Third Person’s POV


    T +8 Pearls


    “Even if she once knew how to fly,” Jocelyn snapped, her chin lifted in stubborn defiance, “she’s been out of service for Skills fade. She’s nowhere near as sharp as Aurora. For her to nitpick like that–what else could it be but malice?”


    years.


    Ss‘ugh was a cold de, scraping against the air. “Malice?” His silver eyes cut into her, making Jocelyn’s wolf flinch back though her lips tried to hold the sneer. “We have others here who fly, don’t we? Ask them whether her words were malice–or fact.”


    The pilots who had shared the sky during Aurora’s performance exchanged uneasy looks. Silence stretched, taut as a bowstring, before one finally stepped forward. His voice was steady, but there was a tremor under the weight of Whitmor’s


    gaze.


    “She’s right. Thorne’s assessment was urate. Aurora’s descent was unstable, her throttle uneven. If luck hadn’t held, she might have overshot the strip.”


    The others nodded, reluctant but unable to contradict the truth. The performance had been recorded. To defend Aurora now would be to damn themselvester, once footage was reyed and dissected by sharper eyes. No pilot could afford to mark themselves a liar.,


    Aurora’s face darkened, her wolf’s pride bristling beneath her skin. “How much did she pay you to side with her?” she spat, her voice trembling with rage.


    “Nothing,” the pilot said firmly. “We speak truth. If you doubt <i>it</i>, release the footage and let experts in aerialbat weigh their judgment.”


    Aurora faltered, her lips parting, then snapping shut. For once, she had no answer.


    Freya stood silent, her gaze hard, her voice colder than the wind off the northern cliffs. “Your skill is poor. You’d do better to spend your time training than parading before cameras. If you take a cockpit unprepared, every soul strapped behind you is at risk of death. Do not mistake spectacle for mastery.”


    Aurora flushed crimson, the shame scorching her cheeks as cameras shed and microphones thrust closer. She had wanted to break Freya before the crowd, to paint her as bitter and obsolete. Instead, it was Aurora herself who staggered beneath the re of shing lights.


    The Bluemoon Beta’s daughter clutched at Caelum’s arm, dragging him from the press. Her wolf–tail of pride hung limp, her eyes too bright with fury. The spectacle had reversed on her, and every lens had caught it.


    “She’s malicious,” Aurora hissed once clear of the crowd. Her nails dug crescents into Caelum’s sleeve. “So what if she flew before? It’s been years. Her edge is gone, her instincts dulled. Skills like that decay. She only spoke to humiliate me!”


    Caelum said nothing. Her words struck against the silence inside his chest, but did not stick. Because memory rose— unbidden, unrelenting.


    Thest airshow before their Lunar Severance Phase. He had stood in the crowd, an outsider to the art of flight, and yet even he could see the difference. Freya, high above the earth, moving like stormwind made flesh. The iron bird obeyed her hands with terrifying grace–dives sharper, rolls cleaner,ndings smooth as a hawk striking stone. No hesitation, no falter. She had been magnificent.


    Not dulled. Not diminished. Certainly not clumsy.


    Even he had seen it. And he was no pilot.


    But with Aurora’s fingers mped hard around his wrist, her wolf radiating humiliation and anger, the truth stayed locked behind his teeth.


    He swallowed it.


    And then-


    A scream cut through the noise of the gathered crowd. A high, piercing cry that sent every wolf’s ears twitching, every instinct on edge.


    123


    +8 Pearls


    “Child overboard! The sea’s taken a child!”


    The gathering had drawn orphans from Ashbourne’s home, paraded here for the charity drive tied to the foundation ceremony. Now one of them had been swallowed by the tide, a small figure tossed like driftwood in the surf.


    Waves smashed against the stone edge, pulling, dragging, hungry. The boy’s head vanished beneath the foam, reappeared with a shriek, then was dragged further out.


    Caelum’s wolf surged forward inside him. His body tensed, ready to leap into the water. But before he could, Aurora’s grip tightened, sharp as a trap around his hand.


    “Don’t,” she hissed. Her eyes were wide, not with fear for the child, but fear for him. Fear of risk. Fear of what it might mean if he went under.


    For a moment he thought he’d misheard. This was Aurora–daughter of Bluemoon’s Beta, a woman who had fought so hard to shine. Yet she would hold him back? While a child drowned?


    The memory hit him like a blow. A different river, swollen with storm. His body limp, consciousness slipping, lungs filling with water-


    and the woman who had plunged in without hesitation. The woman who had hauled him back from death with her own torn lungs, her own blood in the water. Freya.


    And now, as if summoned by the Fates, another figure leapt.


    Freya’s body cut through the surf in a blur of strength. She hit the water, head vanishing beneath a wave, then breaking through again as she swam hard, each stroke ripping her closer to the child.


    Caelum’s eyes widened. His breath stilled. For a heartbeat, the two moments became one–his past and this presentyered together. Her figure blurred, doubling: the wolf who had once saved him, and the wolf who now raced to save another.


    The storm inside his chest cracked open.


    Freya was a soldier still. Amander still. Her instincts had never dulled.


    And gods, how he had forgotten the sight of her wolf when it burned brightest.


    Cameras swung from Aurora to the water<b>, </b>capturing the Iron Fang veteran’s form as she surged against the current. Every wave smashed against her shoulders, every pull of the sea dragged her deeper, but she fought, teeth bared, eyes locked on the child.


    Ss watched too. The Irond Alpha’s tall frame stood rigid, his face stone–but his scent betrayed the crack in hisposure. His wolf stood frozen, blood cold, as he stared at the woman in the sea.


    Waves crashed over her head. She vanished, reappeared, dove again. She was going deeper, not retreating. For a terrible heartbeat, it looked as though the ocean might take her.


    Ss’s blood iced. Breath halted in his chest. His mind screamed of loss–of his mother, of the woman gone beneath waves never to surface again. Would Freya be taken too? Would she vanish, swallowed in the same merciless maw?


    He felt his body move before his mind decided. His feet struck stone, muscles coiled. And then he was running, the spray of the surf in his face, his body throwing itself toward the sea after her.


    He could not watch her drown.


    Not her.


    Never her.