They ran.
Boots slapped on stone.
Ace’s heart hammered against his ribs.
The servant boy’s panic was a live wire in the air.
Something was very wrong.
Alex reached the heavy oak door of their father’s study first.
He didn’t knock.
He pushed it open.
Ace skidded in behind him, the warmth of the training yard still on his skin.
The scene inside stopped them cold.
Duke Aster sat behind his massive desk.
But he wasn’t the towering Black Wolf.
He was slumped.
One elbow was on the desk, his forehead resting heavily in his palm.
His other hand clutched a thick, official-looking file of parchment.
His knuckles were white.
Behind him, standing with her hands on his shoulders, was Lady Roseline.
Her face was pale.
Her eyes were wide with a horror so deep it looked like sickness.
She was staring at nothing, her lips slightly parted.
“Father?” Alex’s voice was sharp, cutting through the thick silence.
“What happened?”
Ace took a step closer.
The air in the room was cold and heavy, like before a storm.
“Daddy?”
For a long moment, the Duke didn’t move.
He didn’t look up.
He just breathed, a slow, ragged sound.
Then, he spoke.
The words were ground out, low and broken.
“He… he planned this.”
Ace frowned, his confusion cutting through his fear.
“What?
Who planned what?”
Slowly, as if it hurt, Duke Aster lifted his head.
His face was grey.
The lines around his eyes and mouth looked deeper, carved by a sudden, terrible chisel.
His crimson eyes, usually so fierce, were clouded with a defeat Ace had never seen.
He didn’t look at his sons.
He looked at the file in his hand.
Then he tossed it onto the desk.
It landed with a dull, final *thump*.
“Jade,” the Duke said.
The name was a curse and a confession.
Ace’s blood ran cold.
He stepped forward, around the side of the desk, and knelt beside his father’s chair.
He put a hand on the armrest.
“The ministers?
Did Kalgen and the others put him up to it?
They’re using him, Father, it’s just a political game, we can—”
“No.”
The word came from Roseline.
Her voice was a thin thread, ready to snap.
She looked down at Ace, and the pain in her eyes was a physical blow.
“He wrote it himself.”
Ace froze.
He knelt there, his mind refusing to catch up.
“He… what?”
“The petition,” Roseline whispered.
She gestured weakly to the file.
“To the High Council of the North.
A formal, legal petition.
To force your father… to legally acknowledge Jade Aster Valebane as his firstborn, legitimate son.
To strip Alex’s heirship and confer it upon him.”
The world tilted.
The floor beneath Ace’s knees felt like it was falling away.
Alex didn’t move.
He stood like a statue by the door, his face hardening into a mask of icy calm.
But Ace saw the tiny pulse jumping in his brother’s jaw.
“He can’t,” Ace breathed.
“He’s a… he’s from the south, he’s not legitimate, Mother, everyone knows the story—”
“He cited the ancient bloodline laws,” Roseline interrupted, her voice gaining a little strength, edged with despair.
“Article Seventeen.
The Law of Unacknowledged Firstborns.
Article Eighty-Nine.
The Right of Blood Over Ceremony.
Article Six Hundred Fifty-Seven.” She let out a shaky breath.
“He knows them better than our own lawyers.
He’s built a legal fortress.
He claims that because his mother impersonated me, and your father was in a state of forced biological distress, the act constitutes a ‘union under natural law.’ That his birthright was stolen by silence.
He demands restoration.”
Ace stared at the file.
It was just paper.
But it felt like a weapon aimed at his brother’s heart.
“The signatures,” Duke Aster said, his voice a hollow rumble.
He finally looked at Alex.
There was an ocean of apology in his gaze.
“He didn’t just write it.
He collected support.
Kalgen delivered him a list of every minor lord, every council member who has ever grumbled about our line.
Who thinks you are too young.
Too rigid.
Who fears your strength.” He swallowed.
“He has over forty signatures.
Enough to force the Council to hear the petition.
To make it real.”
Ace shot to his feet.
The anger was back, hot and clean, burning away the confusion.
“That snake!
That lying, two-faced, pretty little snake!
All the quiet smiles and the ‘thank yous’ and the sad looks in the garden!
It was all an act!
He was just gathering information, making lists, writing his stupid laws!” He turned on his father.
“You have to throw it out!
You’re the Duke!
Refuse to see it!”
“I cannot.” Aster’s words were final.
“The Council is not just mine.
It is the law of the North.
If I ignore a properly filed petition with sufficient backing, it undermines every law that gives us our power.
It makes me a tyrant.
It gives the Emperor the exact excuse he needs to send more than just a pretty poet.
He could send armies, citing ‘lawful intervention.'” He looked back at the file.
“Jade… or whoever is guiding him… has thought of everything.
This is a checkmate on a political board.”
The room was silent again, filled only with the crackle of the fire.
Ace looked at Alex.
His brother’s face was still that calm, frozen mask.
But his eyes were working, calculating, seeing the battle lines redrawn.
“Where is he?” Alex asked.
His voice was quiet, but it filled the room.
“In his chambers, I assume,” Roseline said.
“The petition was delivered by a council clerk an hour ago.
He must know we have it by now.”
Without a word, Alex turned on his heel and walked out of the study.
“Alex, wait!” Ace called, stumbling after him.
He caught up to his brother in the hall.
Alex was walking fast, his stride long and determined, heading straight for the east wing.
“What are you going to do?” Ace asked, matching his pace.
“Talk to him,” Alex said.
His tone left no room for argument.
“Talk?
Alex, he just declared war on you!
He’s trying to steal your title, your future, everything!”
“I know what he is trying to do,” Alex said, not slowing down.
