“The curse was learning my name.”
Kael
I made it to my chambers before I let go.
That was the only control I had left of getting through the door before the mask broke.
I had held it together since the dining hall, through the corridor, and even outside her door when I forced myself not to touch her.
The door closed behind me with a thud.
I stood there in the dark, my back against the wood, and I was breathing slowly.
The room was quiet.
The fire had burned low, leaving only dim embers that cast long, shifting shadows on the stone walls.
I pushed away from the door and walked to the centre of the room.
I raised my hand.
My fingers were steady, but inside, my chest burned with heat.
I grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled hard.
The fabric tore open.
Buttons flew across the stone floor, the sharp sound echoing softly in the room as they rolled into the corners.
I stood there in the cold, my chest bare in the freezing air of the palace.
Then I lifted my head and looked toward the mirror on the far wall, already knowing exactly what I would see.
I saw them clearly.
Two dark veins started at the centre of my chest, right over my heart, and spread across my ribs in thick, raised lines.
The colour was wrong.
It was deep black, like polished stone.
It didn’t belong in living skin.
It looked like a shadow trapped just beneath the surface.
They moved, but not with my heartbeat.
Their rhythm was slow and steady, separate from mine, and like something else was alive inside me, more like something that didn’t answer to me.
I lifted my hand and pressed two fingers against the largest vein.
A pulse met my touch.
It was a slow, twisting movement, like something sliding beneath my skin.
It wasn’t fast, and it wasn’t violent.
It was controlled, intentional, and alive.
It lived within me.
The vein was still just below my collarbone.
It hadn’t reached my throat yet, but I could feel it there, slowly spreading, like it would move the moment I gave it any space.
The curse was taking more of me every day.
I pulled my hand away, my skin still unsettled, and my thoughts drifted back to the councilman’s expression and the hunters moving through my halls as they belonged there.
They knew what they were doing.
They knew I had someone to protect.
She hadn’t even been here a full day, and already this.
And the councilman, someone meant to stand with this kingdom, now chooses to work with hunters.
The thought stayed with me, turning over quietly, until something settled in my chest.
It sat there, steady and cold, building without urgency, but certain all the same.
The veins reacted to this.
The black shifted, and along the edges, a deep purple began to bleed through.
It spread slowly, pulsing in time with what I was holding inside, growing stronger the longer it stayed.
The beast was awake.
It had always been there waiting for its moment.
I closed my eyes and did the only thing I knew would hurt.
I tried to reach for my wolf.
It was never easy. The source of this chapter is g.com.
I reached into the dark space inside my mind, looking for the connection that should have been as natural as breathing.
Every shifter is born with a second soul, a wolf that stays close, speaks, guides, and lives inside them.
Mine had gone silent.
It was just the fog, thick and heavy, like smoke with no end.
Behind it, I could feel the power that was mine, the old, deep strength that belonged to me from birth.
It pressed against the barrier like something alive, like heat trapped behind stone.
But the wolf himself… He didn’t reach back or speak.
He wasn’t there; it was just the Fog.
And beneath it, the silence of a mind I had been carrying alone for years.
The knock at my door came in a pattern.
I knew it was Riven; he was the only man in Erevon who knew that the King was a hollow shell.
“Come in,” I said.
The door opened, and he stepped in.
His eyes went straight to my chest, then held there for a second longer than usual before he looked away.
I saw his hand tighten around his sword, even though his face stayed controlled.
The glow from the veins had grown stronger.
It painted faint purple lines across the room and caught on his features when he moved.
“They’ve moved,” Riven said.
“I know.”
“Since last week, Kael. It’s branching toward your shoulder.”
He crossed the room and stopped just outside my space, studying the marks like he was looking at something already deciding how to fall apart.
His voice lowered.
“If they see this, they won’t wait. They’ll call the Old Law. They’ll take the crown before you can even respond.”
I didn’t answer.
I didn’t need to.
The words settled anyway, heavy and precise.
That thought came quietly, but it stayed.
Twelve days before it reached my neck.
Twelve days before, there would be no more hiding what I was becoming.
Riven kept watching me, waiting for something I didn’t give.
Then I spoke.
“Something changed tonight.”
His gaze sharpened slightly.
“In the corridor,” I said.
“When I touched her… for a moment, the fog wasn’t there.”
That made him still completely.
“You heard him?” Riven asked.
“I almost did,” I said.
My voice was low now.
“Not that clearly, but it was there.”
I looked down at my hand.
The same one that had caught her.
“My wolf,” I said.
“For the first time in years… he moved.”
Riven’s eyes sharpened immediately.
The shift in him was subtle, but I knew that look.
It was the part of him that stopped being a man and started being a strategy.
“The bond,” he said quietly.
“She’s the bridge, Kael. If she can ease the curse, then proximity matters. You need to understand how close she has to be. You need to be able to stand on that dais with your skin intact.”
I didn’t answer right away.
“And if it’s the opposite?” I asked.
“If she gets close and it doesn’t calm it… If it feeds it instead?”
Riven didn’t hesitate.
“Then we deal with that outcome too.”
I exhaled slowly.
I wanted to call my wolf.
I wanted to force clarity out of the silence inside me.
But even that instinct now came with hesitation.
It wasn’t because I didn’t want power, but because I didn’t want her harmed by it.
The room felt colder the longer we stayed in it, as if even the air were adjusting to what we were planning.
We spoke of leaks, the councils, small movements in the palace that didn’t sit right, and the hunters.
They already knew she was coming and that she was already here.
That thought didn’t sit well with me.
It stayed in my chest longer than anything else.
I spoke again, but my voice was tighter this time.
“We increase security on her wing. No visible guards. I don’t want her to feel watched.”
Riven looked at me briefly.
“She stays a guest,” I added.
“I want her to feel safe… even if this place is slowly turning into something else around her.”
Riven gave a small nod.
When he reached the door, I called him back.
“Riven.”
He stopped.
I didn’t speak immediately.
The words weren’t easy, and I didn’t want to soften them.
Finally, I said, “She’s the only way back to my wolf… to who I am.”
My hand tightened slightly at my side.
“And if they take her,” I added quietly, “they don’t just take leverage. They take my soul.”
Riven didn’t answer.
He didn’t need to.
He just bowed his head slightly and left the room, leaving me with the silence.
I stayed there for a moment, then walked to the window.
Below me, Erevon stretched out in the dark.
It was quiet, still, and unaware.
Thousands of people were sleeping under a kingdom that was slowly tightening around its own secrets.
A kingdom still looking to me for safety, for order and for control.
I pressed my palm against the cold glass, and I felt her.
She was asleep.
I could feel her breathing through the bond; it’s soft, steady, and calm.
It grounded me, and for a moment, just looking toward her room, the burning in my veins eased.
The pressure in my chest loosened a little.
The heat under my skin settled, just enough to remind me I was still in control of myself.
I was a king without his wolf, slowly turning to something else… and the only thing that could steady me was sleeping in a room I couldn’t bring myself to enter.
We finally see what Kael is hiding and the weight he has been carrying alone.
I really wanted to show why he’s been so distant and what this curse is truly doing to him and his wolf.
Thank you all so much for reading to this chapter!
Your support means the world to me.
Please let me know your thoughts and theories in the comments.
I love reading them!