The Vale burned beneath a crimson sky. Smoke rose from the forests like prayers the gods had stopped hearing, and the wind carried the scent of silver and blood. Wolves howled across the ridges, their cries fractured by battle and betrayal .From the shattered balcony of Silver & Vale Tower, Maxim watched his city die. His coat was torn, his hands blackened by ash, and his eyes—the Beast’s eyes—glowed gold through the soot. Every muscle in his body screamed for release, to tear and rend and rule by sheer power. But he couldn’t—not while Zara’s magic still shimmered faintly across the ruins below, a fragile web holding the Vale together by threads of pain and light.The rebellion had reached the gates by dawn. Elias had led them himself, wolves clad in moon-silver, eyes blazing with fanatic conviction. “A king who bows to witchcraft is no Alpha!” Elias had roared before the masses, and the echo of that cry still thundered in Maxim’s mind.Now, the Hollow’s storm had joined the rebellio
The old texts called it the Binding Flame—a ritual older than the Vale itself. A last resort, meant to shackle what could not be tamed. Maxim had read the words by moonlight, the edges of the parchment scorched as if fire itself had tried to erase the warning. Only the soul willing to burn can command the blaze.Now, the room around him flickered with that same defiant light. The manor’s lower sanctum—once used for oath ceremonies—had been stripped bare. Sigils scorched the stone floor, carved deep enough to bleed heat. Braziers lined the walls, filled with molten coals that pulsed like living hearts. Every heartbeat of the flame felt synced to his own .Zara stood at the threshold, her breath unsteady. The scent of sage and charred iron filled the air. “You shouldn’t be doing this alone.”“I’m not alone,” Maxim said, his voice low, roughened by the Beast that lurked beneath. He was shirtless, his chest marked with the symbols of the rite, drawn in ash and blood. “You’re here.”“That’
The council chamber was colder than usual. Fire burned in the wall braziers, yet the air felt thin, as if every breath had to push through a fog of distrust. Maxim sat at the head of the table, his posture iron-straight, his eyes shadowed from nights with no sleep. The carved sigil of the Vale—a wolf beneath a crescent moon—seemed to flicker on the walls like it, too, had grown uncertain of its place.Zara stood behind him, her palm resting lightly on his shoulder. The warmth of his skin under her fingers was the only thing grounding her. Around the table sat the alphas of the allied packs: Liora of the Ironfangs, Ren of the Hollowpine, and Elias Vale—Maxim’s oldest friend, his Beta, and the man who had once sworn his life to the Vale line.No one spoke at first. Outside, the rain struck the tower’s stone in relentless rhythm, like a second heartbeat the chamber couldn’t ignore. Finally, Liora broke the silence.“Three packs have gone silent,” she said. “Their wolves can’t shift. Thei
The wind off the Vale carried the scent of ash and damp earth, heavy with the unease of a land fraying at its seams. Zara stood alone on the balcony of the east wing, palms braced against the cold stone, staring at the horizon where storm clouds hung unnaturally low. The world looked tired, as though the eclipse had stripped something essential from it and left only the hollow frame behind.Behind her, the fire in Maxim’s study snapped and popped, throwing restless shadows across the room. He had been pacing for hours, caught between fury and dread, while advisors whispered about rebellion and fragments of cursed stone. But Zara hadn’t told him what the Hollow’s emissary’s words had burned into her mind: the seal lives in your veins.At first, she had denied it. The thought that her blood—the strange hybrid gift that had marked her from birth—was the tether holding the fractured seal together was unbearable. Yet the evidence grew undeniable. When the seal quivered, when the rifts in i
The torches lining the grand hall of Silver & Vale guttered as if a sudden wind had stolen through the stone walls. Maxim stilled, his chest rising and falling with the force of the Beast still lingering inside him. Only moments before, he had roared and the entire hall had felt the quake of it. Now silence lay over the chamber, thick and unnatural, as if even breath itself feared to move.Zara’s fingers brushed his sleeve. “Something’s here.”He didn’t need her whisper to know. The hairs along his arms stood on end, his wolf pacing restlessly under his skin. The darkness near the dais rippled, and from it stepped a figure no one could quite describe.At first glance, it was a man—tall, slender, clothed in black as deep as void. But when the light of the torches struck its form, it bent around him wrong, as though he were a hole where light should be. The emissary’s face had no lips, yet when it spoke, the sound poured like oil.“Children of the broken seal,” it said, voice carrying t
The firelight flickered against the carved stone walls of the council chamber, shadows rippling as though alive. Zara stood near the long table, her fingers brushing the edge of a parchment she hadn’t been able to read for the past ten minutes. Words blurred together, useless under the pressure thrumming through the air.She didn’t need magic to know Maxim was unraveling.He sat at the far end of the chamber, hands braced on either side of his chair, knuckles white. His chest rose and fell too fast, his skin damp with sweat despite the cold draft sliding in from the vaulted windows. His eyes—those storm-dark eyes that always anchored her—were fractured by a gleam not his own.The Beast.Zara’s throat tightened. The eclipse had promised relief, a sealing, a balance between his cursed inheritance and his will. But balance was a lie. What the eclipse had done was tease open the lock. And now, every heartbeat was another crack.“Maxim,” she whispered, voice steady despite the terror spark