Chapter 18: Old Shadows

POV: PERCIVAL

I had spent years ignoring the old stories about Eclipse Hollow. Now the stories were beginning to bleed into the present.

The council meeting left a bitter, foul taste in my mouth. Watching Roderick Thornfield use the early tremors of a disaster to stage a shameless land grab was predictable, but Guine Ravenshade’s response had been anything but standard noble posturing. Her absolute refusal to be managed, manipulated, or intimidated by the elders was a rare sight in a chamber built on political concessions. Yet, that very strength was drawing a dangerous kind of attention, the sort of spotlight an isolated heiress with a dormant fortress could ill afford.

The wind howled savagely through the stone battlements of my northern garrison as night settled over the peaks. Inside my private study, the only light came from the crackling hearth and a single, low tallow candle.

I pulled a heavy, iron-bound tome from the deepest compartment of the Wynthrone archives. Its black leather cover was cracked with age, the pages yellowed and smelling of dried rot and old dust. For generations, my bloodline had guarded these restricted ledgers, treating them as little more than ancient superstition.

Now, I laid the heavy book flat on my mahogany desk and began to read.

What I found unsettled me to my core.

The oldest records did not describe the Ravenshades as a mere land-owning family of the high packs. They spoke of the Eclipse line in whispered, terrified terms, describing them as the original guardians of the northern ridge, bound by blood to a dark, sealed force sleeping deep beneath the hills of Eclipse Hollow.

“The mark of the Eclipse is not born of nature,” one passage read, the ink faded to a dull brown. “It is a key. A burden carried by the blood to anchor the dark mantle when the silver skies return.”

I turned the heavy parchment pages carefully, my eyes scanning line after line of forbidden history. The entries detailed the first Moonfall centuries ago, recording how the ancestral Ravenshades used their volatile power to drive the silver plague back into the earth, sealing the core beneath the foundations of their fortress.

Then, the narrative took an unnatural turn. Whole decades of entries were missing.

I traced my fingers over the binding. Four separate pages had been sliced out with surgical precision, the jagged edges left behind proving that someone had deliberately removed the rest of the record long before I inherited the garrison. Someone had gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure the true purpose of Eclipse Hollow, and the nature of the power sleeping in Guine’s blood, remained buried in the dark.

I reached the bottom of the last remaining page in the section.

Unlike the neat, formal calligraphy of my ancestors, the final line at the margin had been scrawled hastily in dark, irregular ink, added by a different hand entirely.

“If the Eclipse heir awakens, the seal will fail.”

I stared at the words, a cold, heavy stillness settling in my chest.

I closed the iron-bound tome with a heavy thud, the sound echoing off the bare stone walls of my study. My mind raced back to the northern boundary, to the dead fox rising in the snow, to the metallic silver ash, and to the way Guine had looked at the dead beast not with surprise, but with horrifying recognition.

I was no longer dealing with a simple territorial dispute or a petty quarrel between broken mates. Guine Ravenshade had not merely reclaimed a house; she had unwittingly stepped onto a sleeping hive. If her presence in Eclipse Hollow was actively pulling the old seal apart, the silver sickness spreading through the lower valleys was only the first wave of a far greater catastrophe.

A heavy knock rattled the oak door.

"Enter," I called out, my voice tight and flat.

Lord Lancelot Greymonth pushed through the door without knocking, a break in protocol that immediately put me on high alert. His broadsword clattered against his thigh, his mantle damp with rain, and his face ghastly pale in the dim candlelight.

"Alpha," Lancelot said, his breath coming in short, uneven rasps as he stepped up to the mahogany desk. "Our scouts just returned from the lower territory border."

"Did Thornfield move his militia?" I asked, leaning forward.

"No," Lancelot replied, his jaw clenching as he delivered the news. "There is something else. Roderick isn't relying entirely on the council's legal channels."

He leaned over the desk, dropping his voice into a grim whisper. "Our riders spotted Lord Roderick's private carriage stopping at a secluded estate near the Moonstar border two hours after the assembly adjourned. He has been meeting privately with Morgause Wren."