MasukLetty's povWe went further down the old passage, then on the wall, an inscription caught my eye and it wouldn't leave my mind.‘The White Wolf does not inherit the crown. She chooses who deserves it’He studied the inscription more closely, running a hand along the edge of it. "This has to be hundreds of years old.""I know."Something about that was very wrong.Mason turned toward the passage behind us. "We need to find Alvin."I nodded, but before either of us could move, a sound rolled through the tunnel, it was footsteps, slow and deliberate, drawing closer with no attempt at concealment. Mason stepped in front of me without a word. The warriors around us raised their weapons in unison, and I felt my wolf stir beneath my skin, alert and waiting.The footsteps stopped somewhere just beyond the torchlight then a voice followed them out of the dark."There's no need for that."Mason went rigid beside me. I recognized the voice before the man himself stepped into view Elder Corvin, e
The Pusher looked toward the mountain rising ahead of us, half swallowed in mist. "Because they were never meant for Edwin."Silence settled over the group as the meaning of that sank in. The Hollow had marked this path long before Edwin had ever set foot in these mountains, perhaps before the kingdom itself existed. And if they had gone to the trouble of marking a trail, they had been expecting someone, eventually, to follow it.I looked at Letty. She was already staring toward the mountain, that same unreadable expression on her face."Don't," I said.She turned. "I didn't say anything.""You were thinking about following the markings."The corner of her mouth twitched. "Maybe.""No.""Why not?""Because every instinct I have is screaming at me not to."She glanced back at the symbols. "And mine is telling me to."I stepped between her and the trail without quite meaning to. "Then we find another way."We rode another hour. The symbols kept pace with us the entire way, carved at eve
POV’s MasonI knew Letty was going to disobey me. I just didn't know how yet, that was always the trouble with loving someone like her. You learned to read the silence before the storm instead of the storm itself, and she had been far too quiet all morning for my liking.I stood at the edge of the western courtyard, tightening the last strap on my armor while the first group of warriors saw to the horses. The sky hadn't lightened yet. We had chosen the earliest hour on purpose, black Ridge sat several hours west, and I wanted us moving before Edwin had any chance to notice.This wasn't the confrontation, not yet. We weren't marching with banners or announcing ourselves at his gates, we were going to scout, quietly. Six warriors, two First Blood trackers, one Pusher, and me. That was the plan, at least."You're going."I turned. Letty stood beneath the stone archway, arms crossed, chin already set in the way that meant an argument had already been decided in her own head.My jaw tighte
I stood staring at the door until my knees finally gave out beneath me, and I sank to the floor, not from fear, but from the effort of not crying. Letty was coming, my little girl was coming, and that was the one thing I had spent years praying would never happen.I pressed both hands over my face. "No." A single tear slipped between my fingers. "You shouldn't have come."I knew my daughter, even after all this time apart. If she believed I was alive, nothing on earth would stop her, not Edwin, not an army, not the First Blood, not even death itself. That was exactly what frightened me, because Edwin knew it too. He wasn't simply waiting for her to arrive.He was preparing for her.I looked down at the floor. Beneath this cell lay the ritual chamber, the place Edwin believed the gate could finally be forced open. He had spent years rebuilding it stone by stone, restoring markings, hunting down old texts, collecting blood samples from anyone unlucky enough to carry even a trace of the
POV: Letty's Mother*Darkness had a sound. I have learned that years ago, back when I still measured time in days instead of the slow erosion of stone. It wasn't the absence of noise people imagined it to be, darkness had its own language, one I have become fluent in without ever meaning to. The distant drip of water threading through rock, the scrape of chains shifting against the floor when I moved in my sleep, the low, patient groan of the mountain settling around whatever it was built to hold.And beneath all of it, my own breathing, slow, careful and measured. I had learned to breathe quietly, because in this place even fear had to be silent to survive.I sat against the cold stone wall of my cell, knees drawn to my chest, fingers curled around the small piece of scavenged metal hidden in my sleeve, a fragment I had broken off the ritual chamber itself, years ago. The guards thought it was nothing but they were wrong. Everything in this mountain had a purpose. Every stone, every
I tried to move toward her and found I couldn't. "Mother!"She didn't hear me. A guard dragged her down a narrow corridor, her hair disheveled, a thin line of blood drying along her cheek. But she was alive. I reached for her anyway, and my hands passed straight through her arm as if she were made of smoke.This wasn't the present. It was a memory, or something happening far away that the pendant had chosen to show me, I couldn't tell which, and it didn't matter in the moment.Then my mother stopped moving. She turned, and her eyes went wide, and for one impossible second she looked directly at me. Not through me, at me."Letty?"My breath caught in my throat. "Mother!"She took a step toward me before something wrenched her backward."No!" She fought against the guards holding her, twisting to keep her eyes on mine. "Listen to me!"I froze in place."He hasn't opened it yet."My heart slammed against my ribs. "What?""He hasn't opened the gate." The vision had already begun to shake
Mason’s povAs she walked away, guilt hit me right away.It came fast and heavy, like a weight dropping straight into my chest. I stood there, unable to move, my hands clenched at my sides. Breathing felt harder than it should have. The garden, which had felt calm only minutes ago, suddenly felt to
I had kept it hidden even from Gabriel because once it is used, there is no return.My phone buzzed again.It was a message with one line.“We need to talk.” It was MasonI froze. He never messages directly.Never.I stared at the words as Gabriel knocked softly and entered.“He reached out?” he as
Rosa’s PovThey think I hesitated.That was their first mistake.I stood in that council chamber, surrounded by stone walls and older lies, and I felt every eye turn toward me like a blade. The air was heavy and thick with judgment. For one heartbeat, the room fell silent. Even the elders stopped b
The words were flat and controlled. They did not shake.But he did.His face drained of color and for a moment, he looked like a man about to confess to a crime he had hoped would never be spoken aloud.“I never meant for it to happen,” he said quietly. “It was a mistake.”“Mistakes happen once,” I







