LUNA'S:
Aezrel's jaw tightened, his hand still hovering near the dagger, but I could see it—the slight shift in his stance, the flicker in his eyes. He was already leaning toward Elias.
Cael noticed it too. His voice cut through the tension.
"Don't be a fool, Aezrel. He's been gone for years. And now he appears with the exact information we just needed? That's not coincidence it's a setup."
Elias chuckled, low and humorless. "You think the King's spies could keep me from learning the truth? I've been living in the cracks of his empire while you've been blindly serving it."
Aezrel took a step toward him. "If the Council wants the vault destroyed, then we can't waste time arguing. We need someone who knows their movements."
"And you think he does?" Cael snapped, his voice dripping with accusation.
I stayed silent, my mind running faster than my heart.
Both of them were right 'Elias's arrival was too perfect, too precise… but the way his eyes locked on mine, the way he spoke my real name without saying it aloud, made my blood turn to ice.
The distant footsteps grew louder. Not just a handful this was a hunt. The sound of metal on stone told me the King's Guard had already entered the tunnels.
Elias extended a gloved hand toward me. "You don't have the luxury of trust right now, Luna. You have survival… and you have me."
Cael moved, stepping between us. "Over my dead body."
Elias's smirk deepened. "That can be arranged."
Aezrel swore and shoved past Cael. "Enough we either move now or we die here. Luna, decide."
The guards' voices were echoing now, sharp and commanding. One more heartbeat, and they'd be upon us.
I looked at the three of them
Cael, who had never lied to me… as far as I knew.
Aezrel, whose loyalty was as sharp as it was unpredictable.
Elias, the ghost from my nightmares who claimed to hold the truth of who I really was.
I stepped forward
But instead of taking Elias's hand, I grabbed the lantern from Cael's grip and hurled it toward the tunnel entrance. The oil splashed against the stone, flames roaring to life, a wall of fire between us and the approaching guards.
They all turned to me in shock.
"We're not running," I said. "We're making them chase us and when they do, we lead them straight to the vault. Let the Council see who's willing to bleed for it."
Elias's smile shifted less mocking now, more… intrigued. "You've just made yourself the most dangerous person in these tunnels."
"Good," I said, hearing my own voice sharpen into something I barely recognized. "Let them find out why."
.....
Carl's POV:
The flames licked up the stone, throwing shadows across our faces. It wasn't just heat I felt. it was the weight of Luna's words.
She was different now. Harder. Sharper. Like the tunnels themselves had claimed a piece of her and replaced it with steel.
"Move," I barked, grabbing her arm and pulling her down the side passage before the smoke made us choke. Aezrel was already ahead, muttering curses. Elias… he followed last, and I didn't like the way his eyes tracked Luna's every step.
We reached the first fork in the tunnels. The air here was colder, carrying the metallic bite of underground water. That's when Elias stopped.
"We split," he said, voice steady.
"Like hell we do," I shot back.
He ignored me and looked at Luna. "You take the right path with me. Aezrel takes the left with Cael. We converge at the vault entrance before the guards can circle around."
I stepped forward, closing the gap between us. "You think I'm letting you lead her into the dark without me? Not happening."
Elias's smile was slow, deliberate. "That's exactly why you shouldn't come. You'd never keep up with me."
Luna's eyes flicked between us. The firelight from behind danced in her pupils, but I could tell she was calculating, already weighing possibilities I didn't want to consider.
Before she could speak, distant voices drifted toward us. The guards were closer than I thought. And then
I heard something that made my blood run cold.
Two voices, just clear enough to make out:
"…the Alpha King says the girl's worth more alive. But the one named Cael? Kill him on sight."
My pulse slammed in my ears. I didn't move. Didn't breathe.
Elias looked at me, and for the first time since he appeared, his smirk was gone.
"Seems someone upstairs really doesn't like you, soldier."
Luna's gaze locked on mine. There was a flicker there—not fear, but something far worse. Doubt.
I swallowed the taste of betrayal in my mouth. "We keep moving," I said, but my voice was quieter now.
Elias chuckled again, though it was darker this time. "Maybe splitting up isn't such a bad idea after all."
And for the first time, I wondered if the person I should be most afraid of in these tunnels… wasn't Elias.
.....
