Chapter Eight

My heart slammed against my ribs as the realization echoed in the silence of the war room.

I stared into Zion's pitch-black eyes, searching for a trace of deception, a flicker of manipulation. But there was only cold, unyielding iron. He hadn't jailed me as a helpless prisoner; he had hidden me behind the absolute authority of an Alpha's claim.

"If you kept me alive," I rasped, my voice barely carrying over the distant blare of war horns outside, "then prove it now. Take me to the river."

Zion didn't hesitate. "Get your armor."

An hour later, six heavy warhorses thundered out through the northern gate of Ironfang Keep, their hooves kicking up clouds of grey frost against the jagged mountain trail.

Zion rode at the front on a massive midnight-black stallion, clad in full obsidian plate armor that absorbed the morning light. I rode right beside him on a swift grey mare, encased in light star-steel mail beneath a heavy fur cloak. Flanking us were Beta Julius and four of Zion's elite Shadow Vanguard—warriors who answered to no council, no lord, and no law except the Alpha's direct command.

The air grew brutally cold as we descended toward the Black River gorge, the natural boundary dividing Ironfang lands from the ruined Kirby territories. The wind smelled of ozone, burnt cedar, and the metallic tang of dried blood.

We pulled up at the edge of a high granite cliff overlooking the frozen riverbed. Below us, shrouded in the swirling mist of the valley, lay the smoking remains of the Ironfang northern border post. Timber watchtowers had been reduced to blackened charcoal, the stone barricades cracked and littered with shattered arrows.

And across the frozen river, spread across the snowy ridge in terrifying, disciplined ranks, was the army.

"Three thousand heavy infantry," Beta Julius muttered, pulling his horse up on Zion's left, his hand resting white-knuckled on his broadsword. "Light cavalry on the flanks. Siege engines hidden in the tree line. That's no random band of rogue scavengers, Alpha. That's a war machine."

Zion raised a silver spyglass, his obsidian eyes narrowing into lethal slits. "Look at their formations, Emerald. What do you see?"

I pulled my cloak tight against the biting wind, leaning forward over my saddle to inspect the enemy line through the freezing fog. My Supreme Alpha instincts—unlocked and breathing freely inside my chest for the first time in years—sharpened my vision, cutting through the distance like a hawk's eye.

Their armor was forged from dark iron, mismatched and rusted at the edges. But their movement was frighteningly uniform. They didn't chatter, they didn't break rank, and they held their positions in the freezing snow with mechanical precision.

"They aren't northern rebels," I said, my voice cold as the stone beneath us. "Northern wolf packs fight in loose, fluid skirmish lines. This army is holding an imperial square. They were trained by a high command officer."

"Look at the central command tent," Zion commanded, passing the silver spyglass to my gloved hand. "The man on the grey warhorse."

I lifted the glass to my eye, focusing on the elevated ridge behind the main enemy line.

A tall, broad-shouldered commander sat atop an armored warhorse, draped in a bear-skin cloak. Flanking him were two standard-bearers holding high the forged crimson-and-gold Kirby banners.

My chest tightened as I adjusted the lens, zooming in on the commander's face.

He wore no helmet. His face was weathered, crisscrossed with jagged white scars, and his left eye was covered by a black leather patch. He held a heavy double-headed battleaxe across his saddle horn, his jaw set in a hard, cruel line as he surveyed the Ironfang cliffs.

The silver spyglass nearly slipped from my frozen fingers.

My breath hitched violently in my throat, my blood running as cold as the ice beneath my horse's hooves.

"Impossible..." I whispered, my jaw dropping in utter, paralyzed shock. "No... it can't be him."

Zion's hand immediately clamped over my horse's reins, pulling our mounts closer until his shoulder pressed against mine. "Who is he, Emerald?"

"Commander Garrett..." I rasped, my voice trembling with a mix of visceral terror and sudden, explosive rage. "That's Commander Garrett!"

Beta Julius frowned, swapping a confused glance with the Vanguard warriors behind us. "Garrett? The former lieutenant of your dead uncle's vanguard?"

"He isn't supposed to be alive!" I turned my head to Zion, my eyes wide, my heart hammering like a trapped bird against my ribs. "Twenty years ago, when the High Council ordered the Kirby house destroyed, Garrett was condemned alongside my uncle! My father told me he watched Garrett's execution with his own eyes! He was beheaded at the tribunal block in Ironfang Keep!"

"A dead man doesn't command three thousand soldiers," Zion rumbled, his voice dropping into a dangerous, lethal register that sent a shiver down my spine.

"Someone faked his execution," I whispered, the terrifying truth unraveling like a toxic web inside my mind. "Twenty years ago, someone on the Council pulled Garrett from the execution block, hid him in the shadows, and kept him funded until today!"

Before Zion could reply, a sudden, blinding flash of light exploded from the enemy ridge across the river.

A massive, dark-fire catapult slammed into action. A giant boulder wrapped in black, crackling magic arced high into the freezing sky, screaming through the air straight for our cliffside position!

"INCOMING!" Beta Julius roared, drawing his blade.

"Hold!" Zion shouted, his voice a thunderous Alpha Command that froze the Vanguard in place.

Zion didn't turn his horse to flee. In one fluid, terrifying movement, he drew his massive obsidian broadsword, his Supreme Alpha aura erupting outward in a wave of pitch-black shadow that engulfed our entire ridge.

He spurred his stallion forward, leaping straight toward the edge of the cliff, his blade glowing with lethal, dark energy as the flaming boulder plummeted straight toward us!​