4

ASHKA’S POV

I stayed hidden in the corridor, listening carefully.

Their faces were covered by the darkness so I couldn’t tell who they were, I could only focus on their words.

“Do you think the emotional pressure from tonight could weaken the seal?” one of them asked.

“It shouldn’t,” the other answered. “The seal has held for years. But we can’t take chances, her emotions are running high right now. That kind of shock can create dents if we’re not careful.”

“Then we reinforce it,” the first voice said. “Make the suppressant stronger before anything reacts.”

“I’ll arrange another session with Morrigast by the new week. No one else needs to know.”

“Good. If that seal breaks, everything we’ve protected falls apart. The whole arrangement collapses.”

I felt my mind racing.

A seal? Was it me they were talking about? And if it was, no one had ever told me anything about a seal.

I had never felt anything that made me think my mate bond was being controlled or suppressed.

I had lived my entire life believing the Moon Goddess simply worked differently with me.

I started backing away slowly, trying to be careful with every step I took.

That is until my leg brushed against something on the floor and a not so small noise followed.

The conversation stopped at once.

“Who’s there?” one of them called out.

I didn’t answer. I stayed completely still, hoping they would decide it was nothing.

I heard one set of footsteps move away quickly. While he other set started coming toward the exact spot where I stood.

I was about to be found.

I slipped into a nearby unused room and closed the door as quietly as I could.

I pressed myself against the wall and waited.

The footsteps stopped right outside for a few seconds, then continued past. I stayed inside until the corridor went silent again.

Only then did I open the door and step out.

For the first time since walking in on Rurik and Ivy, I was no longer thinking about the betrayal itself.

I was thinking about the word seal.

I headed straight for the restricted archives. If someone had placed a seal on me, there had to be a record somewhere.

My father kept detailed records about my health, my childhood, my training, and everything connected to my future as Luna.

I had read many of those documents over the years, but I had never seen anything about a seal or a suppressant.

Inside the archives I pulled out every file connected to my father.

My ,edical reports, council documents, family records notes about my birth and early years. Yet nothing made mention of a seal or any kind of suppressant.

That made the situation worse.

I started wondering how something like that could have been done without my father knowing.

He documented almost every important event in my life. He was careful and very thorough.

While searching through his personal records I found an old letter I remembered seeing once before. At first I almost put it back.

It didn’t seem connected to what I was looking for. Then something about the signature at the bottom made me stop.

I picked it up again and examined it closely.

The handwriting looked close enough to my father’s that most people would accept it without question.

But I knew his handwriting better than almost anyone. I remembered how he signed official documents and how he wrote personal letters.

This signature was not his.

I read the rest of the letter carefully. The contents claimed that my father had approved a decision concerning my future and instructed that I be bound to Rurik.

On the surface it looked like proof that he had been involved in whatever happened to me.

But the more I studied it, the more weird it felt.

The wording didn’t sound like him.

The signature wasn’t drawn the way he always drew it and some details in the letter didn’t match what I knew about the decisions he made before he died.

Someone had deliberately created this document to make it look like my father authorized something he never authorized.

The conversation I overheard suddenly began to sound completely different.

Someone had been hiding things about me.

And if my father’s records had been manipulated, then I could no longer assume that the people inside Silvercrest were telling me the truth about anything.

I gathered the letter and a few other records that looked useful.

I made sure I left nothing behind that would show I had been searching through the archives.

I returned to my private chambers and locked the door.

For the first time I started thinking beyond the immediate betrayal.

I needed someone outside Silvercrest. Someone powerful enough to protect me if the people around me were involved in whatever I had just uncovered.

Several names crossed my mind, but only one stuck to my mind.

Vasik Draugir. The Alpha of the rival Nightfall Pack.

He was the last person Rurik would ever expect me to approach.

Their packs had been in conflict for years, working with him could be dangerous. I had heard enough stories about him to know that trusting him carried its own risk.

But I had no reason to trust anyone inside my own territory anymore.

I sat at my desk and wrote a private letter addressed to Vasik. I did not tell him everything I knew.

I simply wrote that I needed to discuss a matter concerning Silvercrest and requested a confidential meeting.

I sealed the letter carefully.

Then I called for one of my most trusted personal servants, she entered quietly and waited.

“I need you to deliver this,” I said, handing her the letter. “Directly to Alpha Vasik Draugir of the Nightfall Pack. No one else is to see it and no one else is to know you are carrying it. You leave tonight, you hand it to him yourself, and you return without speaking to anyone about the journey. Do you understand?”

She nodded. “Yes, Luna. I’ll handle it myself.”

“If anyone asks where you are going, you tell them I sent you on a personal errand to one of the border villages. Nothing more.”

“I understand.”

I watched her leave with the letter, knowing I had just reached beyond the walls of Silvercrest for the first time.