ログインLord Void’s POVThe blood on the stone had gone cold an hour ago.Twelve men stood in a circle around me with their heads bowed and their breath coming out in white clouds that vanished into the dark.We were deep in the catacombs beneath my keep where no light reached except the black fire burning in the iron bowl at the center of the room.“Look at me,” I told them.They lifted their eyes. Fear was better than faith, and I saw plenty of it.I raised both hands and the air turned heavy.Shadow peeled away from the walls like skin and pooled in my palms until it was thick enough to hold. It pulsed against my skin and wanted to be fed.“Dark Shadow God,” I called. My voice did not echo. The stone swallowed it. “Come through me. Come through them.”I began the incantation. The words were old and they cut my tongue as I spoke them, but that was part of the price.The shadow in my hands split into twelve threads and shot forward. Each one forced itself between the lips of the men standing
Brenda’s POVLord Merrick had been whining for the last hour.We were standing in the snow half a mile from the cottage and he had not stopped talking since we gave up the search.“I told you we should have gone the other way,” he said. “You told me your intel was good. Your source is always good until it is not.”“I am not wrong,” I told him without looking at him.“My sources do not fail. Ashton was here. We were minutes behind him.”I turned and started walking back toward the tree line. “Then we go back and we finish this.”“Finish what,” Merrick said. “We lost him. The snow covered everything.”I did not answer him. Men like Merrick needed someone to blame when they felt powerless. Let him talk.Then I saw movement ahead. A figure in a blue cloak moving through the trees toward us.When the person reached us they kept their head down. I already knew who it was. "Did you find him?""If we had, you wouldn't be asking." I snapped. "Your information was wrong," Lord Merrick said.
The Empty BedXander’s POVI walked out of the war room exhausted. There had been too many meetings, too many maps spread across the table, and too many voices telling me where the Crescent wolves had been seen and where they had not.I had not spoken to Zeth in any of them. He sat across from me and kept his mouth closed, and I let him. It pleased me to watch him silent. When he stepped out, it felt like a weight was taken off my heart.I moved through the corridors toward my chamber with my steps even and my hands steady.Then I saw them. Both guards asleep on the floor outside my door.I did not say anything. I stepped over their bodies and pushed the door open.The room was empty. The fire had burned down to red coals, and the bed was cold.I walked the perimeter once. The window was closed. His black cloak was gone. There was no sign of Ashton.Something in me went very still. I turned and went back into the hall. I reached down and took the first guard by the front of his coat a
Ashton’s POVThe trees were not thick enough to hide in, but they were all I had. I pulled the child down behind the trunk and pressed us both to the bark, my arms locked around him because if he made a sound we would not make it out of these woods.His small body shook against me, and the snow soaked through my cloak and into my knees.The footsteps were close. They cut through the quiet like knives, and each one landed in my chest.Behind us, the door of the cottage slammed open.I did not turn. I already knew who it was.“Where did he go,” Brenda said. Her voice carried over the snow, sharp and annoyed.Lord Merrick answered her. “We wasted time coming here. You should have listened to me.”“My intel never fails,” Brenda said. “I know Ashton was out here. Check around.”The child in my arms made a broken sound. I covered his mouth with my hand before he could cry, and I shook my head against his hair. He understood. He nodded once, tears hot on my palm.The footsteps moved closer.
Ashton’s POVEverything in the chamber felt like it was closing in. The soft glow of the moon made me uneasy.It had been days since I left this room. Days since the last time the baby’s power had reacted violently. Since then, nothing had happened. The baby had been quiet, and that was what scared me more than the pain.I had not seen Zeth. Xander made sure of that.He was in the room every morning and every night, sitting in the same chair, watching me with eyes that were careful and distant in a way they had not been before.Ever since I said Zeth’s name in my sleep, something had shifted between us. He still said he loved me. He still kissed me, but he did not look at me the same.The guards outside the door did not move. Mara came twice a day with tea and with food and with the same soft smile that did not reach her eyes.I sat on the edge of the bed and pressed my hands to my stomach. The baby was there. I could feel him, but underneath the weight of him there was something else
Lord Void’s POVThe chamber held its breath. Stone walls were cold and the black candles burned without flame, giving light that did not warm anything.I stood before the mirror because the mirror was the only place the god would speak to me without making the rest of the fortress kneel.My reflection was not mine. Where my face should have been there was only shadow, a depth of black that had no edges and no bottom. It filled the glass and spilled past the frame. The Dark Moon God.The voice came from inside the glass. “You are wasting time,” it said. The tone was patient the way a predator is patient, which meant it was not patient at all.“Destroy the Aurion wolves,” the dark told me. “Destroy the Noctaryn wolves. Break them before they remember they once stood together and called it peace.”The shadow in the mirror shifted, and for a moment I thought I saw teeth that were not teeth. “You will make more of the Crescent,” it continued. “More teeth, more hunger. Let the continent dr







