Aezrel:
The chamberlain's voice faded behind me as the servant disappeared down the left corridor, black leather case clutched tight.
I didn't tell Luna to follow... she moved with me instinctively, slipping into step as if we'd rehearsed it a thousand times.
The corridor curved toward the private council wing. Here, the walls weren't just stone they were listening. Thin channels behind the panels carried every echo into guarded alcoves where the King's spies sat like spiders, weaving threads of secrets.
We kept our distance, watching the servant's pace quicken. Too quick for a man on routine delivery.
"Do we stop him now?" Luna whispered, low enough to drown in the soft pad of our boots.
"No," I murmured. "If we act too soon, they'll know it's us. We let him think he's safe then take him where no ears can listen."
She didn't like it. I could feel her bristle. But she nodded.
The servant turned into an archway. I followed, only to find—
Empty.
No servant. No scroll. Just a single open window, the wind tugging at the heavy drapes.
I stepped to the ledge. Below, the inner courtyard yawned in pale sunlight and across it, the figure in black robes was already halfway to the King's private study, flanked now by two guards in unfamiliar armor.
Not palace guards. Not mine.
Luna swore under her breath.
"We can't intercept in the courtyard," I said, already calculating. "Too many eyes. We need the inner passage."
She understood immediately, darting toward the hidden door concealed behind a tapestry of the old wars. I followed, sliding the latch. The narrow stair spiraled down, lit only by thin slashes of daylight from the arrow slits.
Halfway down, voices echoed up from below.
"…Veyric's orders. No one but the King sees the contents. It will put the General exactly where he belongs—"
The rest was lost to distance, but my pulse was already pounding.
I didn't need to hear the rest.
That scroll wasn't just evidence. It was a death warrant.
And the worst part?
From the tone in that man's voice, the King had already decided
.....
We moved faster, the stone steps biting at my boots, Luna's shadow a dark twin just behind me. The voices grew louder as we descended into the underpass a narrow vein of the palace few dared to use.
Through the archway ahead, I caught a flicker of movement: the servant handing the black case to one of the strange-armored guards. The clasp clicked shut.
"Now," Luna breathed.
I didn't think. My dagger was already in my hand, the blade catching the meager light as I swept forward. The first guard barely registered my presence before the hilt of my weapon struck his temple. Luna took the second fast, quiet, efficient.
The servant froze, mouth open to shout, but I grabbed him by the collar, slamming him against the wall. "Where's Veyric?"
"I—I don't know," he stammered.
"Wrong answer." I twisted his wrist until his knees buckled.
"All right! He's in the northern gallery waiting for confirmation that the King has read it!"
I ripped the case from his grasp and shoved him aside. Luna had already dragged the two unconscious guards into a shadowed alcove.
We didn't speak until we were two corridors away, concealed in an abandoned scribe's chamber. Only then did I snap the case open.
The scroll inside was sealed with the royal crest.
I hesitated. Breaking this seal meant committing treason. But I already knew treason was the least of my sins tonight.
I tore it open.
Lines of spidery black ink unfurled before me—and the air in my lungs turned to glass.
It wasn't a list of my crimes.
It was our crimes.
Accusations that Luna and I had been conspiring for months to overthrow the King. Dates, forged letters, even accounts of secret meetings in places we'd never been. Every detail backed with "eyewitness" testimony from people I trusted with my life.
The scroll wasn't evidence. it was a masterpiece of deception.
Luna's voice was low, sharp. "This is… flawless. Too flawless."
And that's when the shadow in the doorway spoke, his voice smooth as poisoned honey:
"Because, my dear Luna, it was meant to be flawless."
I spun, but the light was behind him. His face stayed buried in darkness.
Only his eyes glinting like wet obsidian were visible.
.....
My grip tightened on the dagger. "Step into the light."
The man or whatever he was, didn't move forward. Instead, he leaned lazily against the frame as if he owned the room, as if Luna and I were just guests trespassing in his home.
"You don't want that," he said softly. "Not yet."
