Every muscle in my body felt as though someone had spent the night beating me with an iron rod.
Moving my legs out of bed was an exercise in pure willpower, my bruised ribs protesting the slight twist of my torso.
Yet, as I stepped outside into the crisp morning air of the valley, something felt different.
The villagers weren’t looking down at the dirt when I passed.
The women washing clothes near the stream paused, bowing their heads with a genuine, quiet reverence.
An old warrior sharpening an axe gave me a short, respectful nod.
Before I reached the training grounds, a small, silver-eyed girl no older than six ran up to me, her cheeks flushed red from the morning cold.
Without a word, she thrust a small object into my hand and sprinted back to her mother.
I looked down.
It was a clumsily carved wooden wolf, its rough edges smoothed down by tiny fingers.
A token for luck.
A lump formed in my throat as my fingers closed around the cheap wood.
For the first time, these people weren’t protecting me because of who I was.
They were protecting me because they believed in who I could become.
“Sit, Princess,” Corin said as I entered the council chamber.
He looked older today, the dark circles under his eyes suggesting he hadn’t slept at all.
I sat down on the stone stool, expecting another lecture on ancient history.
Instead, Corin reached out, his long, withered fingers hovering just inches above my belly.
He closed his eyes, and a faint, warm silver light hummed from his palms.
Almost instantly, his brow furrowed.
He snapped his hands back as if he had been burned, his breath catching in his throat.
“What is it?” I asked, panic instantly tightening my chest.
“Are they okay?
Are the babies—” “They are more than okay, Aria,” Corin whispered, his voice trembling as he stared at my stomach.
“Their power is expanding.” He stood up, pacing the length of the stone floor, his robes swirling around his ankles.
“The veil isn’t responding to you alone anymore, Aria.” “What does that mean?” I asked, my hand dropping over the twins.
“It means your children are helping shape magic before they’ve even been born,” Corin revealed, his eyes wide with a mixture of awe and profound worry.
“Yesterday, when you found the first thread, you didn’t just suppress your own aura.
They pulled the magic in with you.
They are amplifying your command over the veil.
But a magic that strong…
it creates ripples, Aria.
Like a heavy stone dropped into a still pond.” The stakes had just doubled.
My babies weren’t just passengers in this survival race; they were active participants, and their growing power was making us a brighter target.
“Focus, Aria!” Vance’s deep voice shattered my thoughts.
We were back in the courtyard, but the wooden swords were gone.
Today was about pure, brutal survival.
Vance had me pinned against a marble pillar, his massive forearm pressing firmly against my collarbone, cutting off just enough air to make my vision blur.
“If a rogue catches you in a narrow pass, you won’t have room to swing a blade,” Vance growled, his face inches from mine.
“How do you break the hold?” Instead of trying to push his massive arm—a feat I knew was impossible—I dropped my weight, loosening my frame entirely.
As he adjusted to my sudden drop, I drove the heel of my boot straight down onto his instep, using the solid stone pillar to launch my elbow upward, clipping his jaw.
Vance grunted, stepping back a half-step.
It wasn’t a lethal blow, but it was enough to free me.
I quickly rolled away, finding my footing at the edge of the circle, my hands up, breathing heavily.
Vance touched his jaw, his silver eyes narrowing.
A tiny, almost imperceptible twitch at the corner of his mouth was the only sign of his reaction.
He was secretly proud.
I wasn’t stronger than him, but I was clever enough to use his own weight against him.
“Better,” he grunted, resetting his stance.
“Again.” Far beyond the sanctuary, inside the grand pack house of Blackfang, the atmosphere was suffocating.
Alpha Kael stood by the heavy mahogany desk, his chest heaving as he stared down at the splintered wood beneath his fists.
The massive furniture was ruined, the third one he had broken this week.
The nightmare of Aria falling into the abyss had returned every single night, leaving him sleep-deprived, erratic, and dangerously close to losing control of his wolf.
The door clicked open, and Beta Logan stepped into the study, his face tight with concern as he looked at the ruined desk.
“Alpha, are you alright?” Logan asked carefully.
“Leave,” Kael growled, his voice vibrating with a dangerous, feral edge.
“You’ve broken three desks this week,” Logan pointed out, trying to inject a sliver of dark humor into the suffocating tension.
“The pack treasurer is starting to think we’re being attacked by a beaver.” Kael didn’t laugh.
His eyes flashed a volatile, glowing gold, his fangs extending slightly.
“I said out, Logan.” Logan sighed, bowing his head before quietly backing out of the room.
Kael was unraveling, and everyone in the pack house could smell the blood-scent of his unstable aura.
While Kael raged in his study, Camille moved through the shadows of the lower corridors like a viper.
She had noticed his growing obsession, his lack of sleep, and the way his gaze constantly drifted toward the southern peaks.
He claimed the rogue maid was dead, but Camille hadn’t survived this long by trusting the words of a conflicted Alpha.
She stopped in a secluded corner of the courtyard, slipping a heavy pouch of gold coins into the hand of a senior border scout she had bribed.
“Tell me again,” Camille whispered, her eyes sharp and merciless.
“The silver light, Luna,” the scout stammered, pocketing the gold.
“It wasn’t lightning.
It happened right when the storm cleared.
A pure, blinding silver pulse from the deeper southern ridges.
It vanished instantly, but the hounds went completely mad.
Someone powerful is alive out there.” Camille’s lips curved into a cold, venomous smile as the scout hurried away.
Aria was alive.
She had survived the wilderness, and Kael’s wolf knew it.
If Kael won’t finish her, I will, Camille thought, her independent path of vengeance solidifying in the dark.
Deep within the jagged, freezing ridges of the Whispering Mountains, the three hooded trackers moved with absolute, silent precision.
They were no longer searching blindly.
Using forbidden blood magic, they followed the microscopic spiritual footprints left behind in the ether when Aria had pulled the first thread of the veil.
The lead tracker stopped, his tattered black robes whipping in the freezing wind as he stared at a seemingly solid wall of mountain mist.
He raised his hand, channeling a dark, purple corruption that sizzled against the cold air.
“The veil is weakening,” the second tracker muttered, his hollow eyes fixed on the shifting fog.
“No,” the leader replied, his voice dripping with absolute malice.
“The Princess is learning.
And learning leaves footprints.” He stepped into the mist, the dark magic around his fingers slicing through the ancient protective wards like a hot blade through snow.
In the dead of night, a profound silence enveloped the hidden valley of the sanctuary.
High up on a jagged cliff overlooking the valley floor, an ancient, weathered stone watchtower sat hidden beneath layers of mountain mist.
Two Astravian guards stood watch, their eyes scanning the dark perimeter.
Suddenly, a loud, violent crack echoed through the stone chamber.
On the center altar, an ancient alarm rune—carved into a block of pure obsidian twenty-three years ago—abruptly flared into a blinding, blood-red glow.
The stone began to vibrate so violently that cracks spider-webbed across the altar.
The guards turned pale, their breath freezing in their throats.
Minutes later, the heavy iron doors of Vance’s quarters were slammed open.
A young guard rushed in, his uniform disheveled, his face completely drained of color as he gasped for air, his body shaking with terror.
“Commander…” the guard choked out, his voice cracking.
“The outer wards have been touched.” Vance froze, his hand stopping inches from where his massive broadsword rested against the wall.
His hard silver eyes locked onto the terrified guard.
Those wards hadn’t been triggered in twenty-three years.
Somewhere beyond the mountains, the hunt had finally found its first trail.
[END OF CHAPTER 22]