For a long, strangled moment, no one moved.
The Shadow Realm, which had seemed always shifting, always whispering, went utterly still.
No watchers crept.
No shadows stirred.
No false voices breathed her name.
It was as if the entire world had gone silent just to hear what she would do next.
Lysandra's hands wouldn't stop shaking.
Not from cold.
Not from fear.
From something rising inside her.
It wasn't like when her wolf pushed forward to take control.
This was deeper. Older.
A slow, heavy stirring inside her bones, as if someone had lit a candle in the oldest part of her soul and the light was spreading.
"Lysandra."
Evander's voice broke through first.
He stood in front of her, chest heaving, eyes wide and wild with desperation. He looked like he wanted to grab her and run—but there was nowhere to run to. No door. No sky. No way out.
His fingers brushed her arms. "Talk to me. Tell me you're still here."
She opened her mouth.
"I'm…" Her throat closed. "I'm here."
The words were true.
They just weren't the whole truth.
The Heir watched her with a different kind of intensity. Not panic. Not calm.
Something halfway between reverence and fear.
"What did you feel?" he asked.
She licked her dry lips.
"Like something inside me woke up," she whispered. "Something that was asleep before I was born."
Evander flinched. "What does that even mean?"
Lysandra pressed a hand to her chest.
Her wolf wasn't pacing anymore.
It was sitting.
Head high. Tail curled around its paws.
Not relaxed—but composed. Expectant. Waiting for orders.
"I saw…" Lysandra swallowed. "A wolf. But not like ours. Bigger. Brighter. Like it was made from moonlight and shadow both."
"The First Wolf," the Heir said quietly.
Evander dragged a hand down his face. "Can someone please explain who that is before I pass out?"
The Heir's gaze didn't leave Lysandra.
"The first of all wolves," he said. "The one who carried the moon's power before anyone else. The one the Goddess blessed. The one whose howl shaped the first packs."
Evander stared at him. Then at Lysandra.
"The trial is… pretending to be her? Why?"
The Heir's jaw tightened.
"Because if she answers that call fully, there will be nothing of her left for us to save."
His words landed like a blade.
Lysandra's fingers curled, nails digging into her palm.
"So I either stay who I am," she murmured, "or become… what? A goddess?"
Evander blanched. "That's not a choice. That's a trap."
The Realm pulsed beneath them, almost amused. The darkness above rippled, and a soft glow began to gather in the distance.
Not harsh. Not blinding.
A gentle silver luminescence, like a moon rising through fog.
All three of them turned.
Something was forming ahead of them.
Not a door this time.
Not a crack of crimson.
A structure.
As the silver thickened, shapes emerged from the dark—
tall, curved, jagged.
Rising.
Evander swallowed. "Tell me that's not what I think it is."
The Heir's voice dropped to a whisper.
"The Throne of Teeth."
Lysandra's stomach turned.
As the light settled, she saw it clearly.
A throne carved from bone and shadow—
huge, towering, grown straight from the ground as if the Realm had shaped it from its own spine.
Its armrests were lined with fanged shapes.
Its back curved like the ribcage of some ancient beast.
Silver veins pulsed through it, like frozen moonlight trapped in the marrow.
At its base, a circle of black stone gleamed.
It looked like an altar.
Lysandra's breath came shallow.
"What is it?" she whispered, though she already knew.
"A seat," the Heir said quietly, "for whoever will rule both moon and shadow."
"You mean—"
"Yes," he said. "For you."
Evander stepped in front of her, shaking his head.
"No. Absolutely not. She's not sitting on that thing. I don't care what prophecy says."
The Realm reacted to his outrage.
The ground beneath him rippled, shadows reaching up his ankles like dark fingers.
He stumbled back, and Lysandra grabbed him.
"Careful."
The Heir's gaze flicked to the throne, then back to her.
"This is still part of the trial," he said. "It wants to see who you are without chains. Who you are if you take the power offered."
"And if I refuse?" she asked.
He held her eyes.
