Better. Strong colour. Makes your eyes louder than their gossip.” She tosses it at me. “Dress. I’ll handle the rest.”
“The rest of what?”
“You’ll see. Move.”
When I come back, tugging at the sleeves, she drags me in front of the bronze mirror. My hair is still in the sad knot I shoved it into that first night. She tuts and attacks it with a comb.
“No more grief knot,” she mutters. “You’re not buried.”
“Tell that to the assassins,” I say.
“I would, if they had ears left.”
A short, cracked laugh escapes me before I can stop it. It feels strange and fragile, but it’s still a laugh. Vienne’s fingers move fast, weaving my hair back from my face and leaving a few curls to soften the set of my jaw.
“Desert etiquette, lesson one,” she says. “People believe what you say without words before they ever hear your mouth. Clothes. Shoulders. Eyes. You go out there hunched and apologising, they’ll treat you like a mistake. You walk like a queen, they’ll trip over themselves trying to figure out when they missed your coronation.”
“I’m not a queen,” I say.
“Yet,” she answers simply.
She steps back, studies me, then nods to herself. “Lesson two. Weapons.”
Ice slides down my spine. “After what I did in the training yard, you want to put steel in my hands?”
“Because of what you did in the training yard,” she counters. “You have enough light in your fingers to make elders wet their robes. But if someone gets close before you can call it and you don’t know how to stab, you die. Magic is a spear. You still need a knife.”
She produces a practice blade from the corner as if she stashed it days ago. Of course she did. She presses it into my palm, adjusting my grip until it feels less like I’m holding a snake and more like a tool.
“Lesson three,” she says. “Walking.”
“I’ve been walking my whole life,” I say.
“You’ve been flinching your whole life,” she corrects. “Different thing. Shoulders down, spine long, chin level. You don’t study the floor unless you dropped something worth more than your dignity. You don’t shrink when someone takes up space beside you. You are the heat in the room. Let them be the shadows.”
“I don’t know how,” I whisper.
“You do.” Her voice softens. “You glared at an alpha on your first night here. You stood in front of elders and refused to break. That girl is still in there. We’re just reminding her how to stand.”
She makes me cross the room again and again until my steps even out and my shoulders remember how to stay open. It feels ridiculous at first. Then, slowly, it starts to feel like armour no one can see.
At last she nods. “There. Now you look like someone things happen around, not someone things happen to.”
I meet my own eyes in the mirror. Fear is still there. So is the memory of fur and blood. But under it, thin and bright, there’s something like steel.
“Ready?” Vienne asks, moving to the door.
“No,” I say honestly.
She smiles. “Perfect. Only fools feel ready. The rest of us walk out scared and do it anyway.”
So I draw a breath, straighten my spine, and follow her into the corridor. If the fortress is going to whisper about Soraya Zehrael, then it can learn to whisper my name like a warning, not a curse.