Mag-log inRiley POV Power does not arrive gently. It doesn’t knock. It doesn’t ask if now is a good time, or whether you’re emotionally prepared, or whether your lower back already feels like it has filed legal complaints against the rest of your body. Power comes like weather. Like birth. Like teeth. It tore through me from the inside. Not pain. Not exactly. Pain is a language the body understands. This was older than language. A pressure under my ribs. A heat behind my eyes. A silver-gold pulse moving through my blood like something had opened a door inside me and forgotten to warn the person living there. Me. I was the person living there. Allegedly. My knees hit the ground. Lumi screamed my name. Kael moved— fast. Too fast. One second he was in front of me, between me and Elora’s smiling nightmares, and the next he was at my side, one hand hovering over my shoulder like he didn’t know if he had the right to touch me anymore. Good. At least one of us was learning. “Ril
Kael POV The first thing I understand— is that this is not an accident. Not a patrol gone wrong. Not a delayed consequence of bad orders. This is deliberate. Targeted. Chosen. The air shifts. Magic. Not the crude kind the court pretends to understand. Not the controlled, sanctioned rituals Elora performs in well-lit rooms with witnesses and measured breath. This is older. Sharper. Hungry. The figures step fully into the clearing. Three of them. No— five. They don’t move like soldiers. They don’t move like wolves. They move like something wearing both skins badly and not caring who notices. Their eyes find me. Not Riley. Not the wolves. Me. “Found you,” one of them repeats. Soft. Pleasant. Like this is a conversation. Like I am not already calculating how many of them I can kill before something goes wrong. The lycan rises. Not violently. Purposefully. It knows. Before I do. What this is. “Elora,” I say. Not a question. The one in front tilts his
Kael POV The first sign something was wrong— was the silence. Not the absence of sound. The wrong kind of silence. The kind that settles after a scream has already happened and the world is still deciding if it should acknowledge it. I felt it before the report arrived. Before the guards shifted. Before the messengers started running instead of walking. The lycan lifted its head. Not curious. Alert. “Your Majesty—” The doors opened too fast. Too wide. No ceremony. No announcement. No rhythm. A soldier stumbled in, breath ragged, blood on his sleeve that wasn’t entirely his own. I didn’t turn immediately. Because kings turn for control. Men turn for truth. I was still deciding which one I was. “Say it,” I said. He swallowed hard. “The eastern patrols—” My jaw tightened. Of course. “The ones you countermanded,” he continued, voice shaking. “They moved anyway.” Of course they did. “They found a group in the northern sectors. Large. Organized. We thought it wa
Riley POV The third rule of surviving long enough to become a problem: Nothing that finds you in the forest is ever neutral. Not footsteps. Not silence. And definitely not a letter sealed with a name you taught yourself to forget. We were moving at dawn. Not because it was safe—nothing was safe anymore—but because dawn lies. It makes things look softer. Less intentional. Like the world might still be reasonable if you squint hard enough. I didn’t believe in reasonable. But I used the light anyway. “North ridge splits in two,” Adara said, walking beside me. “Left path dips toward water. Right climbs. Slower. More exposed.” “Climb,” I said. Lumi didn’t even ask why. She knew. Water meant scent trails. Meant tracks. Meant predictable. Climbing hurt. Which made it correct. The baby shifted as if it agreed—sharp, insistent. “Yeah, I know,” I muttered. “We’re doing something stupid again. Try to enjoy the view.” Fenris, two steps ahead, glanced back. “You always talk to i
Kael POV The first sign something was wrong—was the silence.Not the absence of sound.The wrong kind of silence.The kind that settles after a scream has already happened and the world is still deciding if it should acknowledge it.I felt it before the report arrived.Before the guards shifted.Before the messengers started running instead of walking.The lycan lifted its head.Not curious.Alert.“Your Majesty—”The doors opened too fast.Too wide.No ceremony. No announcement. No rhythm.A soldier stumbled in, breath ragged, blood on his sleeve that wasn’t entirely his own.I didn’t turn immediately.Because kings turn for control.Men turn for truth.I was still deciding which one I was.“Say it,” I said.He swallowed hard.“The eastern patrols—”My jaw tightened.Of course.“The ones you countermanded,” he continued, voice shaking. “They moved anyway.”Of course they did.“They found a group in the northern sectors. Large. Organized. We thought it was the Threshold—”Thought.P
Kael POVThe report arrived at four in the morning, which was either fate or a very specific kind of cruelty.I read it standing. Some information doesn't deserve the dignity of a chair.Unbound gathering, northeast sector. Estimated thirty to forty individuals. Organized movement. Defensive pattern. No offensive action recorded.The group identifies as "The Threshold."Their banner carries a name: Lumira.I set the paper down.The lycan recognized the word before my brain finished decoding it. That particular animal intelligence — the kind that lives below thought, below reason, below every civilized layer I'd spent years building on top of it — sat up straight and went very, very still.Lumira.Lumi. Riley.Two names woven together like the separation had never happened.Like she'd taken the people she loved and made them into a declaration.I crossed to the window. Dawn was doing its best out there — grey, cold, honest in the specific way that early mornings are honest, without the
Kael pov The chapel was too clean. Not white—stone. Old. Polished by centuries of knees and whispered bargains. The kind of place where gods were supposed to listen. Where vows were meant to mean something. I stood at the center of it anyway. The lycan didn’t like this place. I felt it pacing u
Kael pov The royal bedchamber of Dalth was not a place for comfort. It was a fortress within a fortress, built of grey stone that bled cold and tapestries that depicted ancient, bloody victories. Tonight, the air was thick, heavy with the scent of sandalwood and the sharp, metallic tang of the ma
Kael pov The body follows. But the mind goes first. That was the part no one ever warned us about. Lycan songs speak of warriors who fall in battle, of mates lost to claws or fire or time. They speak of rage. Of vengeance. Of howling grief that burns bright and fast. They never sing about th
Kael Pov The next morning, I woke with blood in my mouth. Not from a wound. From my own teeth. I had bitten through my tongue in my sleep like an animal trying to chew through a trap. The healer who came—wide-eyed, careful, too young to have learned how to lie convincingly—told me it was stres







