ANMELDENValemont Keep Two Days LaterKael’s POVThe smell in the private solar was that of burned ashes and cold limestone.These three days I hadn’t allowed any servant to touch the hearth. The rain beat hard upon the stained glass panes and spread ugly, gray shadows all across the flagstones.Cornered inside the dust sheet was the carved cradle of birchwood.Empty.I stomped my boots along the cold stone floor, my fingers trembling as they touched the edge of the smooth wood. The only remaining traces of my son were the lavender oil and the warm milk smell still clinging to the piece of furniture.He would soon be a year old.For ten months, I had enjoyed Leo's laughter; they resounded across these walls, and now the memory of the baby’s fat little hands reaching for mine felt like a fresh wound ripped wide open.I had let Aria depart with him.After he was kidnapped in my keep, it was the only thing I could have done, plus the plausible explanations.And I believed that been with him woul
By midday, the Obsidian Keep was no longer a secluded stronghold.It became the epicenter of a seismic shock wave that shook the very foundations of the five realms.The bells that tolled through the jagged mountains during the morning hours were just sparks. By noon, the great iron gates of the citadel opened up to the high plateau. Black-armored riders mounted upon the North’s fastest winter destriers were charging down the mountain paths in all directions, carrying royal dispatches sealed with the silver wax of the Alpha king of Blackthorne.The message was concise, ruthless, and undeniable:The five-century-old retribution of the Northern Line is purged.The Cursed King has shifted.The king proclaims to the realm the crowning of his mate.In the lower courtyards, the outcome was chaos.Hundreds of northern warriors, clansmen, and commoners were packed into the frosted flagstones, roaring in praise, pounding their fists against their iron shields, and igniting giant watchfires, wh
The silence in the royal chamber was almost suffocating, disrupted only by the constant crackling of birch logs in the hearth.Draven remained sitting on the edge of the pallet, gazing down at his hands. His chest was uncovered, clean, and warm under the glow of the fire.For five hundred years, every fifth-generation male of his lineage had been living in a prison of the ancestral disease, without the ability to summon the beast in any other way but by allowing the dark venom to take over their mind. He had ruled over an empire of iron, led wars, and commanded legions, while remaining in his naked human body because of the ancient curse that locked the wolf inside.Mother washed the gray remnants of the black salt from her hands with a cloth dipped into the fresh well water next to the mantel. On the opposite end of the chamber, Mother Elara hovered by the cradle of Leo, gently swaying the wicker structure until the even breaths of my sleeping son filled the room."Draven?" I whisper
The circle of crushed black salt and dried winterthorn absorbed the light from the torches.Draven lay on the thick pallet of bear fur near the hearth, stripped down to his midriff. His broad chest heaved with shallow gasping movements, his skin being an awful sight of pale ash and burning heat. The violet veins completely covered his throat, winding along his jaw in the shape of bruised briars and throbbing with an erratic, dangerous luminescence that emitted some kind of loud buzz in the stifling air.Mother was kneeling above his head, her palms flat on the cold floorstone just outside the salt circle.I kneeled next to him, close enough to sense the heat emanating from his ribs. My hands hover above his chest, trembling with anticipation, my fingers tingling from the dormant silver static of my Nullifier core.In the opposite corner, beside the baby's crib, Mother Elara watched the iron doors, holding the ceremonial sword in her arm's crook."Remember, Aria," Mother's voice sounde
The room fell into absolute, breathless silence.In the stone cradle next to the hearth fire, Leo lay curled up in his sheepskins, totally unaware that his little spark had just rewritten the rules of our ancient bloodline.Mother stood motionless in front of the mantel, the silver ritual bowl hovering still in her hands. Mother Elara stood by her side, murmuring a silent prayer in the old language of the north, slowly stepping towards the oak doors.Beside the roaring fire, Draven lay on the fur blanket.The heat coming from his body created a kind of inferno. His chest was shaking with shallow and sharp breaths, each of which sounded like shards of ice in his throat. The dark veins rising on his neck were pulsating in a violent way, fighting with a wild desperation against the remaining silver static I had infused him with at the gates.“Aria…”His voice was just a rasp, barely audible above the crackle of birch logs.I instantly turned to him, kneeling on the floor by the fireside.
The new horses carried us ruthlessly, eating miles in their fiery run across the northern tundra.By midnight, the blizzard had frozen into a brittle freeze. The sky above the icy ridge was split open with streaks of color like it didn't know if it wanted to rain or not.I rode knee-to-flank with the carriage, touching the wood with my hand.Once every half-hour, I checked on Draven. The fever was consuming his body from within, melting his skin into the glowing furnace. The king was fighting with himself in silence and cruelty, his jaws locked so tightly that blood was oozing from his mouth, his fingers scratching the bed of the carriage until crimson trails appeared on the timbers whenever the demon inside him came out. He didn't say a single word. He wouldn't waste any breath he needed to stay alive.But then, in the beginning of the third watch, the mountain road opened onto the high plateau."Torak!" I called out, lifting my voice.The captain pointed with his iron gauntlet towar







