Luna's:
By the time we reached the edge of camp, my lungs burned from the cold bite of the mist, but it wasn't the run that had me on edge it was the scent.
It clung to me like it belonged there, like it had a right to sit in my bones. I knew that smell. I just didn't know from where.
Aezrel walked ahead, shoulders tight, not saying a word. Too quiet. Too… careful.
"You're going to tell me what you recognized back there," I said.
He didn't slow, didn't look back. "You think I recognized something?"
"You froze," I shot back. "For half a second, when the second wolf came at you, you didn't move like you normally do. You hesitated."
He stopped then, turning slowly, and his eyes found mine with the kind of heat that had nothing to do with desire. "Maybe I hesitated because I was watching your back. Or maybe I hesitated because the person beside me kept charging into things without thinking."
"That's not an answer," I said, stepping in, close enough to feel his breath fan against my face. "What aren't you telling me?"
His jaw tightened. "Some truths don't keep you alive, Luna. They make you a target."
The way he said my name it wasn't a warning, it was almost a plea.
But I didn't back down. "I'm already a target."
A rustle came from the far treeline, too close to camp for comfort. My head whipped toward it, catching the faint shimmer of movement before it was gone.
I turned back to Aezrel, but his gaze wasn't on me anymore it was on the shadows beyond my shoulder. And the look in his eyes… it wasn't fear.
It was recognition.
Before I could press him, one of the night guards jogged up. "Commander, we found something you need to see. Now."
Aezrel didn't even glance at me before following the guard.
And just like that, I was left staring into the mist again, heart pounding, the scent still lingering in the air.
Not fading.
Getting closer.
.....
I didn't wait for an invitation.
The moment I spotted Aezrel heading toward the strategy tent, I slipped in behind him, keeping to the shadows like a thief. Inside, the air was thick with maps, ink, and the unspoken weight of bad news.
Three of his lieutenants stood around the table, their voices low.
"…it's not just the border attacks," one was saying. "They're inside already."
My stomach tightened.
Aezrel planted both hands on the table. "Then find where they're nesting before they—" He stopped. His eyes flicked to the entrance where I stood, arms folded.
"Get out, Luna," he said, voice flat.
"Not until I know why you're acting like I've been walking around with a death warrant stapled to my back," I shot back.
His men shifted uncomfortably. One of them a thin, wiry scout pulled something from his pocket and set it on the table.
It was a folded scrap of dark leather, burned along one edge.
Aezrel's eyes narrowed. "Where did you get this?"
"From the tree line," the scout said. "It was pinned to the body of one of ours."
Pinned. My pulse stuttered.
Aezrel unfolded it slowly, and my breath caught when I saw the inside.
One word.
My name.
Scrawled in a handwriting I hadn't seen in years.
It shouldn't have been possible.
The last time I saw that handwriting, it was in a letter buried with my mother.
The room tilted, and for a heartbeat I couldn't move.
Aezrel's gaze locked with mine, searching, calculating. "You're going to tell me what this means," he said quietly.
But before I could answer, the tent flap snapped open and a cold wind swept through.
A voice low, almost amused—whispered from somewhere inside the tent.
"You've kept her well-hidden, Aezrel. But not well enough."
Every blade in the tent was drawn in an instant, but there was no one there.
Just the lingering scent.
The same one from the forest.
.....
The scent vanished as fast as it came, leaving the tent heavy with silence. Every warrior's eyes darted to the corners, to the folds of canvas, to the seams in the ground as if the shadow could still be hiding there.
Aezrel's knuckles were white on the table. He didn't look at me. "Pack the camp," he ordered his men. "We move now."
They scattered, but my feet stayed rooted. "You think running will make them lose interest?" I demanded.
"No," he said, finally meeting my eyes. "But it'll keep you alive long enough for me to figure out who's playing this game."
Only… this didn't feel like a game anymore.
It felt like the world had started rewriting its rules without telling me.
We were barely two miles out when the riders came. Their black-and-gold armor was impossible to mistake messengers from the royal court.
The lead rider reined in sharply, his gaze flicking between us. "By order of the Alpha King," he barked, "you are both to return to the citadel immediately."
Aezrel's jaw tightened. "On what grounds?"
The rider's lips curved into something between a sneer and a smirk. "Disappearance. Dereliction. And suspicion of treason."
The words hit like cold water. "Treason? We've been on mission " I started.
The rider cut me off with a glance sharp enough to slice skin. "Strange," he said. "Because the King received credible reports that you and General Aezrel vanished during a direct threat to the realm. No location. No witnesses. Almost as if you didn't want to be found."
The way he said it made my stomach knot. This wasn't just about absence it was a story being planted.
Aezrel's fingers brushed my arm, subtle but firm—a silent don't speak.
But I could see it in his eyes.
This wasn't a misunderstanding.
Someone wanted the Alpha King looking at us instead of the real threat.
And if the King's court was already whispering the word "treason," then whoever was moving the pieces wasn't just in the shadows.
They were inside the palace walls.
And maybe… closer to me than I dared to think.
...
Aezrel POV:
The messengers didn't ride with us, they rode around us, a silent escort that felt more like a cage with moving bars.
Luna kept her face neutral, but I could feel the questions burning under her skin. She was smart enough not to speak here, where every shadow might have ears.
The citadel's spires broke the horizon by midday, black stone stabbing into the cloud-thick sky. I'd been gone less than a week, and yet the place already felt different. Wrong.
We entered through the side gates, not the grand arch protocol for "persons of interest." The guards on the wall didn't salute. They watched. Eyes too sharp, hands too near their blades.
Inside the palace, the air was thicker. The courtiers moved like they knew something we didn't, their glances quick and cutting. Somewhere in these halls, the rumors of treason were being fed, polished, and plated for the King to consume.
I kept Luna close, one step behind me, until we reached the war room's outer hall. The guards here were not mine—strangers in the King's colors, their scent unfamiliar.
That was the first alarm.
The second came when the chamberlain appeared, his voice as smooth as poison. "General Aezrel," he said, bowing just enough to mock the gesture. "The King will see you after he finishes… a private audience."
He didn't say with whom. He didn't have to.
I knew who had been slipping into the King's confidence lately, sowing doubts where there should have been trust.
Lord Veyric.
The same man who had commanded my father's execution for a crime he didn't commit.
I was about to answer when a figure passed in the opposite corridor, a robed servant carrying a scroll case wrapped in black leather.
For most, it would be nothing. But the scent that clung to it stopped my breath cold.
The same faint, burnt tang from the scrap Luna had found in the tent.
And the servant… was headed straight for the King's council chamber.
I caught Luna's eyes. She'd recognized it too.
The enemy wasn't at the gates.
They were about to step into the kings hand.