When Shadows Plot

Lisa Rellane stood just inside the threshold of Princess Meredith's solar, hands clasped so tightly the knuckles were white.

Meredith didn't look up right away. She finished signing a document with slow, deliberate strokes that made Lisa's stomach twist.

Then the Princess raised her eyes.

"Well?" Meredith asked, voice calm enough to be unsettling. "You said you witnessed something."

Lisa swallowed. "Yes, Your Highness."

Meredith nodded once, inviting her to continue.

"I—I was at a speakeasy last night," Lisa began. Her voice betrayed her; it wavered, thin from nerves.

Lisa took a steadying breath. "And I saw... someone."

Meredith set the quill down.

"Someone," she repeated. "Lisa, that word is only helpful when followed by the rest of the sentence."

Lisa's cheeks heated. "Forgive me, Princess. It was the bastard girl. She was with a man and he kissed her."

Meredith leaned back in her chair, expression unreadable. "And the man?"

"He kept his hood up. But the way the crowd moved around him." Lisa shook her head, gaze dropping to the floor. "It felt like he was someone important. Someone very high-ranking."

"Describe him," Meredith demanded.

Lisa hesitated. "Tall. Broad-shouldered. Moved like a trained warrior. Confident, but... protective? He kept her close. Very close."

A flicker of interest and calculation crossed the princess's face.

"Did anyone speak to them?"

"Not directly. No one dared approach." Lisa swallowed again. "Her hood was up most of the night. But once her hood slipped... people started whispering. The room changed."

Meredith tapped a finger against the arm of her chair, slow and thoughtful.

"And you believe the man was high rank."

"I'm sure of it, Your Highness. I may not have seen his face, but every warrior and omega in there kept their distance. Tentative. Respectful." Lisa shook her head.

Meredith's gaze sharpened. "Did they leave together?"

"Yes," Lisa answered. "He stayed right at her side the entire time."

Meredith was silent for a long moment. Finally, she dismissed Lisa with a quiet, "Thank you. You've done well."

Lisa bowed, relief flooding her chest as she backed out of the room.

But as she closed the door, she caught one last glimpse of Princess Meredith — seated, perfectly still, eyes gleaming with rage.

✦✦✦

Meredith's hands were trembling with fury, every breath tight with the effort of containing it. The idea of all of it — Nova daring to exist so boldly in a public place — made her stomach twist. Nova had crossed a line.

And this time, Meredith was not going to fail.

Only a few nights before, Meredith had crept into Fin's chambers while he slept, determination and desperation twisting together in her chest as she slipped into his bed.

She hoped to coax him awake, to tempt him, and seduce him.

Instead, to her horror, Fin stirred, turned toward her warmth, and in the softest, most damning voice imaginable... mumbled a name.

A name that tasted like ash in Meredith's mouth.

Nova.

The thought of Nova being at some peasant's speakeasy was disgusting enough. The idea of Nova kissing someone was worse.

Was it Finric?

Her Alpha?

Her Alpha.

Meredith's jaw clenched until it ached. She had been smelling Nova in the Alpha's private wing for weeks now. Weeks. The scent clung to the halls, faint but undeniable, like a mark Meredith wasn't allowed to scrub out. There was no question Nova had been there. Many times.

That disgusting scent.

And now, the door across from Finric's chambers — the door that should have been hers, the Luna's rooms, the rooms she had fantasized about since she was a child — was locked.

Locked. As if she needed permission to enter her rightful place. As if someone else had taken what should belong to her.

Nova was nothing. A slave in Ashbane. She should never have been allowed to step foot in this castle, let alone roam freely in it.

Meredith's nails bit into her palms hard enough to leave crescents. This was injustice.

She took an angry breath and began her letter to Riven, her quill digging into the parchment with every stroke.

Her fury spilled into every line as she described Nova's first offense: sneaking into the Alpha's chambers at night.

Meredith's quill dug harder into the parchment as she added yet another offense, her fury spiraling into creative new depths.

I woke up to her hands around my throat, trying to suffocate me in the middle of the night.

By the time she was finished with the letter, she felt much better.

✦✦✦

Long before dawn, when the castle was still silent and the guards were changing shifts, Meredith crept through the dim corridors with her letter clutched to her chest.

She slipped down the servants' stairwell, past the kitchens, and into the unused rookery.

Her pulse hammered as she chose the largest raven, tying the sealed letter to its leg with trembling fingers.

"Straight to Riven," she whispered, stroking the bird's dark feathers as if the gesture might sanctify her treachery.

The raven launched into the sky, cutting through the gray air with powerful wings. Meredith watched until it vanished, a cruel satisfaction settling in her chest.

Then she slipped out of the rookery door, cloak drawn tight, and headed for the forest to put the rest of her plan in motion.

She continued walking into the cold blue dark of the waking forest.

Mist curled low along the ground, swallowing her footsteps as she moved with the jittery precision of someone nursing a grudge too large for her own hands.

A cloaked figure waited beneath the pines, half-shadow, half-patient silence.

Without a word, Meredith pressed a velvet pouch into their palm, her jaw tight, her eyes fever-bright with purpose. The figure nodded once, tucked the pouch away, and disappeared into the trees.

And just like that, her plan was in motion.