The moment Lyra stepped onto the frozen stone platform at the heart of Ravenguard's trial ground, a heavy silence fell over the crowd. They had gathered like a sea of shadows, cloaked in fur and tension, the biting wind howling through the trees as if even the forest held its breath.
Alaric stood at the far edge, his expression unreadable, arms crossed tightly across his chest. His eyes never left her.
Cassian was the one who spoke first.
"The Trial of Endurance is not a fight of fists," he announced to the pack. "It is a battle of spirit. Pain, cold, exhaustion these will be your enemies. Survive them. Prove yourself. Or walk away, unfit to be Luna."
Lyra didn't flinch.
She had known this trial would come. The others might test her skill, her courage, her loyalty. But this one? This was personal. This was about showing them that she could outlast every doubt they hurled her way. That she belonged here.
Even if no one else thought so.
Cassian handed her a thin tunic made of rough fabric and nodded toward a large iron gate on the other side of the arena. "Change. Then enter."
Minutes later, dressed in the minimal covering, Lyra stepped barefoot into the chamber behind the gate.
The cold hit her first.
It wasn't just uncomfortable. It was brutal. Ice-lined walls, a frozen floor beneath her feet, and only a thin mat in the center where she was to kneel. No fire. No warmth. No weapons. Nothing but the bitter cold and the watching eyes of Ravenguard.
Cassian's voice echoed through a speaker hidden in the stone. "You must remain inside for six hours. No talking. No sleeping. No collapsing. If you fall unconscious or step out, you fail."
The gate slammed shut.
And so it began.
Time passed like slow torture. Within the first thirty minutes, Lyra's fingers had turned blue. Her breath fogged in front of her face, and her knees shook beneath her. Still, she knelt. Her spine straight, her jaw locked tight.
Memories flooded her mind.
Her family's deaths. Running through the woods alone. The sting of rejection from packs who turned her away. The look of disgust from Ravenguard wolves when she first arrived. The bloodbond she never asked for.
She clenched her fists, forcing the tremors in her limbs to still.
"You don't belong here."
"She's just a rogue."
"The Alpha pities her. That's all."
The voices echoed in her memory. Her body screamed, but her spirit roared louder.
No.
She had come too far. She wouldn't break now.
Outside, Alaric stood with a blank expression, but inside he was a storm of unease. The cold chamber was unforgiving even for seasoned warriors, and Lyra was human-born. She wasn't supposed to survive this long.
Still, she endured.
At the three-hour mark, her skin had paled to ash. Her lips were cracked, bleeding. She swayed once but caught herself.
Cassian approached Alaric quietly. "We could end this. Let her pass. She's proven enough."
"If I interfere," Alaric said, his voice low and tense, "they'll say I protected her again. That she didn't earn it."
Cassian hesitated. "And if she dies?"
Alaric's jaw clenched. He said nothing.
Lyra lost track of time.
Her body had gone beyond pain now, into numbness, then into a surreal kind of awareness where every second stretched like a year.
She saw her mother's face.
She heard her father's voice.
She felt the ache of being unwanted. The sting of being labeled weak.
But beneath it all, something else stirred.
Fury.
Determination.
A savage kind of pride.
She opened her eyes and forced herself to stand.
Wolves watching from the crowd stirred. A few even stepped forward in shock.
Cassian's breath caught in his throat.
Alaric moved, as if to stop her, thinking she might be leaving.
But she didn't walk away.
She stood in the center of the ice chamber, trembling but upright, and threw her chin high.
Six hours had not yet passed.
She still wasn't done.
When the gate finally opened, a gasp rippled through the gathered wolves.
Lyra stepped out slowly, body bruised and trembling, eyes rimmed in red from exhaustion, but she stood tall. Proud. Defiant.
Cassian met her halfway, throwing a thick cloak over her shoulders.
"Trial complete," he said, loud enough for all to hear. "She did not fall. She did not break. She endured."
Silence.
Then a single voice cried out.
"Luna."
Another echoed. Then another.
Soon, half the crowd chanted her name.
Alaric stared at her from across the arena, something raw and dangerous glowing in his eyes. Pride. Want. And something deeper.
Lyra met his gaze.
She didn't need him to speak.
She already knew she'd proven herself.