FIVE

Maera froze as a sharp intake of breath from the other maidens followed. “Forgive me, my lady, but that… that won’t be possible,” She said, carefully choosing her words this time. “You cannot approach his Majesty unless summoned.”

Fenris scoffed. He can’t be serious, can he… really?

Only one way to find out. Lillia thought as her brows arched. She rose from the bed. “I wasn’t asking.”

This time Maera raised her gaze, and silence stretched.

Lillia could see her fingers curled at her sides, knuckles whitening. Her gaze flicked with mixed emotions. Her expression hardened and fell at the same time, almost as though an inner battle was being fought.

“My lady,“ Maera said at last, voice low, strained. “This is not customary.” This time, Lillia could almost sense terror in her voice and see fear in her eyes. Her assistants' bowing figures shrunk.

The air was palpable, but Lillia was not about to back down because of a ruthless dictator. She lifted her gaze and stared down at Maera, not pleading nor demanding.

Waiting.

A long breath shuddered out of Maera. Something in her expression shifted. Resignation? Perhaps, or the quiet acceptance of consequence.

“As you wish,” she said finally, gesturing with a bow. “Luna.”

When Lillia reached the training court, the guards stiffened, mixed reactions flashing briefly across their faces, but maybe it was the way she walked or perhaps, the quiet authority clinging to her like a second skin, but none of them stopped her.

When she entered the court, heat struck her first. Then the smell of iron, sweat and scorched earth, framed by towering stone pillars etched with ancient sigils of Clan Wolfsbane. Royal banners hung high above, pristine and untouched by the violence below, but the ground told a different story; and at the centre of it, stood Regaleon.

Five massively built warriors circled him, muscles corded and glistening with sweat. Their grips tightened around blades and spears. Those without weapons had their claws out, as they moved as one, a practiced formation designed to overwhelm, corner and kill.

But Regaleon dismantled them all, one after the other.

He dodged an attack, breaking a wrist afterward. A knee followed, crushing down brutally. One of the warriors surged at him with a double dagger, but Regaleon redirected his movements easily, the dagger’s hilts slamming into bone. One by one, they fell hard, gasping and broken.

Lillia’s breath caught before she could stop it. Her instincts recoiled, Fenris stirring uneasily beneath her skin, hackles rising. Yet, beneath that unease, something else flickered; an unwilling awareness of his power. Of how easily he commanded violence, and how natural it is to him.

This is what rules Wolfsbane? Fenris murmured darkly.

Regaleon straightened, rolling his shoulder once, as though the fight had been little more than a stretch. He wiped blood from his knuckles with the back of his hand. Then he turned.

When he saw Lillia, the fury in his eyes was immediate.

The warriors froze mid-breath. The guards at the perimeter snapped to attention. Behind Lillia, the maidens went rigid. Maera’s breath audibly caught, her fingers curling into her skirts as colour drained from her face.

“What,” Regaleon said coldly, “is she doing here?”

The temperature dropped along with his words.

Maera swallowed hard. Her knees hit the ground with a sharp crack as she bowed, her forehead nearly touching the stone. “My King, please forgive us. It is all my fault—”

“Take her away.” His voice cut through hers without effort. “Now. And do not repeat this mistake.”

Lillia felt it then, when she watched the maidens in her chambers, heard the sharp crack from Maera’s sudden action. She felt the terror in the training court even stronger as she watched the source dismiss her, and her existence, as he turned on his heels.

“No!” Something in Lillia snapped.

Every head except Regaleon’s turned instantly.

“I am not done yet.” She continued, her fingers digging into her palms.

Regaleon’s gaze returned to her slowly and deliberately. It was lethal in its calm. “You will not speak, unless spoken to.”

“I have every right to, and will speak.” Her voice shook, but she held her ground. Practically forced herself to. “You have been nothing short of disrespectful, dismissive, and rude to me. Yesterday, you left the joining celebration without explanation, humiliating me before your people. I made a request to you last night. One which you dismissed and ignored, just like you ignored my presence today."

You sent your spies, and even a third to maltreat and observe me. Lillia walked forward to Regaleon with that thought in mind, not breaking her gaze from him. She stood beside the still kneeling Maera.

“I will let them go, and forgive you for it,” she said flatly. “However, there is something I will not let go, and that is my request. You owe me that, at least, as my husband.”

A low, humorless laugh slipped from him. “You think yourself owed anything, consort?”

That word was a blade. A painful reminder of how he saw her, as well as her standing in Clan Wolfsbane.

“Since you have suddenly become defiant, why don't I show you what you are owed?” He drew his sword immediately and pointed it at Maera. “For every defiance you put on, it will be on the failure of your maidens to properly educate you.”

Without another word, he lifted his sword, steel cutting through the air steady and precise as Maera’s eyes widened in pure terror.

Move. Fenris roared inside Lillia’s skull.

Lillia didn't think. She stepped forward, fast, reckless, placing herself between Regaleon and Maera.

The blade came down.

The last thing Lillia remembered was pain exploding through her, white-hot and blinding. The force knocked the air from her lungs. She felt herself falling, she saw the cliff again. The world tilting violently, stone rushing up too fast.

Before an all-too-familiar darkness claimed her, she felt Fenris fury ripping through her consciousness, feral and unrestrained.

Then... nothing.