All Chapters of THE BRIDE OFFERED TO WOLVES: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

We slipped back into the palace through a servant's gate Kael clearly hadn't used in years, judging by the dust caking the hinges. What waited on the other side of it looked nothing like the palace I'd left behind before the fire.Servants rushed past carrying the wounded. Healers worked in the corridors themselves, no time left to move patients to proper rooms, bandages already running low judging by the strips of torn cloth being pressed into service. Guards searched every hallway with drawn weapons, as though the danger might still be hiding somewhere between the walls, jumping at shadows that only hours ago would never have warranted a second glance.Every face that turned toward me told a different story. Some knelt, quick and uncertain, unsure whether the gesture would be welcomed or resented. Some whispered behind their hands, not quiet enough. Some looked afraid in a way that had nothing to do with the fire and everything to do with me."She's cursed," I heard, from somewhere

The glowing map hovering above my hand had already started to fade by the time Cassian spoke again."The Ring won't hold the image for long."Kael turned toward the Beta, who'd appeared at the garden entrance moments before, summoned by whatever instinct told him something had shifted. "Close every entrance to the palace. No one leaves until I say so.""Do I tell the council?""No.""The Elder?""Especially not the Elder."I watched the Beta absorb that without argument, understanding settling over his face that his Alpha had just openly excluded the second most powerful man in Moonfang from something that mattered.The four of us studied the fading symbol together, none of us recognizing it at first, its lines too worn by whatever centuries had passed since anyone last needed to know its shape."It could be older than the palace itself," Cassian said, tracing the air near the projection without quite touching it. "Some of these old crests predate even the Moon Queen's reign."Then K

Cassian studied the ring for a long while before the glowing map finally settled into something readable, silver lines resolving into the shape of trees so dense they blotted out whatever lay beneath them."The Silver Forest," he said, and something in his voice made even Kael go still. "The oldest forest in existence, older than Moonfang, older than any kingdom either of us could name. No one rules it. Humans and wolves both avoid it. Children grow up hearing stories that nobody who enters ever returns.""And the second relic is inside it," I said."According to this, yes."The council convened within the hour, and I understood immediately that leaving Moonfang would cost Kael more than the journey itself."You cannot leave the kingdom," one of the councilmen said, his voice tight with disbelief, rising halfway from his seat as though the words demanded it. "Not now. Not with soldiers still divided and the Hunters circling our borders.""Rowan's men still need an Alpha to answer to,"

"You always wondered why your mother never came for you," the thing wearing the Moon Queen's face said, its black eyes fixed on mine with an intimacy that made my skin crawl. "You've asked yourself that question a hundred times since Cassian told you she died protecting your bloodline. Wondered if she loved you enough to fight harder. Wondered if there was more she could have done. I can answer every question you've ever asked yourself in the dark. Take one more step."I felt my feet moving before I'd decided to move them, drawn forward by a hunger I hadn't known lived inside me until this creature named it, something desperate and long-buried finally given a voice. The moonlight around the clearing began to flicker, thin cracks spreading through the silver light like ice fracturing under weight. Somewhere beneath my feet, roots shifted, slow and deliberate, curling up through the soil as though reaching toward something they'd waited centuries to touch again, the whole clearing strai

Nobody spoke for a long moment after the Keeper's words settled over us, the ruins holding their breath along with all of us.Cassian finally broke the silence. "If he wasn't imprisoned, where did he go?""He escaped," the Keeper said, "before the Moon Queen completed the Seven Seals. She had planned to bind all seven together, in the same moment, so none of them would have the chance to flee while the others were being sealed. She never finished. Something interrupted her before the ritual completed.""Then why isn't he ruling the world right now?" Mira asked, her voice tighter than usual, arms crossed like she already suspected where this was heading."Because someone made him disappear."I felt the confusion in that answer settle over all of us at once, a silence stretching long enough that even the ruins seemed to lean in closer to hear what came next."The seven Dark Kings were never equal," the Keeper continued, gathering herself, her small hands folding together in front of he