Mag-log inLENA
Before I knew what was happening, Kael pulled the bracelet from my grip and stepped away. “What the—”
The bracelet flew through the air and eyes widened as it disappeared into thin air, my eyes not able to follow the direction it had gone in.
For a second,
LENA“Excuse me?” I was beyond offended.“You heard me.”“No, I heard you accuse me of being stupid after someone tried to poison me.”His expression didn’t shift. “If it helps, I’ve been thinking it for days.”I stared at him in disbelief. “You are unbelievable.”“And you are reckless.”“I am not reckless.”“You accepted food from a woman who hates you.”
LENA“Who is it?” I asked.Varik looked at Kael first. “A summit server named Dorian. He was assigned to the east kitchens tonight.”Kael’s face remained unreadable. “Bring him.”The guard hesitated and that made my stomach sink.“He’s not here, Alpha.”Silence.Kael’s eyes narrowed. “Explain.”The guard swallowed. “When we went to fetch him, his quarters were empty. But we found a pouch of coin hi
LENAFor one terrible moment after reading the note, I couldn’t breathe. The words blurred beneath my fingers, then sharpened again as though my eyes refused to decide whether they wanted to understand what I was seeing.‘If the wolfsbane didn’t work, perhaps the next thing will.’My stomach turned so violently I thought I might be sick right there at the table.The dining hall around me was still alive with noise… glasses clinking, low conversation drifting between tables, servants moving through the aisles with silver trays in hand, but all of it suddenly sounded far away, muffled, as though someone had shoved me underwater.‘Not everyone at this summit wants you alive.’I read that line again and again, each time hoping the words would change into something less horrifying.They didn’t. Slowly, I lifted my head and Kael was already standing.The movement had been so quiet I hadn’t even noticed it, but the effect on the room was immediate. Conversations thinned and several nearby no
LENAThe summit grounds were bright beneath the morning sun, but whatever calm the day might have offered was ruined by the fact that Kael was indeed following me but it was close enough to make it obvious to everyone else, but close enough that every time I slowed down or turned around, there he was watching, existing and. Ring impossible. After ten minutes, I stopped in the middle of a garden path and turned to face him.He stopped too.“This is ridiculous.”“No,” he said. “It’s necessary.”“It’s irritating.”“That too.”I folded my arms. “I’m going to a courtyard full of nobles in broad daylight, not marching into enemy territory.”“Those are often the same thing.”I stared at him for a moment, then sighed because unfortunately, that also sounded true. “Do I at least get to know where you’ve assigned the guards?”“No.”“Why not?”“Because if you know where they are, you’ll look for them.”“That is absolutely something I would do.”“I know.”That answer annoyed me more than it shou
LENAI did not sleep and it wasn’t because I didn’t try. Goddess knows I tried very hard, I closed my eyes, turned onto my left side, then my right, then onto my back, then back to my left again as if changing positions might somehow trick my brain into shutting down. It did not.Because apparently being told that someone had poisoned your dessert was not the kind of information a person could simply hear and then sleep peacefully through.Who knew? By the time dawn finally crept through the curtains, I had managed perhaps ten minutes of actual rest and even that had been interrupted by dreams involving tarts, knives and Kael glaring at me while I died in an extremely inconvenient manner.When I finally gave up and dragged myself out of bed, I looked exactly how I felt… terrible.I stared at my reflection while pinning back my hair and sighed. “You look haunted.”My reflection offered no useful feedback. After another moment, I leaned closer, checking for any sign that I had, in fact,
KAELI stayed in the study long after he was gone, staring at reports I wasn’t reading and hearing none of the noise from the corridor outside. My thoughts kept circling back to the same impossible point.Lena should have been sick.The fact that she wasn’t made the entire thing more dangerous, not less. If someone had poisoned her and failed, they might try again. If they realized she hadn’t noticed anything was wrong, they would assume they still had time.And Lena, being Lena, would probably accept another dessert from the same hand just to avoid seeming rude.I swore under my breath and pushed away from the desk.By the time I reached her room, the corridor was quiet.A single lantern burned near her door, throwing warm light across the stone. I knocked once, then opened it without waiting for permission because if Lena was asleep, she would forgive me eventually or she wouldn’t. Either way, I didn’t care.The room was dark except for moonlight spilling across the bed.Lena was un
LENAI didn’t realize I had fallen asleep until the world stopped being real in the usual way. There was no transition, no softness, no awareness of drifting into anything resembling rest. One moment I was standing in the corridor, blood on my hands, Kael’s voice somewhere far behind me and the nex
KAELI felt a pull before I understood it. It wasn’t physical, nor was it even visible, but it was deep enough that my attention fractured mid-sentence as I sat at the council table. The room was still speaking—voices layered over each other in careful politeness—but the sound faded like it had bee
LENAFor a brief moment after the man spoke, the corridor felt unreal, like my mind had failed to accept what my eyes were seeing.“Hello there.” The greeting was calm enough to be insulting. It wasn’t rushed or uncertain and it was the kind of voice that belonged to someone who already knew how t
LENAThe scream tore out of me before I could stop it, raw and immediate, slicing through the silence of the corridor like something that didn’t belong in a place like this.For a second after it left my mouth, I couldn’t breathe.My throat tightened as the sound echoed back at me from the stone wa







