Masuk(Kael’s POV)The cold here is different.It doesn’t bite like mountain frost or creep like palace stone. It seeps. It crawls under skin and settles in the bones, a reminder that nothing here was built for comfort or mercy.Rogue lands.They call it freedom, but I call it rot.I sit near a dying fire, its was flames weak, but its smoke was stinging my eyes. Around me, wolves linger in the half-dark…scarred, feral, and they’re watching me with the same suspicion they reserve for prey that might still bite back. They know who I was, but they don’t care.A fallen prince is still a body that bleeds.The crown is gone, the palace is gone, even my name feels thinner here, it has been stripped of the weight it once carried. Kael of DarkMoonCrest. Heir apparent.Exile tastes like ash.They took everything from me.No…. he did.Xander.Golden heir, beloved king, chosen by the abyssal throne and Moon and fate itself. He always had the things that mattered handed to him on a platter…loyalty, rev
(Edrian’s POV) The palace was finally quiet. Not the wary quiet of plotting corridors or the brittle silence of fear, but a deep, settled stillness, like the kingdom itself had exhaled and decided to rest. Xander closed the doors to our chambers. No expectations waiting on the other side of stone and steel. Just us. For a moment, we stood there, facing each other in the low glow of lamplight, the weight of everything we had survived hanging between us. King. Consort. Mate. Equal. The words still felt unreal on my tongue. “You don’t have to be strong tonight,” Xander said quietly, as if reading the way my shoulders remained too tense. “Not for me or ever.” Something in my chest cracked at that, not painfully, but like ice giving way to water. “I don’t know how to stop,” I admitted. “Every time things are quiet, I keep waiting for someone to come take it all away.” He crossed the space between us and rested his forehead against mine. His breath was warm. “They won’t,” he s
(Edrian’s POV)The first law Xander signed was written in ink the color of fresh earth.I stood beside him in the council chamber, the table scarred with centuries of fists and blades, and watched his hand move steadily across the parchment.“All bonds of enslavement within DarkMoonCrest are dissolved.”The words seemed to glow when the seal pressed down and for a heartbeat, it seems everyone held their breath, then the room exhaled at the same timeSome of the nobles stiffened, those whose wealth had been built on backs and broken wills but none dared speak. Not with Xander seated at the head of the table, even the Abyssal Throne was quiet behind him, its hunger was gone.“Effective immediately,” Xander said, his voice calm but strong. “Those who resist will answer to me.”A murmur rippled through the chamber, I’m not sure if it’s fear, anger, relief, or hope, maybe all tangled together.I felt it like a tide in my chest.Afterward, when the hall emptied and the doors closed, Xander
Edrian’s POVThe Abyssal Throne did not roar, it breathed life.I felt it before I saw it...I felt it before the doors were thrown open and the court gathered in a half-circle that dared not step too close. The air in the throne chamber had always been wrong, thick with a hunger that crawled under the skin. I had felt it the first time I was dragged across this floor in chains, felt it when the Alpha kings sat upon it and slowly unraveled.Today, the air was… different.The throne stood at the center, obsidian-black, veined with veins that once pulsed like a living thing. Now, as Xander approached it, those veins dulled. The low, predatory hum that had lived in the stones faded into a deep, settling quiet, like a beast finally laying its head down.I swallowed hard.Xander didn’t look back at me. He didn’t need to. The bond between us was a living thread, warm and steady, anchoring me even as the weight of the room pressed in.When he sat, the throne accepted him. Not with pain, not w
(Xander’s POV)The palace did not sleep after Amber fell.Walls groaned under the weight of magic burned away. Torches hissed as rain crept through shattered arches. Blood... too much blood ran in thin veins along the marble, carrying the echoes of screams that had not yet faded.I stood in the High Court with my sword lowered, chest heaving, and my wolf still half-risen beneath my skin. The bond between me and Edrian thrummed alive, steady, and furious... anchoring me while the kingdom threatened to tear itself apart.Kael stepped into the circle of light as if he owned it.He always had a way of doing that...entering like the ending was already written in his favor.“My brother,” he said mildly, his boots crunching over glass. “You look tired.”Guards poured in behind him. Too many. Cloaked figures with blades that are still wet with blood. The last of the assassins he’d hidden in plain sight were captains, courtiers, men who had sworn oaths to my father and broken them with smiles.
(Edrian’s POV)The creature never reached us.A wall of flame erupted between its charge and Xander’s leap...silver-edged fire that screamed as it rose, its runes snapping into place midair. The summoned beast slammed into the barrier and howled, clawing uselessly as the magic held.I knew that fire. Then, she stepped out.Amber stepped from the smoke like a vision torn from a nightmare, her hair unbound, her eyes burning a fever-bright blue. The palace behind her was chaos, screams, steel, and blood, but around her, the air bent. Magic thickened until it pressed against my lungs.“Edrian,” she said softly, and my name sounded like a curse on her tongue. “You’re persistent. I’ll give you that.”Xander snarled, a low thunder rolling from his chest. He shifted back to human in a blur, blades in his hands while blood slicks his arms. “Move away from him,” she said without looking his way. Her gaze pinned me, it was sharp and gleaming. “I warned you,” she continued, circling, her finger