The voice stirred something in me an old echo, like a name half-remembered in a nightmare. I glanced at Luna. Her jaw was set, but her eyes… they flickered with something I didn't want to believe was recognition.
"Who sent you?" I demanded.
"Oh, Aezrel…" The shadow chuckled, low and cold. "You still think I was sent?"
Luna took a step forward, fury snapping in her tone. "Why frame us? Why now?"
"Because, my sweet little wolf," he murmured, "you were always the perfect alibi for him."
Her shoulders stiffened. "Him who?"
"That," the shadow said, and even in the dark I could feel the smile, "is the wrong question. You should be asking why the Alpha King is already hunting you."
The words dropped like a stone into my gut.
As if to punctuate them, the alarm bells rang out deep, guttural, and furious. The sound vibrated through the walls, each toll a call to arms.
From the corridors above, I could hear the pounding of armored boots. Orders barked. Our names shouted.
They knew.
No—they believed.
And just like that, the palace wasn't our home anymore. It was a cage, tightening.
The shadow pushed off the doorway and began to retreat into the hall, his voice echoing back to us:
"You have less than an hour before every royal patrol has your scent. Choose wisely who you trust. And whatever you do don't look for me. I'll find you."
He vanished before I could lunge.
Luna's eyes locked on mine. "We have to move. Now."
But beneath her urgency, I could see it. the flicker of fear she was trying to hide. Not from the guards.
From him.
.....
Luna and I burst from the servants' wing into the lower courtyard, keeping to the shadows. The scent of fresh rain couldn't hide the tang of iron in the air someone had been here before us, and not long ago.
Somewhere above, the alarm kept tolling. I could make out pieces of shouted orders:
"Seal the western gates!"
"Alpha King wants them alive!"
"Check the armory!"
Every voice was a noose tightening.
We cut through the old stables, moving fast. That's when I caught sight of him 'Rheon, the Alpha King's spymaster, leaning casually against a stall as if he'd been waiting all night. His silver eyes caught the torchlight.
"Aezrel. Luna," he greeted, smooth as silk, though his fingers drummed on the hilt of his blade. "Funny thing… two of the kingdom's most trusted wolves disappearing right before the King is given evidence of treachery."
Luna bristled. "If you believe that—"
"Oh, I don't believe it," Rheon said, stepping forward. "I know it's not true. Which makes it all the more… useful."
"Useful for who?" I asked, my grip tightening on my dagger.
"For the ones who want the Alpha throne to bleed itself dry before the real enemy arrives." His gaze darted to the darkened archway behind us. "You didn't see him, did you?"
I didn't answer.
"That shadow you're running from," Rheon said, his voice dipping low, "he's not hunting you for himself. He's cleaning the trail for someone else. Someone who's already in the palace. And if you think the Alpha King's paranoia is bad now… wait until he realizes this isn't about you at all."
Before I could press him, footsteps pounded in from the main courtyard half a dozen royal guards in formation. The leader's eyes swept over the stables and landed on us.
"There!" he roared.
Rheon swore under his breath. "Too late. If you want to live past the night, head for the catacombs under the eastern wall. Find Cael tell him the glass vault is breaking."
"What does that even—" Luna started, but Rheon shoved us toward the back gate.
"Go!"
We ran.
The shouts grew louder behind us, and as the cold stone arch of the eastern wall came into sight, I caught a flicker in the corner of my vision up on the battlements.
A figure watching.
The same shadow.
Only this time, his stance was different. He wasn't just observing he was signaling. And from the darkness behind him, another silhouette stepped forward.
One I recognized instantly.
Keira.
The Alpha King's own sister.
.....
Luna's POV:
Keira's presence hit me harder than the chase itself.
Not because she was the Alpha King's sister… but because I knew she wasn't supposed to be here.
Two days ago, she'd been at the border negotiations with the Eastern Clans. The journey alone would take at least a week.
And yet, here she stood.
On the battlements.
Silently watching us.
Her lips moved. No sound.
But I could read them.
> It's not what it seems.
I froze for a heartbeat too long. Aezrel yanked my arm, forcing us toward the shadow of the eastern wall.
