The Alpha Hearts Tangle
Silas said carefully, "every generation. Every alpha who ever carried that blood, their strength, their instincts, even fragments of memory, supposedly compound forward into the next Ember born. That's why three kingdoms went to war over controlling one. It wasn't just about having one strong alpha. It was about having every strong alpha who'd ever lived, concentrated into a single bloodline."
The table went quiet. Even Coraline, who had spent breakfast picking at her food in careful, guilty silence, looked up sharply.
"That's not a person," she said slowly. "That's a weapon."
"That's what I'm afraid of," Silas said, and for once his careful, calculating calm cracked just slightly at the edg