로그인Lyra’s POVOver time I've learnt and master the act of being quite. It happened way before Selena chopped off my tongue.In this palace, silence was your only assurance to survive. You can't say nothing about anything, or even act like you saw it. Ever since Selena became queen we've all had to act blind just so we're not the next to dieI moved through the corridors with my head bowed and my shoulders slightly curved inward, the way they preferred us. My hands were never empty. A basket of linens. A bucket of water. A broom worn thin at the bristles. If you looked busy enough, people stopped looking at you.Since Selena’s order, the air itself had changed.I could literally feel as the guards will never take off their eyes from me. I didn't have much of a choice, I've come to accept this life of mine until the day that I'd get a chance to revenge and give Selena just a taste of her own pill.Guards who used to nod absently now watched me like they were counting my steps.Other maids
Aurelia’s POVI knew something was wrong the moment I stepped into the children’s quarters.It wasn’t loud. There was no screaming from Keiran, no broken furniture, no blood on the floor. Everywhere was still very organized and quiet.Kieran’s bed was empty.Not rumpled the way it usually was when he climbed out of it too early. Not messy from his restless turning at night. It was bare. Sheets folded too neatly. Pillow missing.My breath caught. I was too scared to admit the rising suspicion in my gut, I just stood there and took in all the sight before me.“No,” I whispered, already stepping closer, my hands shaking as I touched the mattress. It was cold and seemed and untouched for days.Madeline sat on her bed across the room, knees pulled to her chest, her small fingers twisting the hem of her dress. She looked up at me slowly, her eyes too calm for a child her age.“Where is your brother?” I asked, forcing my voice to stay steady.She didn’t answer, she only started tearing up as
Selena’s POVThe altar screamed.Not aloud but through me, straight down my spine, sharp and sudden, like a blade dragged between my bones. I gasped and staggered back as the runes carved into the stone flared bloof, pulsing once… twice… before collapsing into darkness.My hands trembled as I pressed my palm to the altar’s edge. The stone was still warm, almost feverish beneath my skin, as if it had been alive moments ago and had just died.“No,” I whispered. “That’s not possible.”The ritual chamber had never reacted that way. Never resisted me.The candles guttered one by one, their flames snuffed out by an unseen force, plunging the chamber into shadow. My breath came shallow. I could still feel Dominic.His resistance struck me again, sharper this time, and I cried out, clutching my side as if I’d been stabbed. My knees hit the stone floor hard, the impact barely registering beneath the deeper pain unfurling inside me.He was fighting.Not blindly. Not desperately.Intentionally.
Dominic’s POVThe first thing I noticed was the smell.It was something very old. Rot that had sunk into stone and never been allowed to leave. Decay layered over magic, soaked into the walls like a stain even time had failed to scrub away.They dragged me down three flights of stairs I didn’t know existed.Iron bit into my wrists as the guards hauled me forward, boots echoing against stone carved with symbols that made my vision blur if I stared too long. Every step deeper felt like walking away from air itself. The walls narrowed, pressing in, etched floor to ceiling with runes that pulsed faintly, as if breathing.Suppression runes.Not the crude ones councilors liked to show off. These were ancient. Older than the pack. Older than the castle. The kind that had been carved by hands that believed pain was a language worth mastering.“Careful,” one guard muttered to the other. “He’s still an Alpha.”The second guard laughed, sharp and humorless. “Not down here.”They shoved me forwar
Aurelia’s POVThe message came at dusk.Not through the usual channels, it was not barked by a cruel steward or tossed at me like an afterthought by a guard who barely remembered my name. This one was deliberate. Formal. Carried by a palace runner who wouldn’t meet my eyes when he spoke.“You are required in the royal dining hall,” he said stiffly. “Immediately.”The words landed more awkward than they should have.The royal dining hall.I hadn’t been allowed near that place in years. Not since my demotion. Not since my name had been quietly scraped from lists and corridors and replaced with silence. They had made a point of keeping me away from it. They wanted to make sure the entire pack forgets about me.So no. This wasn’t coincidence.This was a decision by Selena herself.I washed my hands twice before leaving the servants’ quarters, scrubbing harder than necessary, as if dirt were the reason my skin crawled. My reflection in the small mirror looked thinner than I remembered. Old
Liam’s POVI woke up choking.I started coughing uncontrollably. My body jerked forward before I was fully awake, my lungs were burning, and my throat felt raw. I barely had time to register the pain before something warm splattered against my sheets.I looked closely and saw that it was blood.I stared at it for half a second, my mind slow, fogged, before another wave hit me. I doubled over, coughing again, my ribs screaming as more blood streaked my lips and soaked into the white linen. My hands trembled when I brought them up, and that was when the fear finally settled in.I was getting more weak as the day goes by.My muscles felt sluggish, like they were moving through thick mud. Even breathing felt like effort, like my chest no longer remembered how to expand properly. I swung my legs off the bed, intending to stand, but the room tilted violently and I had to grip the edge of the mattress to keep from collapsing.“What is happening,” I muttered under my breath. “Something is def







