"When the Alpha King takes a mate, the world trembles not from what they destroy, but from what they create."
The walk to Silas's secluded chambers was a descent into the quiet edge of the Keep, the kind of silence that feels too aware, like it might be listening. I moved through the narrow halls cloaked and unmarked, the folds of my dark mantle whispering against the stone as if the Keep itself disapproved of this secret pilgrimage.
I should not have been there, and not after Elias's insistence that there would be no more secrets between us and we had sealed and sworn with the raw honesty of love. But Niko's words, her prophecies, had burned through every wall I had built. The vision of our children, magnificent and doomed, echoing with the power of the Crestwood Law and the Anchor's soul, haunted every breath I took. I could not bring that fear to Elias. I would not.