Luna's POV:
The right passage swallowed us whole. Shadows pressed against the walls, flickering with the light from the torch Elias carried. Every drip of water echoed like a warning, every gust of wind whispered secrets we weren't meant to hear.
"You're quiet," Elias said, his voice soft but edged with something dangerous. "Not used to being hunted?"
I didn't answer. Not yet. My mind was racing faster than my heartbeat. The footsteps behind us guards, the King's spies, or worse were still close.
"Luna," he said, "you need to understand. Everything they've told you… every betrayal, every humiliation… it was orchestrated to break you. But you were never meant to break."
I flinched. His words cut too close. Too true.
"Why me?" I asked finally. "Why not someone else?"
He paused, the shadows flickering across his face. "Because of the Crimson Mark. Because of the prophecy you carry. And because if you survive tonight… the world won't know what hit it."
I clenched my fists, silver hair falling into my eyes. "And you? Are you friend or enemy?"
His smile was quiet, almost tender, but it didn't reach his eyes. "I am… someone who knows the truth. And right now, that's enough."
A sudden noise behind us a scuff of boots against wet stone made me spin. But it wasn't the guards. A small, cloaked figure emerged from a side passage.
Claire.
My blood ran cold.
She had always been my closest friend. My sister in every sense but blood. And yet here she was, part of this labyrinth of shadows, her eyes glinting with secrets I was only beginning to suspect.
"Luna," she whispered, her voice almost gentle. "You shouldn't have come."
Elias's hand tightened around my wrist. "You see? Even here, you're surrounded."
I felt the walls close in. Betrayal, danger, secrets… it was everywhere, gnawing at my thoughts like wolves circling prey. And yet, somewhere deep inside, something in me stirred. The fire I had thought buried, the pride I had been denied… it flared.
"Then I guess I'll have to fight my way through," I said, and for the first time in years, I smiled.
Claire's eyes widened. "Luna…"
I didn't wait for her to finish. Elias and I moved forward, deeper into the tunnels. But in the shadows, I could sense it. other eyes, other wolves, plotting, waiting, hunting.
And I knew one thing for certain: by the time this night ended, no one's loyalties would be the same.
.....
Roran's POV
The reports from the lower sentries didn't make sense. The Luna and that shadow-born whelp, Aezrel, had vanished beneath the castle's foundations, slipping past wards that should have flayed them alive.
I stood over the map table in the Alpha King's war chamber, the candlelight painting red fire across the inked tunnels. "No one gets that far without help," I said flatly.
Draven leaned against the stone pillar, his smirk curling like smoke. "Maybe they're just clever."
"Or maybe," I said, meeting his eyes, "someone high in the royal guard opened the way."
That wiped his smirk clean.
The King's voice cut through the tension. "Find them. I don't care who you burn, who you bribe, or who you bleed to get me the truth." His gaze landed on me like a blade. "And Roran if you discover a traitor… make it public. The court is getting restless."
Public. Meaning bloody.
I gave a curt bow and left, but my mind was already elsewhere on the one man in the palace who could bypass the tunnel wards: Kaelen, the King's own shadow-scribe.
.....
Kaelen's POV:
I felt the threads tightening. The reports, the whispers in the servants' corridors, the subtle shifts in the King's mood, it was all converging. And I knew the moment my name reached Roran's ears, I would be hunted too.
But Kaelen never played fair.
From my desk, I slipped a folded scrap of encrypted parchment beneath a wax ledger. The runner boy would take it to the east gate. And if Aezrel had half the sense I believed he did, he'd know what the symbol meant: the vault key is not where you think.
They weren't the only ones chasing secrets. The Luna… she was a storm waiting to break. And storms were useful weapons.
Taren's:
From my perch on the parapet, the night was quiet. too quiet for the chaos brewing in the tunnels below. I was supposed to keep watch for approaching enemies. Instead, my eyes traced the torch-lit paths winding out of the forest, wondering which one the Luna would take if she escaped the labyrinth.
But that wasn't my real concern.
My real concern was the order I'd been given in private: If the Luna reaches the surface, end her before she reaches the Alpha King.
The thing is… I'm not sure I want to obey.
.....
Luna's POV:
The tunnels ahead branched again, this time into a staircase spiraling downward. Elias hesitated, his head cocked as if listening to something I couldn't hear.
"What is it?" I asked.
