LOGINXavier’s POVSomething was wrong.The realization didn't arrive through a sudden sound or a visual cue; it arrived through a void. It was the crushing weight of absence. The corridor leading to her private chambers was too still, the air unnervingly stagnant, as if the very atmosphere had been hollowed out.I didn't slow my pace as I reached her door. I didn't knock. I simply shouldered it open.Empty.My mind stalled, momentarily refusing to process the vacant space. She was supposed to be here. I swept the room with a clinical gaze. There were no signs of a struggle. No overturned furniture, no scuff marks on the stone, no evidence of an intrusion.That was infinitely worse. It meant she hadn’t been taken by force. She had walked out on her own."Where is she?"The words were a serrated blade as I turned toward the guard at the threshold. He snapped to attention, a flicker of raw dread crossing his features."My King, she—""Don’t hesitate," I snarled."She didn’t pass through the
Alara’s POVI kept the secret buried. I didn't tell Xavier. I didn't tell Ronan or Rylan. I knew them too well. I knew the protective, tactical walls they would build around me the moment they realized what was happening. They would stop me before I could find out what lay at the end of the thread.The connection hadn't faded after that initial strike. It remained a living thing, steady and expectant, like a path that had already been carved through the wilderness, simply waiting for my footprint to claim it.I stood in the center of my chambers, the silence of the room pressing against my skin. The wards that had been placed on the twins hummed faintly in the back of my mind — a distant, comforting warmth. They were safe. If they weren’t, I wouldn't be doing this. That was the only anchor that allowed me to even consider stepping into the void.“I am in control,” I whispered the mantra again and again to myself. I closed my eyes and leaned into the pull.The connection didn't just
Ronan's POVIt hit without any warnings.It was a sudden, jagged surge of energy that snapped through the center of my being as if something massive had reached out from the darkness and grabbed hold of my very soul from the other side of the world.I gasped, the sound catching painfully in my throat as my knees buckled. I barely managed to slam my hand down on the edge of the heavy oak table to brace myself. The familiar stone walls of my chambers blurred into streaks of gray and shadow. The air in the room changed instantly. It felt wrong — unnaturally thick, yet devoid of the oxygen I needed to fill my lungs. Everything had paused, except for the invisible hand that was currently reaching through the fabric of reality to find me.The sensation pulsed again like a command. It was stronger than anything I had felt before. And this time, it wasn't just a vague sense of "him" out there in the world. It was directed.My breathing slowed, my body instinctively attempting to find its ce
Ronan's POVI found Xavier in the war chamber. Predictable as ever. It was the only place he knew how to exist while the foundation of the world we'd known to exist was turning to dust. He was hunched over the map table, moving markers and adjusting lines, but it was all theater. The borders and territories didn't matter anymore.The real war wasn’t on some map; it was buried in the marrow of the very walls around us.The door clicked shut behind me, the sound echoing with a sharpness that felt like a challenge. He didn’t look up. That was my first confirmation."You’re avoiding it," I said.My words pulled him out of it. He looked at me with that same controlled, measured stare he used for everyone. "I’m working.""No," I countered, closing the distance between us. "You’re obsessing over everything except the truth."He paused, his hands stilling over a wooden marker. "And what truth would that be?"I stopped directly across from him. I wanted him to feel the proximity, to know I wa
Rylan’s POVSecrets weren’t kept in the walls. They were kept in what those walls refused to show.The royal archives sat beneath the eastern wing — buried deep enough to be forgotten, guarded enough to be trusted, which made them vulnerable.I moved through the lower corridor without hesitation, my steps silent against the stone. My attention was fixed ahead. The guards stationed outside the archive doors straightened the moment I approached.They didn’t question me. They didn’t stop me.Rank had its advantages. But access… access was something else entirely.The doors opened with a low, grinding shift, revealing the chamber beyond — dim, still, sealed.The air inside was colder than the rest of the palace. Records lined the walls in structured order — centuries of lineage, treaties, rulings, history — and omissions. That’s what I was here for.I stepped inside. The doors shut behind me, leaving me alone. Exactly how it needed to be.The upper records were useless. They were mainly r
Xavier's POVThe chamber felt smaller after that. The air felt tighter. Like the truth we had uncovered didn’t just sit between us. It pressed in.Rylan had stepped back from the table, but his eyes hadn’t left the mark. Ronan remained near the wall, his posture shifted, no longer idle, no longer patient. Me? I didn’t move. Didn’t look at either of them. I already knew what they were expecting, and I wasn’t sure how much of it I wanted to say out loud.Marcus stirred again. Stronger this time. Awake.‘You remember.’His voice heavy with the weight of it all, seemingly closer to the surface than it had been recently.“I remember fragments,” I said quietly.Ronan’s voice came sharp. “Then start with those.”I exhaled slowly, dragging a hand down my face before turning away from the table. The mark. The body. The evidence. All of it pointed in one direction — one I had spent years not thinking about. One I had been taught not to question. “My father,” I began, my voice even, controlle
Alara’s POVSeven days.Seven days since the night the palace had erupted into chaos.Seven days since the beds of my children had been found empty.Seven days since the hunt had begun.And still… there was no sign of them.The war room smelled like exhaustion.Maps covered the long oak table in ov
Alara’s POVTwo days.Two endless, suffocating days.That was how long I had been locked in the cold, damp cell. No sunlight, no warmth, no company. No sound except dripping water, the shuffle of guards outside, and my own stomach twisting in painful, hollow knots.Hunger clawed at me like a wild an
Alara’s POVWarmth lingered on the sheets long after I woke, soft and comforting against my skin. For a few seconds, I didn’t move. I simply breathed, letting the unfamiliar peace settle inside me.Then my eyes fluttered open—only to find the bed empty.Xavier’s scent still clung to the pillow besid
Alara’s POVWarmth.That was the first thing I felt as consciousness slowly dragged me back from the suffocating darkness. A soft blanket, the faint scent of cedarwood, and something warm brushing slowly against my temple.I blinked, my vision hazy at first, and then the world came into focus.A cry







