POV: Soraya
The first days in Zehrael land feel like walking through someone else’s dream.
Everything is familiar and not. The air hums differently here—full of quiet power that prickles against my skin instead of grinding against it like Ashra’s walls sometimes did. The sand outside the stronghold shines faintly blue under the sun, and at night it glows like spilled starlight. Even the wind sounds different, carrying not just dust and heat but a music of low chimes and far-off howls.
“This is our heartland,” Baltimus says on the third morning, when I’m strong enough to walk outside my room. “What’s left of it, anyway.”
We stand on a high stone terrace carved into the cliff. Below us, the Zehrael settlement spills out in layered ledges and tunnels, all lit by blue lanterns and moon sigils. Homes are carved directly into the rock, their doors draped with woven fabrics that shimmer silver when the light hits them. Wolves move through the pathways—some in human form, some padding along as wolves, some shifting mid-step like it’s the easiest thing in the world.
They all have Zehrael eyes.
Silver. Pale blue. Moon-lit.
Like mine.
“Not dead,” I whisper, more to myself than to him. “We’re not dead.”
Baltimus glances at me, the corner of his mouth softening. “No. We’re very hard to kill.”
He gives me time to just look. To breathe it in. Children chase each other around a stone pillar, flickers of light sparking from their fingertips as they squeal. An older woman sits on a low wall, braiding a young man’s hair while murmuring some kind of blessing under her breath. Warriors sharpen blades that glow faintly with runes.
No collars. No chains. No hollowed eyes.
Zehrael… free.
The realization hits so hard my knees almost buckle. I grip the terrace rail until my fingers ache.
Baltimus notices. “You should be resting.”
“I’ve rested enough,” I say hoarsely. “I’ve spent half my life just… surviving. Watching everyone else live.” My gaze stays locked on the people below. “I want to see them. I want to know them.”
He studies me for a moment, then nods. “Then you will.”
***
Baltimus doesn’t treat me like a prisoner. Or a guest. Or a miracle.
He treats me like a wolf who needs to be rebuilt.
Days fall into a rhythm. Mornings with Heira, the healer-matriarch, who unwraps my bandages and hums under her breath as silver energy gathers under her palms. She shows me how to breathe through pain instead of fighting it, how to let my own power seep into wounds without burning myself out.
“You push too hard,” she scolds gently, tapping my forehead. “You were taught to hide what you are. Now we must teach you not to fear it.”
Afternoons with Baltimus in an underground chamber filled with symbols carved into the floor. Zehrael glyphs spiral in circles—focus points for meditation, for control.
“Your power is tied to emotion,” he explains, walking around the circle while I stand in its center. “Fear, anger, grief—they can unleash it. But if those are the only keys you know, it will own you. Not the other way around.”
“So what do I use instead?” I ask. “Joy? That’s… in short supply.”
His lips twitch. “Start with breath. Conscious thought. Intention. The desert already knows you’re here. Make sure you know it too.”
The training isn’t like Ashra drills. There are no barked orders, no bruising takedowns unless you ask for them. Baltimus doesn’t raise his voice. He just waits. Watches. Corrects.
“Again,” he says when a bolt of light flares too wildly from my hands. “But this time, don’t think of who hurt you. Think of what you want to protect.”
I close my eyes.
I don’t see Zarek. I don’t see Azhara. Not even my father.
I see a child in Ashra, clutching a wooden wolf while watching soldiers bleed. I see Vienne’s tired smile. Kaide’s steady eyes. Tazir’s terrible jokes. I see Raevan’s face the night he held me through the first shift, eyes full of fear for me, not of me.
My chest aches. But the light that blooms in my palms this time is softer, steadier. It doesn’t explode outward. It hovers, waiting for my choice.
“Better,” Baltimus says quietly. “Again.”
***
When I’m not with Heira or Baltimus, I wander.
A younger omega, Lysa, attaches herself to me quickly. She has a scar down one cheek and a laugh like falling water.
“You walk like an Ashra,” she teases the first time we patrol the ledges together. “All stiff shoulders and ready to bite.”
“I had reasons,” I mutter.
“I don’t doubt it. But here?” She bumps her shoulder into mine. “You can breathe. No one’s measuring your worth against a betrothal contract.”
Heat pricks my face. “You heard about that.”
“Everyone has,” she says simply. “We keep ears in the dunes.”
The thought unsettles me—and comforts me at the same time.
At night, I sit with elders who tell stories of the old Zehrael. Not just the massacres, but the golden years. How their wolves ran across three empires. How their healers were sought by kings and outlaws alike. How their telepaths mediated disputes before wars ever started.
“People feared us,” an elder says, “because we were what they could not control. So they decided to erase us instead.”
“And survived,” I say quietly.
He smiles, showing worn teeth. “Survival is also a kind of revenge.”
***
One evening, Baltimus takes me beyond the settlement, up a narrow path carved into the cliffs. We walk in silence, the blue sand glowing faintly under the stars. My body is stronger now. The arrow wounds have become faint scars, pale lines on my skin.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“You’ll see.”
We crest the ridge.
Below us lies a wide basin, ringed with standing stones etched in Zehrael glyphs. In the center, a pool of perfectly still water mirrors the sky. Starlight shimmers on its surface.
“This is the Moondrop Basin,” Baltimus says. “Where Zehrael wolves used to come when they first awakened.”
Something inside me pulls toward it. My wolf stirs, paws itching to run down and leap into the water.
“We don’t use it much anymore,” he adds. “There were so few of us left. But… it feels right you should see it.”
My throat tightens. “You brought me to a sacred place.”
“I brought you home,” he corrects.
The word sinks into my bones.
Home.
It doesn’t erase Ashra from my heart. It doesn’t quiet the image of Raevan at the cliff, believing I’m gone. It doesn’t free me from the knowledge that Zarek is still out there, forging alliances in blood.
But as I stand above the Zehrael basin, with blue sand beneath my feet and moonlight on my skin, something in me settles for the first time in years.
I am not just a runaway bride, not just a cursed defect, not just a weapon someone else wants to wield.
I am Soraya Zehrael. And for now, at least, I choose to stay.