The roar of the guards behind us grew louder. The pounding of boots, the scrape of steel, the bark of orders.
We ducked into a narrow passage between two crumbling towers, where the air turned damp and the walls sweated moss. This was the outer edge of the palace's forgotten underbelly—no guard patrols, no torches, just darkness and the slow drip of water.
Aezrel didn't stop until we reached a rusted iron gate. He pressed his palm against a brick in the wall, and with a grinding groan, the gate swung inward.
The catacombs.
The air down here smelled of age and secrets. The deeper we went, the more the world above faded.
When we reached the first chamber, the flicker of a single lantern revealed a tall, broad-shouldered figure leaning against a pillar. His face was shadowed, but his voice was unmistakable.
"Rheon said you'd come," he said. "But he didn't tell me you'd be dragging half the royal guard on your heels."
"Cael," Aezrel greeted grimly. "We don't have time for riddles. What's the glass vault?"
Cael's head tilted, his gaze lingering on me for a moment before answering.
"It's not a what. It's a who."
A silence settled between us, heavy and sharp.
Aezrel's jaw clenched. "You're telling me the whole rebellion's trigger point is a person?"
"Not just any person," Cael said, stepping into the lantern light. His eyes burned like stormfire. "It's the one being kept in the Alpha King's inner sanctum—someone with enough knowledge to ruin every pack on this continent if they spoke a single sentence. And if the vault breaks…" He let the implication hang.
My pulse hammered. "Then the King falls."
Cael's gaze darted between us. "No. If the vault breaks… the world falls."
Before either of us could reply, a sound slithered through the catacombs—soft, deliberate footsteps. Not hurried. Not panicked.
Whoever it was knew exactly where we were.
And they weren't alone.
....
The footsteps grew louder.
Steady. Measured.
They carried the kind of confidence that came from either absolute power… or knowing every exit was already sealed.
Aezrel's hand shifted toward the dagger strapped to his thigh. Cael moved closer to the lantern, but instead of raising it as a weapon, he twisted the wick down, plunging us into near-darkness.
In the half-light, a voice slid through the air.
"Still running from shadows, I see."
I knew that voice.
Not from memory, but from nightmares.
The figure stepped into view—tall, wrapped in a dark, dust-stained cloak, the hood falling back to reveal hair the color of tarnished gold. A single scar traced from the temple down across the jawline, a cruel slash of history.
"Elias," Aezrel breathed, and for the first time since I'd known him, his voice wasn't controlled it was shaken.
Elias's smile was small and deliberate. "I told you we'd meet again when the ground was ready to split beneath your feet."
Cael straightened, his jaw tightening. "You shouldn't be here. Not now."
"Oh, I should," Elias said. "Because while you three have been stumbling through the King's backyard like reckless children, the Council has moved. The Alpha King knows the Luna and Aezrel vanished hours ago. He's been told the royal guard never found your bodies… which means he's certain you're alive."
The weight of his words hit me. Alive didn't mean safe it meant we were now the most dangerous kind of prey: the kind he couldn't kill publicly without raising questions.
Elias stepped closer, his boots silent against the stone. "And that," he continued, "has made the Council suspicious enough to unlock their contingency plan."
Aezrel's eyes narrowed. "What contingency plan?"
Elias's gaze flicked to me. His smile didn't reach his eyes.
"They're going to use the vault to force the King's hand. But here's the twist someone inside the Council doesn't want the vault opened at all. They want it destroyed."
Cael swore under his breath. "Destroying it would…"
"…wipe out the one person who could expose everything," Elias finished for him. "And if you haven't guessed by now, Luna—" his eyes pinned me in place, "—the person in that vault knows your real name."
The room seemed to tilt, the stone under my feet shifting like it could give way any second. My real name. The one no one should know. The one I had buried with blood.
A faint rumble echoed from the tunnel behind Elias more footsteps, this time in rapid succession.
He glanced over his shoulder, then back to us. "We're out of time. Choose come with me, or stay and be hunted. Either way, the next move decides whether the King falls… or the world burns."