MasukWhenever one problem ended, this place seemed determined to answer with books.Chaos perked up.“Oh, excellent. Research montage.”Sol, however, had already moved to another line of thought.He looked toward the private doors leading back to our chambers.“What about the portal in our room?”All eyes turned to him.He continued.“If Beatriz and other doctors need to come, can they use the portal there and enter through the void?”For one heartbeat, the idea seemed brilliant.Close.Direct.Private.Then both Chaos and Order answered at the same time.“No.”Sol frowned.“Why not?”Chaos spread his hands dramatically.“Because your castle is possessive.”Order was more precise.“Because your castle will not allow anyone access to your room.”I blinked.“My room?”“Your room,” Order corrected. “Plural. Yours and Sol’s.”Chaos nodded solemnly.“It has categorized that entire wing as protected territory.”The central queen tried and failed to hide a smile.The second queen did not bother t
Aella POVI looked between them all, then toward the mirror standing across the room.The same mirror Sol and I had used the first time we left.An idea struck fast enough that I spoke before anyone else could.“Can we bring them over using the mirror Sol and I used the first time?”For one hopeful second, no one answered.Then the middle queen sighed.Queen Alors.It was not an irritated sigh.It was the sigh of someone who had watched many people discover that magic still came with inconvenient rules.“Child,” she said gently, “it is not so easy.”My shoulders dropped.Of course it wasn’t.Nothing had been easy since the day I learned my life belonged to several realms at once.Queen Alors stepped closer to the mirror, her fingers hovering over its frame.“The mirror is a passage for the bound and the recognized,” she explained. “It responded to your crowns, your bond, your inheritance.”She looked back at me.“It was never meant to be used as a transport gate for anyone you please.
Aella POVI sighed.It was not elegant. Not regal. Not the controlled exhale of a queen receiving difficult counsel.It was the sigh of a tired pregnant woman on her honeymoon who had somehow inherited ancient political disasters, prophetic children, and the responsibility of stopping a broken man with godlike ambition.“What next?” I asked.The question fell into the room heavier than I intended.Because I was not asking only about Elias.I was asking about the babies.About safety.About where we should stay.About what future we were actually building now that every answer seemed to create three new dangers.No one spoke immediately.The queens looked thoughtful. Chaos looked intrigued. Order looked, somehow, more Order than usual.Then Sol answered.He stepped closer until his shoulder brushed mine, grounding me with simple contact before he spoke.“Maybe,” he said carefully, “it would be best to stop thinking about leaving.”I turned toward him.He held my gaze steadily.“Instead
Aella POVNow that Chaos and Order were there, and no one had yet stormed out or transformed the room into a battlefield, I decided to use the opportunity.I looked at the queens first, then at Chaos, then at Order.“While everyone is gathered,” I said, “I’m sharing what the queens told us about Elias.”Chaos immediately sat in a chair that had not existed a second earlier. Order remained standing. The queens straightened. Sol moved behind me, one hand resting lightly at my waist.I recounted everything.Darius.The murders during eclipses.Marissa.The public cruelty.The second chance mate.The exile.The sanctuary gates closed against him.The original purpose of the Eclipse group before it became something twisted.No one interrupted. Even Chaos listened without theatrics.When I finished, I looked directly at him.“I understand how Elias was broken,” I said quietly. “But I still don’t understand how the man we saw passing the void’s trials became what he is now.”The room grew st
Aella POVSilence still lingered after the queen’s revelation.Heirs of the sanctuary.The words moved through me like prophecy and comfort all at once. I could feel Sol thinking beside me, weighing risk against wonder, practicality against possibility.But another thought struck harder.Sharp.Immediate.I turned slowly toward Chaos and Order.Both of them froze in the subtle way powerful beings do when they realize they are about to be questioned.I narrowed my eyes.“How is it,” I asked carefully, “that you two can access the sanctuary?”Chaos smiled too quickly.“Excellent weather today.”“No.”I took one step forward.“The queen just said Sol and I needed portals to come here.”I pointed between them.“So how are you walking in and out of this place whenever you feel like it?”Order looked at Chaos.Chaos looked at the ceiling.The three queens became visibly interested.The second queen actually pulled a chair closer and sat down.“Oh, I’d like to hear this.”The healer queen fo
Chapter — The Heirs of SanctuaryAella POVSol and I returned to our honeymoon at last.This time, the castle did not drag us through memories, grief, or unfinished truths. It simply welcomed us.The corridors brightened as we walked. Soft music drifted through the halls from nowhere and everywhere at once. Doors opened before us, and the castle guided us through sunlit galleries and flowering archways until we reached a quiet wing overlooking the gardens.There, waiting at the end of the hall, was a pair of carved doors.Our names were inscribed across them in silver light.Aella & SolI stopped smiling only because the breath caught in my throat.Beside those doors stood another.Smaller.Gentler.Its frame wrapped in carved vines, stars, moons, and tiny crowns.The nursery.I looked at Sol.He looked at me.Then we both laughed softly in disbelief.The castle, apparently, was not subtle.Inside, the room was beautiful.Warm light poured through tall windows overlooking the sanctuar
The transition from "Ascended Monarchs" to "starving shifters" happened remarkably fast. For hours, we were buried in vellum and leather. We moved through stacks of ancient scrolls, but it seemed the Great Library of the Queens had a sense of humor—or a very mundane side. We found "The Little Drag
The castle halls were silent, but the walls themselves seemed to vibrate with a hum of recognition. We didn't find ghosts or monsters; we found the truth.In the heart of the great hall, massive tapestries and stone friezes stretched from the floor to the vaulted ceiling, glowing with an internal l
Samantha’s voice, though raspy, carried an ancient authority that made the room go still. She leaned forward, her violet eyes burning with a desperate warning. "The Altar of the First Flame is not just a pile of ruins," she whispered, her gaze darting between Sol and me. "It is an ancient legend,
Maxwell was gone. Truly gone.For a flickering second, a memory I had tried to bury surfaced. I remembered his laughter as a pup, high and bright. I remembered him rolling around in the dirt with Caleb and Jax, four children making a mess of the world. He used to help me in ways no one else dared,







