CHAPTER 4: The Assassin's Blade

The scream cut through the ceremony grounds so sharply that it seemed to slice the afternoon in half.

​One second, thousands stood gathered around the Moon Altar, holding their breath for the mating ritual to begin. The next, panic surged through the square like a physical wave.

​"Protect the prince!"

​"Guards!"

​"Assassin!"

​People shoved past one another in blind terror. Children cried out, their voices swallowed by the din. Nobles stumbled over their heavy velvet robes, scrambling for the exit gates. The carefully organized rows dissolved into complete chaos as black-cloaked figures emerged from different corners of the crowd.

​My stomach dropped.

​There wasn't one attacker.

​There were three.

​For a terrifying second, my mind stalled. This wasn't supposed to happen.

​In my previous life, there had been only one assassin. The royal guards had taken him down before he came anywhere near the dais, and the incident had passed so quickly it was treated as a minor disturbance before the festivities resumed.

​This wasn't the same event. This wasn't the same future.

​A cold, heavy realization settled over me. I had altered the timeline simply by standing my ground against Vivienne—by refusing to play the fragile, desperate girl I used to be. Every choice I made now was sending ripples outward into the dark.

​The timeline was shifting.

​On the royal platform, Kael reacted with terrifying, instantaneous precision. His broadsword hissed as it cleared the sheath. The nearest attacker lunged, and steel slammed against steel in a violent shower of sparks.

​The crowd gasped.

​Even carrying the bitter weight of what he would do to me in the future, I couldn't deny the reality before my eyes. Kael was lethal. Every movement was trimmed of excess, honed by years of warfare. He didn't fight like a man defending his life; he fought like someone who had already decided how the battle would end.

​The assassin lunged again, overextending his guard. Kael sidestepped the blade and drove his steel cleanly through the man's chest.

​The attacker collapsed with a dull thud.

​But the remaining two kept moving. One charged the royal dais to engage the guards, while the third cut directly through the fleeing crowd—heading straight for the Moon Altar.

​Straight toward me.

​Ice flooded my veins.

​People scattered as the masked man shoved through them, throwing two noblewomen to the cobblestones. His eyes swept across the stone platform before locking squarely onto mine.

​Not Vivienne. Not the High Elder.

​Me.

​The certainty hit me like a blow to the chest. This wasn't a random casualty of the chaos.

​He was hunting me.

​"Seraphina!" my mother's terrified voice shattered the din.

​I spun toward her, backing away from the steps. "Run!"

​The warning had barely left my lips when the killer lunged.

​His dagger flashed in the sunlight.

​Everything slowed to a crawl. The screams around me faded into a muffled roar, and the blur of the fleeing crowd softened at the edges. My entire world narrowed to the gleam of dark steel racing toward my throat.

​Too fast.

​I can't move in time.

​My feet felt rooted to the stone.

​Then, a sudden, scorching heat flared beneath my skin.

​Not pain—power.

​A volatile energy rushed through my bloodstream, the exact same force I had felt in the dark void beyond death. The same ancient presence that had awakened when dragon fire consumed my flesh.

​The assassin's expression shifted. His eyes widened behind his leather mask.

​The blade seemed to hang suspended in midair, and suddenly, impossibly, I knew what he was going to do next.

​Not a guess—an absolute, unshakeable certainty. The knowledge flared in my mind like a remembered memory: He will slash upward, shift left, then strike for the ribcage.

​Instinct took over.

​I ducked low and pivoted to the right. The blade sliced through empty air, whistling past my neck by a fraction of an inch.

​Gasps erupted from nearby onlookers.

​The assassin stumbled forward, thrown off balance by my sudden move. Shock flickered across his eyes.

​I didn't give him the chance to recover.

​A heavy iron ceremonial torch rested in a stone sconce beside the altar. I grabbed the shaft with both hands, tore it free, and swung it with every ounce of momentum I could muster.

​The metal connected square against the side of his jaw.

​The impact jarred all the way up my shoulders. A sickening crack echoed over the cobblestones, and the assassin crashed hard onto his side in the dirt.

​For a long moment, a stunned silence rippled outward from where he lay.

​The surrounding crowd stared in disbelief. I stood frozen, my knuckles white around the heavy iron torch, trying to reconcile the force in my arms with the girl who had spent her first life cowering in the shadow of stronger wolves.