He didn't answer right away. "They're moving faster than I expected. And someone's given them a trail."
My chest tightened. "Then we're walking into a trap?"
He looked at me, and in his eyes was something that almost looked like admiration. "Maybe. But sometimes… walking into the trap is the only way to spring it."
I didn't like the way he said it.
And somewhere far above us, I swore I could feel it. the Alpha King's gaze, burning through stone and earth, already suspecting the truth.
...
Alpha King's POV
The war council had thinned to only those I trusted—or rather, those I trusted enough to keep breathing. The Luna's absence was a breach not of security, but of control. If she could vanish with the shadow-born boy, others might start believing in possibilities I'd spent years crushing.
I traced a clawed finger along the stone map of the tunnels carved into the table. There. That was the place where the wards were weakest—the one gap only Kaelen and two others knew.
"Summon the Wraith Guard," I said. The shadows along the wall stirred in silent obedience. "And send word to the eastern court. Tell them the Luna has gone missing and the traitors will be dealt with before dawn."
The court didn't need the truth. They needed blood.
...
Draven's:
I found Roran in the eastern barracks, strapping on his shoulder plates. He didn't look at me when he spoke. "You've been quiet."
"I'm watching," I said. "Sometimes silence gets you more than steel."
"Not tonight." He slid his blade into its sheath. "Tonight we take steel into the tunnels. The King wants the Luna alive. The boy? Not so much."
I smirked. "And if the Luna resists?"
He finally turned to me, his expression hard enough to crack stone. "Then we make an example. But… I doubt the King will forgive either of us if her body comes back cold."
Something in his voice told me Roran wasn't just worried about the King's wrath—he had his own stake in keeping her alive.
As for kaelens's thought:
The boy had the message by now. If he was clever, he'd decipher it in time to turn the vault's location against the King.
But there was a risk in playing both sides. I could hear the faint echoes in the corridor outside Draven's bootfalls, too deliberate to be casual.
I swept my parchments into the satchel, extinguished the lamp, and pressed my palm against the cold brick of the wall. The bricks shifted, revealing a narrow slit of darkness. I stepped through just as the door burst open.
"You'll have to run faster than that, Wraith," I whispered to no one in particular as the hidden passage swallowed me.
.
Luna's:
The staircase led to a vast cavern, lit by veins of pale crystal running through the walls. Elias stopped short, scanning the shadows.
"This isn't part of the mapped tunnels," he murmured.
I felt it then. a pulse beneath my feet, like the heartbeat of the earth itself.
From the far end of the cavern, a figure emerged. Cloaked. Familiar.
"Kaelen," Elias said.
He tilted his head at me. "If you want the vault, you'll need to survive the next ten minutes. The King's Wraiths are coming, and I've just given them the wrong directions. That gives you… maybe five."
My voice was sharper than I meant. "Why help us?"
His smile was thin. "Because sometimes, the enemy of my enemy makes the perfect weapon."
The air shifted too cold, too sudden. I caught Elias's glance, his eyes narrowing at the faint scrape echoing through the stone. He didn't speak, but his hand brushed mine, urging me to keep close.
"They're here," he murmured, his breath barely disturbing the stale air.
Kaelen stepped ahead, his silhouette sharp against the dim light of the cavern. "Left ridge," he said without looking back. "There's a fissure that cuts beneath the King's sentry wards. Unmarked, and for good reason."
Elias frowned. "And you?"
"I'll keep them occupied," Kaelen replied, almost lazily, though the way his hand rested on his blade told another story. "Five minutes. That's all I can buy you."
The fissure was narrower than I expected, pressing me close to Elias as we squeezed through. The stone scraped against my shoulders, and my pulse quickened.
"This isn't a path," I whispered. "It's a crack."
"It's survival," he said simply, guiding me forward. "Paths are for people who have time."
The fissure twisted and widened into a narrow corridor, carved by water centuries ago. Somewhere ahead, a faint golden light pulsed against the darkness.
"That's not torchlight," I murmured.
"No," Elias said. "That's the vault's seal."
We weren't alone.
A voice slid out of the shadows, smooth but laced with danger. "You're trespassing."
I turned slowly, my breath catching. Roran stepped forward, his eyes unnaturally bright the King's sigil burning in their depths. His gaze didn't look at me like an old ally. It looked at me like prey.