**Mia's POV**
I had been training my entire life for it.
The entire palace, my home, had been in an uproar in preparation. Only a week out from my birthday, and already it had felt as if the excitement of it all lived on within me, like electrical currents just beneath my skin. One week until my eighteenth birthday, one week until the great gala that would be held so that I might find my mate and take my mother's throne, and I was so sure of everything.
It was not often that women sat on a throne. In fact, my mother was only the second queen in our kingdom's entire history - the first only because of her king-husband's death, until her son's eighteenth birthday. As for my mother, being the eldest born child with no brothers had secured her the family crown. For me, it was being an only child. The whispers of discontent amongst the other kingdoms and people still living in a past dictated by the choices of men and men alone were there, sure, but my mother had been a good queen in her own right for five years before she'd ever met my father. She had assured me that they would come around, that they would all see my strength and accept me in time. Get through the gala, get through the coronation, and show them what I was capable of - it was a simple enough plan.
For seven days, it felt like nothing could stop me. Nothing could steal away my confidence, my joy, my assurance that everything I had always been promised and prepared for would come to pass. I would lead my kingdom with empathy and strategy and kindness. I would be the leader my mother had raised and trained me to be. My mother, the Alpha Queen, had brushed all concerns and rumors away... And I had blindly believed her.
Looking back on all that has happened since then, I wonder if my mother had known. I wonder if she had seen me, her only child, and done everything she could to protect me, not knowing she was leaving me so underprepared for what was to come. I wonder if she'd heard any secrets swirling around about the possibility of our attack. I try not to think too much about it these days, but when I am alone late at night it hits me sometimes - her eyes, in those last moments. The way that she had screamed at me to go, to run. The way I had heard her fighting, her grunts of pain, her screams... And then silence, the loss of a life given to save my own. When I go to sleep, I see her eyes.
I always see her.
—
The ground was hard against my frame, sending small pains up my hips and side. How long had it been now? The sun was high in the sky again after I'd pushed so long last night to ensure I was not anywhere I might be found while I caught up on some much needed rest. I had been trained, of course, as all the royals were but... I was a princess. I was a future queen. I had been, at least. I had been spoiled, so much so that now the callouses and pains from pushing myself so hard the last few days were proof enough that I was so terribly underprepared.
My wolf, Niylah, was flittering between anger and sadness so intensely it was almost unbearable. That first night, the only thing that had kept either of us on our feet as the emotions whipped through us was fear. The sounds of what had occurred pushed us forward. The memory of my mother's eyes, my mother's life. I knew the moment she'd died. The moment the silence hit, Niylah howled in my head, but my feet ran on autopilot, the chill of my mother's last instruction still pushing my body even when I thought I couldn't go anymore, couldn't push myself any further. When the air choked in my throat and the fire that burned my chest felt like it would consume me, that was what kept me running. "Go!" A command, her last Alpha command. Her death took away the power it had hit me with, but not the emotional hold it had over me. She told me to run, and we did.
When it was safe, I had curled up in unfamiliar woods under thick, dark underbrush, hidden myself away in the wilderness, and sobbed myself to sleep. I couldn't tell how long ago that had been now, but the weight of what I'd put my body through was so evident as I forced my aching limbs to stretch, to stand, to assess my form. Everything was sore, hurting. Every part of my body was screaming to collapse back, to not have to get up.