Chapter 24

Elara's POV

None of us slept easily after Soren's report, and by the next morning I found myself standing at my window long before the household usually stirred, watching the mist curl low over the garden where everything had felt so simple and certain only days before, and wondering how something that had felt like the safest place in the world could so quickly become a place I now watched for shadows in every archway.

Kael found me there, his own eyes shadowed with the same lack of sleep, and for a moment neither of us said anything, simply standing together in the quiet, gathering the strength for whatever the day was about to ask of us.

"I want to write to Vesna," I said finally. "Directly. Not through court channels, not through anything Mathis could intercept. If her name is being used without her knowledge, she deserves to know. And if it isn't, I'd rather find that out honestly than keep guessing in the dark."

"That's a risk," Kael said carefully. "If she is involved, you'd be handing her exactly the kind of proof that we suspect something, and giving her the chance to cover her tracks before we have anything solid enough to act on."

"Maybe," I admitted. "But I don't think she's involved. Not really. Everything she said to me before she left felt too honest to be part of a plot against us, and I've spent my whole life learning to tell the difference between genuine concern and performance. Hers felt real."

Kael studied me for a long moment, and I could see him weighing my instinct against the careful caution that had kept him alive and ruling for a century, before he finally nodded, slow and reluctant. "All right. Write to her.

But we send it through Soren, someone we trust completely, not through the usual messenger routes Mathis might have eyes on."

I spent the better part of the morning composing the letter, careful with every word, explaining what Soren had overheard without accusing her outright, asking simply and plainly whether she had any knowledge of Mathis using her name in connection with plans against Kael and me.

Soren left before midday, riding hard for the western border himself rather than trusting the message to anyone else, and the waiting that followed stretched into some of the longest days I'd experienced since arriving in Nightfall Hollow.

In the meantime, Nyra's search through the archives turned up two more missing pages, both torn from sections detailing old laws around succession and bloodline claims, and though she couldn't say for certain what they'd contained, the pattern of what remained around the torn edges suggested something about the rights a mate from a recognized bloodline might hold within Lycan law, rights that could, in theory, shift the balance of power within the court considerably.

"He's not just trying to separate you," Nyra said grimly, spreading what remained of the damaged texts across the library table.

"I think he's trying to make sure that even if your bond survives, Elara, you'd have no legal standing here to matter.

No claim, no voice, nothing beyond whatever Kael chooses to grant you personally, which could be stripped away just as easily if the political winds ever shifted against you."

The implication settled heavy in my chest, because it meant this wasn't simply about jealousy or fear of change, the way I'd first assumed.

It was about power, about making sure that whatever I represented could be contained, controlled, kept from ever becoming a genuine threat to the old order Mathis had spent his whole life serving.

"Why does it matter so much to him," I asked. "The curse has hurt Kael his whole life. You'd think breaking it would be something worth celebrating, not something worth this much effort to prevent."

"Because the curse also protects certain traditions," Kael said quietly, understanding dawning slow and unwelcome across his face.

"The elders' council holds significant power specifically because a cursed King requires more oversight, more checks on his authority, in case the wolf ever takes over completely.

A cured King, a stable King with a mate whose bloodline carries real legal weight of her own, needs that oversight considerably less.

" He looked at Nyra, something grim settling into his expression.

"Mathis isn't just protecting the old order because he fears change, is he. He's protecting his own position within it."

"That would fit," Nyra said carefully. "He's held significant influence over this court for decades, precisely because of your circumstances. A cure changes that equation substantially, and not in his favor."

The pieces clicked together with an ugliness that made my stomach turn, because it meant Mathis's opposition wasn't born from any genuine concern for Nightfall Hollow's stability at all, but from something far more selfish, a man protecting his own power at the expense of Kael's chance at an actual life free from the curse that had haunted him for a century.

Soren returned four days later, exhausted from hard riding, and the moment he stepped into the sitting room where Kael and I had been waiting anxiously, I could see from his expression that whatever answer he'd brought back wasn't going to make anything simpler.

"Vesna had no idea her name was being used," he said, pulling a sealed letter from inside his coat and handing it to me. "She was furious, honestly, once she understood what was happening. She's offered to send a formal statement to the Nightfall Hollow council denying any involvement, if it would help discredit whatever Mathis is trying to build."

Relief loosened something tight in my chest, confirming what I'd believed about her honesty even as the rest of the situation grew more complicated, and I broke the seal on her letter, scanning the elegant, sharp handwriting inside.

"She says something else too," I said slowly, reading further. "She says she's heard rumors, from contacts in the western territories, that Mathis has been in correspondence with someone else entirely. Someone from Ashwood pack."

Kael went very still beside me. "Ashwood."

I kept reading, and the cold feeling in my stomach spread further with every line. "She doesn't have a name.

But she says the correspondence started shortly after Alpha Cross came to the border that first week, and it's continued regularly ever since."

The three of us sat with that information for a long moment, the pieces rearranging themselves into a picture none of us had considered until now, one that stretched Mathis's plot far beyond the walls of Nightfall Hollow.

And back toward the pack I'd left behind that terrible night in the forest, back toward a father who'd suspected what I was long before anyone else, and a son whose humiliating rejection might have been the very first move in something far larger than any of us had understood.