My arms were trembling so badly I could barely keep my fingers locked in my lap.
It was the second day of training, and the stone circle beneath me felt less like a sanctuary and more like a torture chamber.
Sweat dripped from my chin, splashing onto the cold marble floor.
My ribs throbbed with a dull, heavy ache that the healers’ herbs couldn’t quite numb anymore.
“Again, Aria,” Corin’s voice echoed across the quiet courtyard.
He wasn’t yelling, but the quiet patience in his tone carried a weight that made me want to scream.
“I’m trying,” I gasped, wiping the sweat from my eyes.
“The Sacred Veil is woven one thread at a time, Aria,” Corin said softly, kneeling down until he was at eye level with me.
“Today, you are not building the entire veil.
You are only finding the first thread.
Do not push against the wave.
Submerge beneath it.” I closed my eyes, forcing my ragged breathing to slow.
I reached inward, seeking that familiar spark of silver magic.
It was right where I left it—burning hot, wild, and chaotic.
But the moment my mind touched the magic, the twins stirred beneath my heart.
The calm one stayed quiet, anchored like a stone at the bottom of a river.
But the other one—the fierce one—flared instantly.
It felt like a tiny wolf clawing at the bars of a cage, baring its teeth at my attempt to restrain it.
The aggressive Alpha energy surged upward, mixing with my silver light and tearing right through my focus.
The air around me rippled violently, a harsh gust of wind blowing Corin’s white robes back as the magic slipped from my control yet again.
I collapsed forward, my palms slamming into the dirt as I gasped for air.
“I can’t,” I choked out, my throat raw.
“Every time I try to pull it in, they fight me.
One of them…
it doesn’t want to hide.” Vance stepped up from the shadows of the marble pillars, his massive arms crossed over his chest.
His gaze didn’t hold any pity.
“Then she needs to learn to work with it,” Vance said calmly, his deep voice carrying an unexpected weight.
“Fighting your own blood is a battle you will never win.
Tomorrow, we start physical combat training.
Magic won’t save her if someone puts a dagger to her throat before she can blink.” By afternoon, the sun had climbed high into the clear blue sky above the valley, casting a bright, golden warmth over the training grounds.
The villagers had gathered again, standing in the distance, their silent silver eyes fixed on me.
I sat back in the center of the circle.
I was exhausted, bruised, and deeply frustrated.
But as I looked at the old men, the women, and the small children watching me from the edges, the self-pity vanished, replaced by a cold, stubborn desperation.
I am not doing this for a throne, I told myself, my hands tightening into fists against my knees.
I am doing this so my babies don’t end up dead in a ditch.
I closed my eyes.
I breathed in the scent of sweet wildflowers and ancient stone.
Instead of trying to crush the fierce twin’s energy, I changed my approach.
I didn’t fight it.
I wrapped my own silver magic around it like a protective blanket, soothing the wild spark, whispering to it in the quiet recesses of my mind.
Be still.
Just for now.
Let me protect you.
For a second, the aggressive energy flared.
Then, slowly, it leaned into the warmth of my power.
It settled.
I pulled the combined energy downward, tucking it deep into my core, wrapping it in a dense, invisible layer of spiritual mist.
I didn’t let a single drop leak outward.
I finally felt it.
The first thread.
A profound, absolute silence fell over the courtyard.
I opened my eyes.
The villagers were staring at me, their mouths slightly open, a collective gasp echoing through the crowd.
Vance had straightened up, his silver eyes widening in genuine shock.
I looked down at my hands.
The faint, ambient silver shimmer that had been constantly radiating from my skin since the night I left Blackfang was gone.
The heavy, royal scent of my bloodline had vanished completely.
Corin let out a long, trembling breath, a proud smile breaking across his weathered face.
“Extraordinary,” the old healer whispered, stepping back as if he were looking at a stranger.
“Good.
Now the world will see only what you allow it to see.” For the first time in twenty-two years, I didn’t feel like an invisible servant hiding from a kick.
I felt like someone who had just learned how to draw a weapon.
Far beyond the frost-bitten peaks of the Whispering Mountains, the noon sun did nothing to warm the grand council chamber of the Blackfang Pack.
Alpha Kael sat at the head of the long mahogany table, his jaw clenched as he listened to the head scout’s report.
Camille sat beside him, her fingers idly tracing the rim of her teacup, her expression bored but attentive.
“We lost the trail at the base of the southern peaks, Alpha,” the scout said, his head bowed in respect.
“The storm washed away the physical tracks, but before the rain hit, our enforcers reported seeing a strange silver light illuminating the sky near the border.
The hounds grew frantic, but they couldn’t pick up a scent.” Camille let out a soft, mocking laugh.
“A silver light?
In the middle of a mountain storm?
Your enforcers are jumping at shadows.
It was likely just lightning.” Kael didn’t speak.
Outwardly, his face remained a mask of absolute, indifferent stone.
“The border is dangerous rogue territory,” he said, his voice cold and flat.
“Dismiss the search.
If she went into the southern peaks alone, the wilderness has already finished her.
We have a pack merger to prepare for.” “Yes, Alpha,” the scout nodded, quickly bowing before exiting the room.
But the moment the heavy oak doors shut, Kael’s hand tightened around the armrest of his chair so hard the wood began to groan under the pressure.
For a brief second, a sharp, agony-laced pain cut clean through his chest—the same strange ache that had been haunting him ever since Aria disappeared.
For one impossible moment, an image flashed through his mind—Aria standing in the rain, tears running down her face as he rejected her before the entire pack.
Beneath his skin, his wolf surged forward instantly, clawing at his ribs with raw, feral fury.
One word exploded through his mind.
Mine.
It didn’t believe a word he had just said.
A heavy, unexplained pull tugged at his soul, dragging his gaze toward the large glass windows facing south.
Every instinct in his body was screaming that she wasn’t dead.
That something was happening in those mountains.
And for reasons he couldn’t explain, the thought of her out there made his blood burn with a dangerous, violent possessiveness.
Deep within the jagged, freezing ridges of the Whispering Mountains, miles away from the hidden sanctuary, the shadows were growing long.
The three hooded trackers moved like ghosts through the rocky pass, their tattered black robes scraping against the frozen ground.
They stopped before a sheer cliff face that looked completely ordinary to the naked eye.
The lead tracker stepped forward, his pale, black-veined hand reaching out to brush away a thick layer of snow from a hidden crevice in the rock.
Beneath the ice, a faint, ancient carving was etched into the stone.
A rising phoenix, surrounded by small, delicate silver runes that still held a microscopic trace of ancient magic.
The tracker’s breath misted in the cold as a dark, twisted smile formed beneath his hood.
“The Sanctuary still exists,” he whispered, his voice sounding like iron dragging across dirt.
The second tracker stepped up beside him, his eyes gleaming hollowly from the darkness of his hood.
“The veil is hiding them well.
Should we inform the Master?” The leader slowly lowered his hand, his tattered sleeve falling back over his pale wrist.
He turned his head toward the deeper passes of the mountains, his cold, corrupted silver eyes locking onto the distant horizon.
“No,” the leader murmured, his voice dripping with absolute malice.
“The Master wants results, not promises.
First…
we find the Princess.” The tracker looked toward the hidden mountains and smiled.
“Then we bring her to the Master.” Above them, hidden beyond layers of ancient magic and mountain mist, the last heir of Astravia had no idea the hunt had already begun.