🦋ALTHEA
The wolves ca like a wave of fury and desperation, their amber eyes wild, their snarls tearing through the night.
No.
Not now. Not like this.
"BACK!" I scread, my voice breaking. "GO BACK!"
But they didn’t listen.
They never listened.
The gammas reacted instantly, shifting mid-stride, their bodies exploding into massive wolves—gray, black, brown—all larger, all stronger, all trained killers.
The clash was brutal.
Blood sprayed.
Bones crunched.
"NO!" I lurched forward, chains pulling tight, cutting into my wrists. "STOP! PLEASE!"
One of the wolves, a smaller brown one with a scar across its muzzle, lunged at a gamma. It was fast, desperate, but not fast enough. The gamma caught it mid-air, jaws clamping down on its throat.
The snap echoed.
The wolf went limp.
"NO!" I scread again, tears streaming down my face. "Stop it! STOP!"
Another wolf fell. Then another.
The gammas moved with ruthless efficiency, tearing through them like they were nothing.
Like they weren’t lives.
Like they weren’t a part of their own pack.
Above, the birds descended.
Dark-winged, iridescent gleaming in the moonlight, they dove toward the chaos, their cries piercing and frantic.
One of them swooped too low.
A gamma leaped, claws extended, and caught it mid-flight.
The crack of its neck was sickening.
It fell to the ground, twitching once before going still.
"No, no, no—" I choked on the words, my vision blurring with tears. "Please, go back! GO BACK!"
But the wolves kept coming.
And the gammas kept killing.
I pulled against the chains, thrashing, screaming until my throat was raw. "THEY’RE NOT ATTACKING YOU! THEY’RE TRYING TO SAVE ! PLEASE!"
The pack stared at .
Not with understanding.
With disgust.
"She’s lost her mind," soone muttered.
"The traitor’s gone mad."
"Talking to animals like they’re people."
"Pathetic."
I shook my head frantically, my voice breaking. "You don’t understand—they’re not—they’re not just wolves—"
But no one was listening. Maybe it was better.
Another wolf fell, its blood pooling on the ground.
I collapsed to my knees, the chains dragging the other tributes down with . They cursed, stumbling, but I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t do anything but watch as everything I’d tried to save was torn apart.
The sobs ca hard and violent, tearing out of like sothing broken and jagged.
I cried for the wolves.
For the birds.
For myself.
For the baby inside that had not known anything but pain until the end.
My tears fell, hot and heavy, soaking into the dirt beneath .
And where they landed—
A flower.
Withered, gray, half-dead.
Color bled back into its petals, pale pink unfurling like a breath. Its stem straightened, leaves uncurling, reaching toward the moonlight.
Alive.
But no one saw.
They were too busy dragging to my feet.
"Get up," one of the Vargans hissed, yanking the chain. "You’re slowing us down."
I stumbled forward, my legs barely holding .
The wolves were gone now. Dead or scattered. The birds had fled.
And I was alone again. Which was better. There were only supposed to co see go, there were never supposed to attack.
The Vargans pulled us deeper into the forest, toward the border, toward the Red Mist that waited like a mouth ready to swallow us whole.
I didn’t look back.
Couldn’t.
Because if I did, I’d see the bodies.
The blood.
The proof that everything I’d tried to do had only made it worse.
The brand on my back burned with every step, a reminder of what I was.
A tribute.
A traitor.
A failure.
The chains rattled as we walked, the sound like the tolling of a death bell.
And ahead, through the trees, I could see it.
The Red Mist.
Thick and churning, glowing faintly in the moonlight like a living thing.
Waiting.
—
They stopped us at the edge.
The border between our territory and the Red Mist was marked by stones—ancient, moss-covered, etched with symbols I couldn’t read. The air here felt different. Heavier. Like the atmosphere had been imbued with sothing darker
One of the gammas stepped forward, a leather pouch in his hands. He pulled out amulets—crude things made of twisted iron and dark stone, strung on fraying cord.
"Put these on," he ordered, his voice flat. "They’ll protect you. Sowhat."
The Vargans moved down the line, fastening an amulet around each tribute’s neck. When Thal reached , his hands trembled slightly as he tied the cord. His eyes t mine for a brief mont, and I saw the apology there.
I wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault.
That none of this was his fault.
But my throat was too raw, my voice too broken.
It was not his mother’s fault either, the moon was just cruel.
Yana’s twisted arm snapped through my mind.
The amulet settled against my chest, cold and heavy.
The gamma who’d given the order stepped closer to the Mist’s edge, his expression hard. "The Vargans will lead you through. They’re impervious to the Mist—gift of the Witch Luna who cursed our lands in the first place."
A few of the pack mbers laughed darkly.
"You’ll walk for three days," he continued. "You’ll be given water, nothing else. And when you reach the Labyrinth, you’ll do whatever the High Alpha commands." His eyes swept over us, cold and pitiless. "If you reach it."
He turned his attention to the Vargans leading us. "One more thing." His voice dropped, dangerous. "Ignore the voices. No matter what you hear. No matter who calls to you." He looked directly at us tributes. "No one who loves you lives in that Mist. Rember that. They’ll try to convince you otherwise. They’ll sound real. They’ll look real. But they’re not."
My stomach turned.
"If you follow the voices, you’re dead. Understood?"
We nodded, though I wasn’t sure any of us truly understood.
The gamma stepped back, and the Vargans tightened their grip on the chains.
"Move out," he ordered.
Thal pulled gently on the chain, and we stepped forward.
Into the Red Mist.
The world changed the mont we crossed the border.
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