​In my past life, I would have frozen. I would have panicked, screamed, and waited for a knight or an Alpha to shield me.

​Not anymore.

​The assassin groaned, rolling onto his chest. His bloodshot eyes met mine through the mask, burning with dark malice. Before anyone could grab him, his jaw snapped shut with a hard, wet crunch.

​Dark blood and foam spilled over his lips.

​Poison.

​The realization came too late. His body convulsed violently once, locked up, and went still.

​Dead.

​A wave of shocked chatter swept through the crowd, but I barely registered the noise.

​A prickle of heat crawled up the back of my neck—the unmistakable sensation of a heavy, intense gaze.

​I looked up.

​Kael stood at the edge of the elevated royal platform, blood dripping slowly from the tip of his broadsword. His attention wasn't on the dead assassin at his feet, nor on the guards securing the perimeter.

​His eyes were locked squarely on me.

​Our gazes held across the bloody square. Something dark and suffocating pulled tight between us.

​He looked confused. Suspicious. Unsettled. As though he couldn't reconcile the timid, soft-spoken girl he thought he knew with the woman standing over a dead assassin with an iron torch in her hands.

​Good. Let him wonder.

​In my first life, Kael had barely spared me a second glance until he cast me aside. This time, everything was shifting far too quickly.

​The dragon's ancient warning echoed in the back of my mind: Do not trust fate.

​I swallowed hard, my throat raw.

​It was already too late for that. Fate had taken notice.

​The ceremony was canceled immediately. Royal guards escorted the crowd from the grounds while investigators moved in to comb through the scene.

​Rumors spread like wildfire. By the time my mother and I made our way back through the city, whispering voices followed us down every corridor and street. People talked about the coordinated attack, about Kael's cold blade, and about the quiet noble girl who had brought down a trained killer with a ceremonial torch.

​Some looked impressed. Others looked suspicious. A few stepped off the walkway in fear as we passed.

​I hated every second of it.

​Attention had a price—a lesson I had paid for with my life. Attention made enemies notice you. Attention got people killed.

​The sun was dipping beneath the horizon, painting the sky in deep streaks of violet and bruised red, by the time we reached our estate. The familiar sight of the manor should have brought relief, but a tight knot of dread only tightened in my stomach.

​I remembered what came after this day in my original timeline. This was when Vivienne had begun weaving her web around me—tiny lies, subtle manipulations, and quiet seeds of doubt planted so carefully that I never noticed them taking root until they choked the life out of me.

​Five years of bitter memories crowded my mind. Five years of fatal mistakes.

​This time, I would tear her web apart before she could finish spinning it.

​I pushed open the iron front gate and froze so abruptly that my mother nearly bumped into my back.

​A sleek black carriage stood in the center of the courtyard. A polished silver emblem gleamed against the dark wood of the door.

​My pulse spiked instantly.

​That carriage had never been here in my first life.

​A young servant hurried toward us, his skin pale. "Lady Seraphina."

​"What is it?" I kept my voice flat and steady.

​"A royal messenger arrived an hour ago," the boy swallowed nervously, extending a gloved hand. "He insisted this be delivered directly to you."

​My mother's brows rose in surprise. "A royal messenger?"

​The servant nodded, holding out a sealed parchment envelope. The moment my eyes fell on the dark wax seal, my chest tightened.

​I knew that crest anywhere.

​Blackwood. Kael's personal house seal.

​My fingers tightened around the heavy paper. Why would he write to me now? In my previous life, Kael had barely spoken ten words to me before the mating ceremony, and he certainly had never sent private missives to my home.

​None of this was following the old script.

​My hands felt unnaturally cold as I broke the wax and unfolded the parchment. Inside was a single line written in sharp, decisive strokes:

​I know what you did today. Meet me at the stone bridge at midnight. Come alone.

​— Kael Blackwood

​My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped beast.

​Then my eyes caught something drawn just beneath his signature. A small, faint symbol etched into the bottom corner of the page.

​The blood drained from my face.

​I recognized that mark. I had seen it only once before—five years in the future, branded into the arm of the executioner's guard who had chained me to the stake.

​The crest of the Crimson Dragon.

​A symbol that was never supposed to exist in this time.