Elara's POV
The guards came for her at midnight.
Two of them grabbed Elara's arms before she could even process what was happening. She was pulled from her bed, dragged through the Academy corridors still half asleep. The stone floors were cold against her bare feet. Her heart hammered as she tried to figure out what was going on.
"What is this? Where are you taking me?" she demanded, twisting against their grip. Her magic flared instinctively but she forced it down. Panicking would only make things worse.
Neither guard answered. They never did. That was the first sign something was very wrong.
The Council chamber was lit by dozens of candles when they threw her inside. The massive oak doors slammed shut behind her with a sound like a coffin closing. Elara's stomach dropped.
The entire Council sat at the long table. All of them. Cassius was at the center, his silver hair gleaming in the candlelight. Her mentor. The man who raised her after her parents died. The man she had trusted completely for twenty years.
His face was cold.
Behind him stood stacks of items on a side table. Elara's breath caught. Those were her things. Her personal journals. Books from her private shelves. Vials of components she used for legitimate magic.
But arranged like that, presented like evidence, they looked wrong.
"Elara Thorne," Cassius said, his voice smooth as silk. "You have been brought before this Council to answer charges of the gravest nature."
"Charges? What charges?" She looked around the room desperately. "What is this about?"
A Council member she recognized stepped forward. Master Aldric held up a piece of parchment. Not her handwriting. Definitely not hers. But the signature at the bottom was forged perfectly.
"Blood magic research," Aldric announced to the chamber. "Hidden in your quarters. Forbidden rituals documenting the creation of mage-werewolf hybrids as weapons."
Elara's legs went weak. "That is not mine. I have never done blood magic. You know that."
But even as she said it, she saw the doubt in some of their eyes. Her heart started racing harder.
The doors on the right side of the chamber opened.
Lydia walked in wearing the formal robes of a Council witness. Lydia. Her best friend since they were fourteen years old. They had shared rooms at the Academy. Shared secrets. Shared everything.
Lydia's eyes were red from crying.
"I saw her," Lydia said, her voice shaking. "Late at night in the forbidden section of the library. I wanted to talk to her, to catch up since we had been so busy with our own studies. But when I got close, I saw what she was doing."
Elara felt the room tilt. "Lydia, what are you saying?"
"Blood rituals." Lydia's hands trembled. "Dark magic that made my skin crawl just being near it. I did not want to believe it at first. I thought maybe I was confused. But then I found components hidden in your laboratory. Ingredients for the curse work."
"You are lying," Elara breathed. But even she could hear the desperation in her voice. "You know me. You know I would never."
Lydia looked away and started crying harder. The act was perfect. The Council members around the table exchanged glances. They believed her. They actually believed her.
Cassius stood slowly from his chair. He walked down from the platform and approached Elara like she was a specimen in a lab.
"I am disappointed," he said quietly. Only she could hear him. "I gave you everything. A home. An education. A purpose. This is how you repay me?"
"I did not do this," Elara whispered. "Cassius, please. You know I did not."
His expression did not change. "I know what the evidence shows."
He turned back to the table.
"The Council has reviewed the accusations and the evidence. The vote is unanimous. Elara Thorne, you are found guilty of blood magic, forbidden experimentation, and crimes against the magical peoples."
Elara tried to speak but her throat closed up. This could not be happening. This could not actually be happening.
"Your sentence is the Wolf's Bane curse," Cassius continued, his voice echoing through the chamber. "You will be transformed into the very creature that murdered your family. You will become a werewolf, feral and broken. The curse will consume you from the inside. You have perhaps a month to live. Maybe less."
The room spun. A month. He was sentencing her to die in agony, transformed into the monsters that killed her parents when she was eight years old.
"No," Elara heard herself saying. "No, this is wrong. You are wrong. Cassius, please."
"After the curse is applied, you will be exiled to Blackwood Pack territory in the northern territories," Cassius said, ignoring her completely. "If you survive the wolves, the curse will finish what it started. Either way, this Council will be rid of you."
Guards moved toward her. Elara's magic exploded outward in pure terror and rage. Fire burst from her hands. The guards stumbled back. For one moment, just one, she thought she could fight her way out of this.
Then Cassius raised his hand and her magic died like a snuffed candle. Of course it did. He had always been stronger than her. She just never thought he would use that strength against her.
More guards flooded into the chamber. There were too many. She could not fight them all. Elara's legs gave out as they dragged her across the stone floor.
She looked back at Lydia one last time. Her best friend would not meet her eyes.
They took her down into the chambers beneath the Academy. Deep below where the sun never reached. The air was thick and wrong. It smelled like iron and sulfur.
A fire roared in a massive stone hearth. Cassius stood beside it, rolling up his sleeves. His expression had shifted. No longer disappointed. Now he looked almost curious. Like he was about to conduct an experiment.
Because that was all she had ever been to him. An experiment.
"Hold her down," Cassius commanded.
The guards forced her to her knees before the fire. Elara thrashed and fought but there were too many hands holding her in place.
Cassius pulled a silver blade from the flames.
The metal glowed red, heated to unbearable temperatures. Smoke curled off the edge. He held it up so she could see it clearly.
"This will hurt," he said conversationally, like he was discussing the weather. "The curse is carved into you with blood magic and silver fire. It will tear your magic apart. The transformation will be agonizing. You will want to die before the month is finished."
"Please," Elara whispered. "Cassius, I am begging you. I did not do this."
He looked almost sad for a moment. Then his expression hardened and he stepped toward her with the blade raised high.
Behind him, the remaining silver blades glowed orange and red in the fire, waiting their turn. One for each Council member's signature on her death sentence. A ritual curse required all of them to complete it properly. All of them to watch her destroyed.
The first blade came down toward her skin and Elara opened her mouth to scream.