“I want to hear him say it to my face.
I want to see if he can look me in the eye after last night.
After the hunt.
After calling us ‘brother.'”
They reached the heavy, ornate door of the east wing’s blue suite.
The hallway here was always colder.
Alex didn’t knock.
He turned the handle and pushed the door open.
The sitting room was neat and quiet.
A fire burned low in the hearth.
The books Ace had seen before were stacked neatly on a table.
Jade stood by the window, his back to them.
He was wearing one of the new winter coats—a dark blue, heavy wool one that looked like it might have been Alex’s years ago.
It was too broad in the shoulders for him.
He must have heard them come in, but he didn’t turn around.
“Jade,” Alex said.
The name was flat.
A statement.
Slowly, Jade turned.
He looked calm.
His silver hair was tied back.
His crimson eyes were clear.
He held himself with that same quiet grace.
But there was something different.
The softness was gone.
In its place was a kind of cool, resolved stillness.
The stillness of a judge.
Or an executioner.
He looked from Alex to Ace, then back to Alex.
He said nothing.
“Did you write it?” Alex asked.
He didn’t move from the doorway.
Jade’s gaze didn’t waver.
“Yes.”
The single word hung in the air.
It was a confession.
It was a challenge.
Ace felt fury roar up inside him.
“You liar!
You fake!
All that ‘I don’t want trouble’!
All the sad omega in the snow!
You were just planning this the whole time!”
Jade’s eyes flicked to Ace.
There was no guilt in them.
No apology.
Just that calm, awful stillness.
“I told you I was here for a matter of blood and inheritance.
I never lied about that.”
“You let my mother give you clothes!” Ace shouted, pointing at the coat.
“You let my brother bow to you!
You thanked me for saving a wolf!
Was that all just part of the plan?
To make us feel sorry for you so we wouldn’t see the knife in your hand?”
For the first time, a flicker of something crossed Jade’s face.
It was fast, like a shadow.
Pain?
Anger?
It was gone before Ace could name it.
“The clothes were kindness.
The bow was strategy.
The wolf was mercy,” Jade said, his voice low and even.
“They were real things.
But they do not change the law.
They do not change what I am owed.”
“Owed?” Alex took a step into the room.
His presence seemed to make the space smaller.
“You are owed nothing.
You are the product of a crime against my father.”
“I am the product of a crime that *your father* was the victim of,” Jade corrected, his voice gaining a sharp, precise edge.
“And yet, I am the one who was hidden away.
I am the one who grew up with a different name, in a foreign court, knowing I was a secret.
A mistake.
The law does not care about feelings, Prince Alex.
It cares about blood.
And my blood is the same as yours.
It is older than yours.
The law says what is mine.”
He was quoting the articles.
He believed it.
He truly believed he was right.
Alex stopped a few feet from him.
They were almost the same height.
Alex was broader, stronger.
But Jade stood his ground, a slender, unyielding figure in his borrowed coat.
“So this is who you are,” Alex said softly.
“The quiet poet.
The gentle omega.
It was a mask.
This is the real you.
The claimant.
The usurper.”
Jade held his gaze.
“The heir,” he said quietly.
The word was a slap.
Ace couldn’t stand it anymore.
He lunged forward, but Alex shot out an arm, blocking him.
“Why now?” Alex asked, his eyes locked on Jade’s.
“You’ve been here for days.
Why file it today?
After the festival?
After the dance?”
Jade’s perfect composure cracked, just for a second.
A tiny, almost invisible flinch.
He looked away, out the window.
“The timing was… advised.
The festival creates momentum.
Public sentiment is malleable.
It was the correct strategic moment.”
He was lying.
Ace could hear it.
There was something else.
“Who advised you?” Alex pressed.
“Kalgen?
The Emperor?”
“It does not matter,” Jade said, turning back, his mask firmly back in place.
“The petition is filed.
The law will run its course.
You can fight me in the Council.
You will lose.
Or you can accept it.
The choice is yours.”
He sounded so sure.
So cold.
Alex stared at him for a long, long moment.
The air crackled with silent battle.
Then, Alex did something unexpected.
He nodded.
Just once.
A short, sharp dip of his chin.
“Very well,” Alex said, his voice like frozen steel.
“You want a war fought with paper and laws?
You shall have it.
But understand something, Jade.
The North does not crown its leaders in council chambers.
It crowns them on the battlefield.
It crowns them in the loyalty of their people.
You may win your petition.
You may get a title on a piece of parchment.”
He took one final step forward, closing the last bit of distance between them.
He didn’t touch Jade, but his presence was overwhelming.
“But you will never be the heir to *my people*,” Alex whispered, the words deadly quiet.
“And without that, your paper crown is worthless.
And you will be alone in this cold castle forever.
Think on that.”
He turned and walked out of the room, not looking back.
Ace stood there, glaring at Jade.
All the confusion, the strange pity, the weird protectiveness from the dance—it was all gone.
Burned away by the fire of betrayal.
He looked at the boy in the borrowed coat, who had drawn a wolf in the snow and called it ‘brother.’
“You’re not my brother,” Ace snarled, his voice thick with hate.
“You’re just the enemy.”
He turned and followed Alex out, slamming the door shut behind him with a crash that echoed through the cold stone hall.
Inside the blue suite, alone again, Jade did not move.
He stood by the window for a full minute.
Then, his shoulders slumped.
The cold, legal mask melted away, leaving only exhaustion.
He looked down at his hands.
They were trembling.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the simple blue thread charm.
He held it tight.
Outside, the snow began to fall again, covering the garden, covering the spot where a wolf had been drawn in the morning.
It covered everything.