Chapter 20

"The girl knows."

Knox's voice carried through the door of his private quarters. Aria pressed her back against the cold stone wall, barely breathing. She'd followed him from the dinner hall after noticing him slip away early, claiming a headache.

She shouldn't be here. Darius would lose his mind if he found out. But she was tired of waiting for other people to gather information. Tonight, she was gathering her own.

"She confronted me in the gardens." Knox's tone was clipped. Annoyed. "Bold little thing. Asked me to stop watching her."

Another voice—one Aria didn't recognize. Deeper. Rough. Like stone grinding on stone.

"Does she know about us?"

"Not specifically. But she knows I'm interested in her bloodline. And if the kings are feeding her information—"

"The kings don't know enough to be a threat. Not yet." The rough voice paused. "But the witch does. Seraphina has been guarding that knowledge for centuries."

"Then we deal with the witch."

"You don't deal with Seraphina Ravencrest. She's older than the curse itself, and she's been preparing for this moment her whole life." The rough voice dropped lower. "No. We deal with the girl. Before the blood moon. Before she learns what she truly is."

Aria's heart was hammering so loud she was sure they could hear it through the wall. Deal with her. They wanted to deal with her. What did that mean? Kill her? Take her? Use her?

Knox spoke again. "The competition gives us cover. She's surrounded by allies in the castle, but she'll have to leave eventually. When she does—"

"She won't leave. The kings will keep her close."

"Then we bring the fight to her. During the next trial. In the chaos."

Silence. Then the rough voice: "Vivian?"

"My daughter will play her part. She's angry enough to be useful and stupid enough to be disposable."

Disposable. He called his own daughter disposable.

Aria's stomach turned. Whatever Knox was, he wasn't just a schemer. He was something darker. Someone who would sacrifice his own child for power.

"The blood moon is in five months," the rough voice continued. "The girl must not reach the sacred circle alive. If her blood touches that ground willingly, the curse breaks. Everything Morgana built—gone."

"And if we take her to the circle ourselves? Unwilling?"

A pause. Then something that might have been a laugh. "Then the curse doesn't just continue. It evolves. Morgana designed it that way. Unwilling blood twists the magic. The kings don't just lose their minds and hearts—they become vessels. Empty shells for Morgana's power to fill."

"Resurrection," Knox breathed.

"Of a kind. The witch lives again through the royal bloodline. And we, her faithful, rule at her side."

Aria's blood went cold. So cold she couldn't feel her fingers.

They didn't want to stop the curse from breaking. They didn't even want to keep it going. They wanted to twist it. To use her blood—taken by force—to resurrect Morgana herself.

If willing blood broke the curse, unwilling blood would weaponize it.

She had to move. Had to get out of here. Had to tell Darius, tell Orion, tell—

A floorboard creaked under her foot.

The voices stopped.

"What was that?" Knox. Sharp. Alert.

Aria ran. She didn't think. Didn't plan. Just moved. Down the corridor, around the corner, feet pounding on stone. She heard a door open behind her. Heard Knox calling for guards.

She ducked into a servants' passage she'd learned about from Blake. It was narrow and dark, meant for carrying laundry and food between wings. She pressed herself against the wall and tried to slow her breathing.

Footsteps passed the entrance. Knox's voice, muffled now. "Check the east corridor. Someone was listening."

More footsteps. Guards moving. Doors opening and closing.

Aria waited. One minute. Two. Five. The sounds faded.

She crept through the servants' passage until she reached the west wing. Her hands were shaking so badly she could barely open her own door. She stumbled inside, locked it, and pressed her back against the wood.

Then she slid to the floor.

Resurrection. They wanted to bring Morgana back. Through the kings. Through her blood.

Everything she thought she knew about the curse had just gotten a hundred times worse. It wasn't just a question of breaking it or living with it. There was a third option—one that would destroy the kings from the inside out and bring back the witch who started all of it.

She had to tell them. Now. Tonight.

She scrambled to the bookshelf and pressed the hidden panel. The passage opened, and she ran through it, not caring about noise, not caring about being seen. She burst through the other end into Darius's study.

It was empty.

She tried the door to his private quarters. Locked. She banged on it.

"Darius! Open the door!"

Nothing. He wasn't here.

She ran back through the passage, taking the branch that led to Orion's wing. His study was dark, his quarters silent. Gone. Both of them gone.

The council meeting. Blake had mentioned it at dinner. Both kings would be in the war room until midnight, discussing border security with the generals.

She couldn't wait until midnight.

Aria paced her room. Back and forth, back and forth, wearing a track in the stone floor.

Knox was planning to take her during the next trial. In the chaos. His own daughter was a pawn. And the people pulling his strings wanted to resurrect a dead witch using Aria's blood and the kings' bodies.

She stopped pacing.

The mirror caught her attention. She walked to it slowly.

Her reflection stared back. Same black hair, same blue eyes, same pale skin. But there—behind her irises—that silver glow again. Brighter than before. Pulsing.

She leaned closer.

The glow intensified. Her wolf surged forward, not to shift, but to show her something. Images flooded her mind—a stone circle in a dark forest. Torches burning. A woman with silver hair and lightning in her veins, standing between two wolves and screaming at the sky.

The First Luna. Her ancestor.

And the words she screamed echoed through three hundred years of silence:

"My blood is not a weapon. It is a choice. And no one—not witch, not wolf, not god—will take that choice from me."

The vision shattered. Aria stumbled backward and hit the bed.

Her hands were glowing. Faint silver light pulsed beneath her skin, running through her veins like liquid moonlight. It lasted for three heartbeats, then faded.

She stared at her hands.

The First Luna's power. It wasn't just waking up.

It was fighting back.

A knock at her door made her jump so hard she bit her tongue.

"Aria?" Luna's voice, worried. "I heard you running. Are you okay?"

Aria crossed the room and opened the door. Luna took one look at her face and her expression crumbled.

"What happened?"

Aria grabbed her arm and pulled her inside. Locked the door.

"We have a problem," she said. "A big one."

Luna sat on the bed. "Tell me."

Aria opened her mouth. Then closed it. Then opened it again.

"Knox isn't just working against us. He's working to bring back the witch who created the curse. And he's going to use me to do it."

Luna's face went white.

"How?"

"My blood. If it's taken by force instead of given freely, the curse doesn't break—it evolves. The kings become vessels. Morgana lives again."

Luna stared at her. The silence stretched like a wire about to snap.

"We have to tell the kings," Luna whispered.

"I know. They're in council until midnight."

"Then we wait."

"We can't just—"

"We wait. Together. And the second they're free, we tell them everything." Luna's jaw was set. Her brown eyes were hard. "Nobody is taking your blood, Aria. Not Knox. Not some dead witch. Nobody."

Aria looked at her best friend. This woman who had no power, no title, no wolf strong enough to fight generals and witches and centuries-old conspiracies. But she was here. Ready to stand between Aria and the dark.

"Thank you," Aria said.

"Always."

They sat together in the candlelight, waiting for midnight. Waiting for the kings. Waiting for the war they both knew was coming.

And somewhere in the castle, behind locked doors and ancient wards, Royal Beta Knox lifted a glass to the gray-cloaked figure across from him.

"To Morgana," he said.

The figure raised its glass in return. Its hood fell back just enough to reveal eyes that were pure black—no white, no iris. Just darkness.

"To Morgana," it echoed. "Who never truly died."

The candle between them flickered.

And went out.