Chapter 16: The Ghost of the Silver Crest

The bay was a graveyard of iron and salt. While the Outcast Legion worked to salvage the wreckage of the Western dreadnoughts, I retreated to the deepest level of the Silver Heart library. I didn’t want the gold of the sun or the comfort of my throne. I wanted the archives—the dusty, forbidden ledgers that had been rescued from my father’s manor before I burned the old world down.

"He died, Elora. I saw the body," Thane said, his voice low and heavy as he followed me into the stacks. He looked exhausted, his shadow-steel armor dented and caked with dried violet sludge. "Your father, Silas... he died during the transition. The vacuum of the Deprivation took him."

"Then explain the eyes, Thane," I snapped, pulling a heavy, iron-bound book from a shelf. "Explain the way he looked at me. It wasn't the gaze of a stranger or a monster. It was the gaze of a man who knew exactly which buttons to press to make me stop."

Kaelen entered, carrying a shard of the High King’s shattered white-gold armor. He placed it on a stone table, and the metal hummed with a sick, rhythmic vibration.

"It’s not armor," Kaelen whispered, gesturing for us to look closer. "It’s a conductor. This metal isn't found on this earth. It’s soul-forged. And the DNA signature lingering on the inner padding..." He looked at me, his moss-green eyes full of a pity that made me want to scream. "It matches yours, Elora. By eighty-five percent."

The room felt like it was spinning. "So, my mother is a cosmic architect of the Abyss, and my father is a Lord of the Tenth Circle? What was I? A science experiment?"

"You were a bridge," a new voice joined us.

We turned to see an old woman leaning against the doorway. It was Elder Martha, the oldest wolf from the original Silver Crest Pack. She had been the one who fed me scraps when I was a servant. She looked at the shard of armor and sighed, a sound that carried the weight of decades.

"Your father, Silas, was a man of great ambition and very little soul," Martha said, hobbling toward the table. "He didn't find your mother by accident. He hunted her. He knew the legends of the Primordial White Wolf and the Abyss. He thought if he could father a child with her, he could claim the throne through blood."

"But he failed," I said.

"No," Martha corrected. "He was rejected. Your mother realized his darkness and fled, leaving you behind as a 'nothing' child to hide your true scent. When you unleashed the Deprivation five years ago, you didn't kill your father. You gave him exactly what he wanted—a doorway back to the lords he had been serving in secret."

I sat down on a wooden stool, the cold of the stone library seeping into my bones. "He used the Western Empires. He used my sister. He used everyone just to get back to the Abyss."

"And now he’s coming back for the 'Interest'," Jace said, appearing from the shadows of the ceiling. "The Shadow-Walkers found something in the wreckage of the flagship, Elora. A map. It doesn't point to the Silver Heart."

He rolled out a piece of charred parchment on the table. It was a map of the Tundra Graves—the sacred, frozen burial grounds where the ancient Alphas were laid to rest.

"Why would he go there?" Thane asked. "There’s nothing there but ice and bones."

"Not just bones," Kaelen realized, his eyes widening as he scanned the map. "The Tundra Graves are built on a natural ley-line intersection. If he can bridge the Abyss with the collective ancestral memory of every Alpha who ever lived... he won't just be a King. He’ll be a God. He’ll be able to rewrite the laws of shifting."

"He’ll turn every wolf in the world into his personal Shadow-Legion," I whispered.

I stood up, the silver scar on my arm flaring with a cold, golden fire. The confusion was gone, replaced by a crystalline rage. Silas hadn't just been a bad father; he had been the architect of my suffering from the very beginning. Every floor I scrubbed, every insult I endured, had been part of his plan to 'harden' the weapon.

"Pack the cold-weather gear," I commanded. "We’re leaving for the Tundra Graves at dawn."

"Elora," Thane said, grabbing my hand. "It’s a trap. He wants you there. He needs your blood to unlock the intersection."

"I know," I said, meeting his eyes. "But he’s forgotten one thing. He hardened the weapon so well that he forgot it has a mind of its own. He wants my blood? I’ll give it to him. But I’ll make sure it’s the last thing he ever tastes."

I looked at my three Mates—the men who had actually raised me, protected me, and loved me.

"We aren't going there to settle a debt," I told them. "We’re going there to finish the lineage."