I Breathed Silver So She Could Live

“I labored in the lethal silver mines for three years, letting the toxic dust rot my lungs just to afford medicine for my sister, Snow. But on the seventh day after her death, our biological parents-Alpha Silas and Luna Elara-finally showed up. They hadn't come to mourn. They came to claim her cold corpse, intending to marry it off to a powerful Alpha in place of Vanya, the fake daughter they favored. To protect Vanya's status and hide Snow's ancient White Wolf bloodline, they had suppressed Snow's shifting, allowed Vanya to whip her with silver, and ultimately poisoned her. When I refused to hand over her cheap pine coffin, they ordered their warriors to force my face into the mud. "Burn her." Silas threw a torch onto Snow's pyre, desperate to destroy the evidence of her silver-scarred flesh and the fatal Wolfsbane in her veins. As the flames licked my sister's burial shift, my chest spasmed, coughing up the dark blood of my own impending death. I couldn't fathom how parents could be so monstrous to their own flesh and blood, sacrificing their true daughter just to maintain a political lie. But they didn't know I had already sent a blood-stained letter to the Lycan Tribunal. Just as the fire caught, the Chief Arbiter stepped out of the shadows, and I knew I would live just long enough to watch their empire burn.”