PEARL'S POV
The first thing that pulled me back when I woke up was the stench: stale urine, wet stone, and something rotten and sour in the corners. My eyes flicker in the shadows. Chained just high enough that my shoulders burn from bearing my weight, iron cuffs bite my wrists, cold and heavy. My ankles, which are bound together with rough shackles, hurt as well.
Somewhere above my head, there's a drip that sounds like water seeping through a rock crevice or perhaps just my mind dripping itself dry.
Pain pulses behind my eyes, dull and sick. I taste old blood in my mouth. A part of me wishes I'd stayed down, asleep, dead, but that's never been my luck. I always wake up.
I move my arms, testing the chains. The iron scrapes my skin raw. My breath fogs the air in front of my lips. I close my eyes for a second and see him again, the boy who was supposed to be my mate but mocked my heart and was engulfed by my half-sister Kaela's lovely smile.
Three Nights ago.
The great hall was a blaze of gold and silver, with candles burning so brightly that I thought they might melt the stone walls. The room was crowded with wolves from all over Pandara, who were excitedly snarling, laughing, and snapping their teeth. The Mating Ceremony is the night when bonds are made or broken in front of all the significant others.
I was standing, head down, at the edge of the dais. The hem of my borrowed silk dress was torn. Kaela, dressed in crimson lace so thin it glistened like blood, was standing beside me. The torchlight made her glow. She does all the time.
They called his name: Aleric, son of Beta Janos. He was strong and broad-shouldered, his golden eyes sliding over me like I was a stain on his boots. Even though the old seer had hinted that he wouldn't choose me anymore, I secretly hoped he would honor the long-standing agreement that I would be his mate when the time came.
I hoped that if he chose me, I would be with someone who didn't regard me poorly, and maybe, just maybe, I wouldn't have to put up with these constant humiliations.
The drums stopped. A hush fell over the hall. He stepped forward. His boots clicked on the stone, echoing loud enough that I felt them in my bones.
He looked at me. Honestly, we looked for the first time since we were puppies running through the orchard after fireflies. Back then, he'd smile. Back then, he'd share stolen pears behind the old fence.
But immediately, his eyes flicked to Kaela, and he smiled wider.
Then he spat at my feet.
"You?" he laughed, his voice bouncing off every stone in that hall. "You think I'd bind myself to that?"
A ripple of cruel laughter washed through the crowd. I felt it on my skin like boiling oil.
I tried to speak; my mouth opened, but my tongue was stone.
Aleric stepped closer. He lifted a hand, brushing my cheek with two fingers like he was wiping filth off his blade. I saw Kaela behind him, her smile hidden behind her hand, pretending to be shocked.
"You're not worth the dirt under my claws, Pearl. Now, Kaela is powerful. I'll have sons from her who won't crawl like you."
He turned, took Kaela's hand, and lifted it high for everyone to see. The pack roared their approval. My ears rang with the sound of my last illusion burning to ash.
I remember Kaela leaning close, her lips brushing his ear. I remember the way her eyes flicked to me, bright, cruel, and victorious.
That night, I lay awake in the corner of the servants' hall, staring at the black beams overhead while Kaela and Aleric celebrated somewhere deep in the Alpha's wing. I heard their laughter echoing down the empty corridors like knives scraping bone.
I didn't get any sleep. I didn't cry. I just lay there, staring at the rotten beam above my head, counting my breaths.
By dawn, I knew what I had to do.
I would be nothing if I remained... I need to get out of here before Kaela decides I'm too filthy to breathe her air or a ghost scraping the floor.
If I ran, maybe I'd die. Maybe I'd starve in the wilds or freeze by the river, or perhaps, just possibly, I would make it to Vartun. The Alpha King is said to be a beast; according to rumors, no woman who enters his chambers ever comes out the same or alive. Our entire pack never dares to enter his domain.
But I'd rather die under the teeth of a monster than rot under Kaela's heel.
The memory rips through me like claws as I hang here now, chained, blood dried at my lip, wrists rubbed raw. I almost laugh, but it would come out as a sob, so I swallow it down.
Kaela, this is what you desired. A show. A lesson. To ensure that everyone knows their place, a girl is on her knees.
But I'm not ashes yet.
With a moan, the cell door opens. Gold, harsh torchlight pours in. I resist it by blinking. Aleric's eyes sparkle with the same disdain that stung me three nights ago as Kaela walks through like a velvet-draped wraith, her new partner following closely behind.
She comes up to me, skirts skimping the floor, and uses her tried-and-true method of crouching so that we are eye-to-eye to make me feel unimportant.
"You should see yourself," she purrs. "So pitiful." "Were you truly expecting to be selected over me?"
With a low, sarcastic laugh, Aleric rests his arm languidly over her shoulders as if she has already granted him all of his desires. Perhaps she has.
