Ryker's POV
I looked up at him. "You'll keep them safe?"
"With my life."
"And you'll come back?"
His jaw flexed. "Only if you command it."
"I do," I whispered.
He touched my fingers—just once—then disappeared into the dark.
By morning, they were gone.
And I stood alone again.
But not as prey.
As Queen.
And in the silence before the storm, I prayed not for mercy—
—but for the strength to burn.The hours after they left passed like ghosts—silent, watchful, always at my back.
I should've slept. I didn't.
Instead, I paced the length of the war room until the candles guttered low and the wind howled outside the stained-glass windows like the dead were whispering.
Kira found me at dawn.
"You've already memorized every line of those maps, Clara," she said, arms folded as she leaned against the archway.
"I'm not looking at the maps," I murmured. "I'm watching the pieces move."
She walked to the table, her steps as soundless as a shadow. "You know they might not come back."
I met her eyes. "I know."
And it tore at something feral inside me. Because they weren't just soldiers. Not just pieces. They were my blood. My bond.
My heart.
Kira reached into her cloak and placed a sealed envelope on the table.
"What's this?"
"Insurance," she said coolly. "If you fall, if I fall, if Dorian breaches the walls before the others return—this letter goes to the Whisperfang stronghold. There's a second rebellion forming in the west. One no one has dared to name."
I studied the seal—her family crest, shaped like a viper's fang over a crown.
"You think we'll need them?"
"I think if Dorian's smart—and he is—he's already accounted for failure. Which means he has a second plan." Her gaze hardened. "We'd be fools not to do the same."
I nodded and tucked the letter into the secret compartment beneath the war table.
A knock sounded at the chamber doors. The kind of knock that meant bad news.
A guard entered, bowed low. "Your Majesty, there's been movement at the southern ridge. A fire signal. Not ours."
My heart lurched.
"Who else knows?"
"Only the sentries, and the scouts you personally cleared."
Good.
We still had control.
"Ready my horse," I said. "And call Captain Myles. I want the Stormguard on alert."
Kira raised a brow. "You're going to the ridge?"
"I need to see it myself."
"Clara—"
"No more thrones. No more waiting. If Dorian's playing games on two fronts, I need to outmaneuver him. Not sit on velvet while my people burn."
For a moment, I saw approval flicker behind Kira's eyes. Then she nodded.
"I'll hold the court," she said. "And watch your back from here."
Outside, the sky was burning.
Not from fire—but from light.
A strange crimson glow bled from the clouds over the southern peaks, dancing like lightning but with no thunder to follow. My wolf stirred under my skin—uneasy, alert.
Magic.
Old. Wild. Unnatural.
I mounted fast, Stormguard riders flanking me as we rode through the narrow path carved into Blackmoor's bones. The scent of ozone thickened the farther we traveled, until even the horses skittered nervously
We reached the ridge just before the sun crested.
And what I saw turned my blood to ice.
Below us, carved into the valley, was a perfect circle scorched into the earth—miles wide. Trees turned to ash. Soil blackened to glass. No bodies. No sound.
Just one thing left behind in the center:
A banner. Not of Dorian's crest.
But mine.
The sigil of House Ravenshade, pinned into the earth with a blade that was unmistakably Ryker's.
And beneath it, in blood-red chalk, a single word:
"Betrayed."
The mountain swallowed sound.
Not just in the way most caverns muffled noise—but in the way ancient things did. As if it remembered every voice that had passed through it… and consumed them all.
We moved in near-total darkness, the only light the occasional flicker of Sora's foxfire casting eerie shadows on the walls.
"Left fork, then steep descent," she whispered. "Three hundred paces, then we reach the drop."
I nodded once, glancing back to where Hale carried the charge. It pulsed faintly in his pack, a cage of volatile energy wrapped in stabilizing runes.
The kind of device you only used when you didn't plan on coming back the same way.
The tunnel narrowed. Sharp ridges scraped across my shoulders as we descended. Water dripped from above, echoing like a clock counting down.
"I don't like this," Hale muttered. "It's too quiet."
"It's a tunnel," I said. "It's supposed to be quiet."
"No," Sora said. "He's right."
She knelt suddenly, fingers brushing the stone. A frown creased her brow.
"The air's changed," she said. "Something's breathing down here."
I unsheathed my blade in one fluid motion. "Living?"
Her eyes glowed faintly. "No."
We kept moving, faster now. Purpose overtook fear. Every step deeper meant fewer steps back—but none of us would stop.
Then we saw it.
The Aether Cradle.
It glowed with a sick, shifting light—veins of power pulsing beneath the stone like a dying heart. Runes etched into the walls long before any kingdom had names still flickered. Half-erased. Half-awake.
"We set it here," Hale said, carefully removing the charge. "Near the eastern faultline."
I knelt beside him, anchoring the device. My fingers trembled—not with fear, but with recognition. The energy here was familiar. Like the pull I felt whenever I was near Clara.
Bonded magic.
Only… older. Wilder. Unclaimed.
I didn't say it out loud.
Didn't have to.
Sora looked at me sharply. "You feel it too."
"It's tied to her," I murmured. "Somehow."
Before she could respond, the tunnel behind us shuddered.
Not an explosion. Not natural.
Footsteps.
We turned as one, weapons drawn.
A figure stepped into view. Hooded. Cloaked in midnight fabric threaded with silver.
"Did you think Dorian wouldn't see this coming?" the voice hissed.
I froze. That voice—
"Silas?" Sora asked.
But I shook my head slowly. "No."
The figure lowered the hood.
And I stared into my own face.
Not a twin. Not an illusion.
Me.
Perfect. Cold. Wrong.
"Hello, Ryker," the copy said with a smile. "Let's see how worthy you really are of her."
And then he lunged.