CHAPTER 104 - Trial by Combat

Lyra I walked through the Quad, the line of people wishing me good luck stretching all the way to the clearing. The cheers and smiles filled me with a warmth I hadn't felt in a long time. Sure, the closer I got to the clearing, the more the sneers and jeers started to appear, but I didn't let them get to me. I focused on the positive, on the people who believed in me, on the journey that had brought me here. I remembered a time, not so long ago, when Vivian had been at her cruelest. I had interrupted a dining party she had been hosting by daring to go to the kitchen to get something to eat after working all day in the pack house kitchen. She had cornered me in my room and plucked the apple I'd been eating from my hands and smashing it into sludge on the hardwood floor. Her dark eyes flashing with anger. "You'll never amount to anything, Lyra," she had spat, her voice dripping with venom. "You're nothing but a burden, a constant reminder of what I've lost." Her words had cut deep, an