Kaela leans in, her voice venomous and silky. "You should thank me, little sister. If you'd left, Vartun's King would've chewed you up before you even learned how to beg."
My skin splits and stings, and my lip curls. "Better his teeth than your lies."
She freezes just for a heartbeat. Then her smile returns, brighter than ever. "Tomorrow, you'll burn where Mother burned. And I'll wear white silk when they scatter your ashes."
Behind her, Aleric chuckles, a sound that curdles my blood.
"Sweet dreams, worthless thing," Kaela whispers, her perfume choking the stale air one last time. The cell door slams, snatching the light into ribbons before the scraping iron bolts swallow it whole.
Even though it's darker than before, I can feel the pulse of another person; heavy boots shuffle in the stillness; and for a split second, I believe Aleric is returning to spit out one more insult before my bones freeze.
However, the steps end with jingling metal keys just outside the bars, lantern flickers sprinkling gold on the scarred face of a man I dimly remember from when I was too small to matter, and he slumps his shoulders as if the chains around my wrists were weighing him down.
For the first time, I am not referred to as a slave, a thing, or a useless one when he whispers my name, "Pearl."
I blink at him. The torchlight stings my eyes. My throat functions, but no words are coming out.
He kneels at the bars. His hands tremble around the iron ring of keys.
"I knew your mother. Saria. She once hid my family when the old Alpha hunted down rebels. She fed my boy when there was no bread left for herself."
He gasps, half in sorrow, half in remorse. "I should've done something sooner. I'm sorry."
The cold metal bites into my torn palms as he rams the keys through the bars; I look at him, this man whose crow's feet and tears have flecked his weathered cheeks.
He jerks his chin at my cuffs. "Hurry. Take these. When you're free, put this cloak on."
He tosses me a bundle of rough cloth, a prison guard's cloak, too big for my frame but thick enough to hide the blood and chains.
My lips tremble. I want to say thank you. Why now? Or, what about you?
But all I can manage to say is, "How do I get out?"
He speaks in a low voice, trembling like a dying flame: "There's an old drain tunnel under the orchard wall; don't turn; crawl straight, and you'll know you're getting close when you see the roots above. Don't stop."
He rises, heavy with regret, and disappears down the hall without waiting for thanks. Maybe he knows I have none left to give.
I don't waste another breath. My fingers slip the key into the left shackle; it clicks open with a sigh that sounds like freedom.
The metal scrapes my raw skin, tears it wider, but pain is freedom's toll.
Shackle after shackle. Like my cage's last heartbeat, they cling to the stone.
I wrap the guard's cloak tightly around my shoulders. The scent of old sweat and stale oil clings to it, but at least it smells better than Aleric's mockery, better than Kaela's sweet poison.
I slip through the half-hidden crack, shoulders scraping stone, cold wind breathing on my torn wrists; the drain tunnel eats me whole, frost biting my ankles, roots scratching my scalp, one foot in front of the other.
I press my forehead against the wet stone as I get to the mouth beneath the orchard wall and let go of the last of my fear.
I shift the cloak tighter, ready to bolt into the orchard's sleeping hush, but something freezes my pulse.
Torchlight flickers beyond the courtyard stones above. A slim shadow passes through the spill of gold, delicate shoulders, perfectly brushed hair, and that silver chain glinting at her wrist.
Bisca.
The sharpness of my breath makes me bite it down before it breaks the silence of the tunnel.
She pauses, tilting her head just enough that her profile cuts through the torchlight.
"Is she looking for me?"
"Did she come to check I'm still chained, helpless, waiting for morning's mercy?"
"Or did she come because some corner of her heart still remembers orchard trees and promises whispered in the dark?"
I tuck my fingers into the fold of the cloak tightly. I'm positive she can hear the loud rattling of my heartbeat in my ribs.
Bisca lingers. Her face turns toward the dungeon door as the torch flickers once more; a step nearer, and another.
I can't see her eyes, I can't see her smile or sneer, but all I know is that if she opens that cell door now, and if she finds nothing but cold shackles and my blood on the stones, the alarm will cry through Pandara before my feet ever touch the black river path.
She pauses—so close I swear I feel her warmth bleed through the wall.
"Is she coming in?"
I put my palm over my mouth to smother the sob that is starting to creep up my throat, and the silence of the courtyard holds its breath above me.
"Did Bisca see the open lock? Did she hear the chain slip? Did she feel my ghost brushing past her shadow?"
The cold stone at my back is my only shield. My only prayer: "Don't open that door. Don't see. Don't betray me twice."
The silence above cracks; a hinge creaks.
A lantern hisses.
"Is she opening the cell?"
My heart is screaming inside my head. "Now or never, my feet get ready to run."
In the dark under Pandara's orchard, I wait, breath held between freedom and a knife.