"Then it will punish you until you break or kneel."
The silence after that was sharp.
Lysandra looked at the throne.
It was monstrous. Wrong. Beautiful. Terrifying.
And yet—
something in her chest responded to it.
Not with longing.
Not with dread.
With recognition.
As if some buried part of her whispered: There. That is ours.
Evander must have felt her shift, because he took her face between his hands.
"Don't listen to it," he said hoarsely. "Please, Lys. You don't have to be some throne's queen. You don't have to belong to this Realm, or the moon, or a prophecy. You can just be… you."
Her eyes burned.
His words hurt more than anything the Realm had thrown at her.
Because she wanted that.
She wanted quiet, and warmth, and nights where 'queen' was just a metaphor and not a threat.
But her wolf…
her blood…
her bond to the moon…
None of them were made for small lives.
Lysandra turned slightly, looking at the Heir.
"And if I sit?" she asked.
His expression darkened.
"Then the Realm will bend to you," he said. "It will recognize your authority. But it may not let you leave."
Evander let go of her as if burned.
"No."
The Heir's voice hardened. "It is not my choice."
Lysandra stepped away from both of them.
The circle of stone around the throne seemed to glow brighter as she approached, like an eye dilating.
Every step she took made the Realm tighten around her—
the air thickening,
the whispers rising at the edges of her hearing.
Queen.
Daughter.
Ours.
Her wolf padded forward inside her, matching each step.
We are not theirs.
We are not a toy.
If there is a throne…
it will answer to us.
Not the other way around.
She stopped just outside the circle.
The Throne of Teeth towered over her, casting no shadow.
Evander's voice came from behind, ragged.
"Lysandra, don't sit. Don't touch it. Please—"
The Heir said nothing.
She could feel him watching. Waiting. Measuring.
The Realm hummed.
"Sit."
The command slithered through the dark, wearing no voice this time—
not Evander's,
not her parents',
not the First Wolf's.
Just raw will.
Lysandra's feet trembled.
She wanted to move forward.
She wanted to step back.
She did neither.
Instead, she lifted her chin.
"You want a queen?" she said quietly. "Then you listen to me."
The Realm shivered.
Behind her, Evander took a sharp breath. The Heir's aura flared.
Lysandra let her wolf rise higher—
not fully, not into a shift,
but enough that her veins burned silver and her vision sharpened.
"We are Moonblood," she said. "We are not a puppet. Not a vessel. Not something to wear like a cloak."
The air thickened, pressing against her skin.
"Power is not a gift if it costs me everything," she continued, voice steadying with each word. "My heart. My bonds. My choice."
The Throne pulsed.
Evander whispered her name like a prayer.
The Heir barely breathed.
"So here is my answer," Lysandra said. "I will not sit until you understand this—"
She turned, reached behind her, and grabbed both their hands.
Evander on her right.
The Heir on her left.
Her wolf surged.
Her magic erupted.
Silver and violet flared, swirling together around their joined fingers like binding threads.
"If I ever take that throne," she whispered into the trembling dark,
"I don't sit on it alone."
The Realm recoiled.
The ground split in hairline cracks.
The vortex above twisted violently, as if some invisible force had been slapped.
For a heartbeat—
She thought it would attack.
Reject her.
Tear her bonds apart in fury.
Then—
A sound rolled through the darkness.
Not a whisper.
Not a threat.
A laugh.
Low.
Ancient.
Almost delighted.
The Throne dimmed.
The oppressive will loosened.
And a new path of shadow opened behind it, arcing away into deeper dark.
The Heir exhaled slowly.
"It seems," he said, voice rougher than before,
"you have just negotiated with the Realm."
Evander sagged with relief, still clinging to her hand.
"Does that mean… she passed?"
The Heir looked at the new path.
"No," he said. "It means the trial has changed."
Lysandra squeezed both their hands.
Whatever waited ahead,
she had made one thing clear.
She would not be queen alone.
And the Shadow Realm
had listened.