POV: Soraya
The world is sand.
Not warm sand, not living dunes, but endless white grains floating around me like suspended snow. There is no sky, no wind, no sound. Just weightless quiet. I try to move, but my limbs don’t respond. My body feels far away, like it belongs to someone else now—someone lying broken on a cliff far from here.
I blink into the pallid glow.
A shadow forms ahead. No—Not a shadow. A woman.
Her silhouette glows like moonlight refracted through water, stepping toward me across the floating sands with movements soft and knowing. My throat tightens before my mind even forms the name.
“Mother?”
Lysara smiles, and the impossible warmth of it shatters something inside me. Her hair flows like pale fire, her eyes deep and ancient like those from the stories she used to whisper to me when I was a frightened child hiding behind rugs.
“My heart,” she says gently.
Her voice echoes like two voices layered—hers and something older.
I try to run to her, but I can only stumble forward, as if the dreamscape resists me.
She reaches me instead and cups my face, thumbs brushing my cheeks.
“You’ve grown strong.”
“I’m dying,” I whisper. “Aren’t I?”
Her smile softens into something achingly sad.
“You are fighting.”
I swallow, breath shaking. “I… I lost control. I shifted too far. I didn’t even know where I was running. They hunted me, and—”
She rests her forehead against mine, stopping the spiral.
“You ran because you were afraid, Soraya. But you did not run from danger. You ran toward your truth.”
Before I can ask what she means, the scene around us ripples. The white sand darkens into swirling gray. A deep, thundering growl shakes the air—the kind that vibrates through bones, not ears.
Something massive moves behind me.
I turn. A wolf stands there. Not my normal wolf—Not the brown, amber-eyed creature I know.
This one is enormous, towering, pitch-black with silver veins tracing her fur like lightning frozen mid-strike. Her eyes blaze gold, molten and ancient. She watches me with intensity that steals my breath.
“My wolf,” I whisper.
Lysara nods.
“Your truth.”
The wolf takes one step toward me, and the sand trembles under her weight. I swallow and take a trembling step toward her. Her voice doesn’t come through the air. It comes through my mind—raw, powerful, unmistakably hers.
You left me alone.
Her voice is a growl laced with grief.
“I didn’t know how to reach you.”
You were afraid of me.
“I… I was.”
I force myself to hold her golden gaze.
“You were too strong. I didn’t understand you.”
She tilts her massive head.
You will.
Her paw touches mine—massive claws brushing my skin with surprising tenderness.
In the next instant, memories explode around us like shards of glass.
Raevan catching me when I collapsed from magic overload. Raevan brushing my hair aside when he thought I slept. Raevan kissing me in a moment of grief and desperation. Raevan snarling at anyone who tried to hurt me. Raevan whispering my name under his breath like a prayer.
My chest aches. Then the memory shifts.
A different room, a different bed. Azhara straddling Raevan—Her hands on his chest—His body reacting though his eyes were unfocused, fogged.
“No,” I whisper. “Stop—”
The scene continues, torturing me with every second. My wolf snarls furiously at the vision. He did not choose her. She drugged him.
You know this. You saw the truth.
My knees give way. I fall into the sand, breath ragged.
“I know,” I whisper. “But it still hurts.”
My wolf lowers her massive head until her forehead presses against mine.
Pain is not weakness. Pain is proof you care. Pain is fuel.
Use it.
Her warmth spreads through me like fire pushed into my veins. Lysara kneels beside me and brushes my hair gently.
“Soraya,” she murmurs, “you must choose. Stand up and return, or stay here and fade.”
“Fade?”
My voice cracks.
“You are lying broken in the desert,” she says. “Your body bleeds. Your bones are cracked. Humans shoot arrows into what they fear.”
I shudder.
“I don’t… I don’t know if I have the strength.”
My wolf growls, eyes burning brighter.
You do. You always did.
Lysara lifts my chin so my eyes meet hers.
“You are Zehrael,” she whispers. “You are my daughter. You are meant to survive the things that kill others.”
Tears prick my eyes.
“What if I go back and everything hurts again? What if Raevan chooses Azhara? What if war comes? What if I lose myself?”
Lysara leans forward and presses a kiss to my forehead—a soft, lingering touch that radiates warmth deeper than magic.
“Then you will rise again,” she says. “Because you are not defined by who loves you or who harms you. You are defined by what you choose to become.”
The world begins to darken at the edges. The white sand collapses downward like a sinkhole opening beneath us. I gasp.
“No—wait—Mother—”
Lysara smiles with aching tenderness.
“We’ll meet again.”
My wolf roars, her voice filling my mind. Wake up, fight, breathe, live.
The ground vanishes under my feet. Darkness swallows my vision. My body feels heavy again—too heavy. My lungs seize. My heart thunders unevenly.
My wolf’s voice echoes one last time as I fall. Live. Then—Nothing. Just darkness.