POV: Elara Ashwyn
I can't sleep.
After Sage Elira's revelation, I spent the night staring at the ceiling of my chamber, one hand on my belly, feeling my daughter move like she knows something is coming. The sealed Priestess. The key. The war that's rushing toward us like a tidal wave.
At dawn, someone knocks on my door.
"Time to train," Lord Theron says when I open it. His scarred face shows no sympathy. "The Moon Court won't wait for your emotions to settle, and neither will I."
I want to protest. I'm exhausted. I'm terrified. I'm seven months pregnant and completely unprepared for combat.
Instead, I say: "Let's go."
The training grounds are already packed with warriors preparing for siege. But Theron leads me to a private courtyard separated from the chaos. Weapons hang from racks. Dummies stand ready for practice. Everything is set up deliberately.
"Seven months pregnant," Theron says, circling me like Raven did. "No formal training. No wolf form to fall back on. Completely terrified, though you're hiding it well."
"What's your point?" I demand.
"You survived three months in the Shadowlands," he says. "You fought five rogues with a broken knife. You're not fragile, Elara. You're hard. We just need to sharpen that edge."
He hands me a knife—shorter than the ones warriors use, perfectly balanced for someone my size.
"This is your weapon," he explains. "Not because it's all you can handle, but because it's the most efficient. A knife is intimate. It requires you to be close to your opponent. It requires conviction."
He draws his own blade.
"We start with basics. Stance. Grip. How to move without exhausting your already-tired body. In a real fight, your stamina is your weakness. So we make it irrelevant."
He shows me how to hold the knife—not gripping it desperately, but letting it rest in my palm like an extension of my arm. He teaches me to pivot on my back foot, to use my opponent's own momentum against them.
The first hour is just movement. No actual combat. Just step and turn, pivot and respond. My muscles ache, and my belly aches, but something inside me wakes up.
By the second hour, we're sparring.
Theron moves slowly at first—deliberately, so I can see the patterns. A slash from the left, which I learn to sidestep. A thrust at my center, which I deflect with a twist of the wrist. He's teaching me to think, not just react.
Then he speeds up.
Suddenly, I'm fighting for real—not life and death, but genuine combat. He presses me, forces me to defend, pushes me to the edge of my physical capacity.
And I don't break.
My hands know what to do. My feet find the right positions. My breathing stays steady even as sweat pours down my face. I'm not trained, but I'm learning, and learning fast.
"Good," Theron says, pressing harder. "You're thinking three moves ahead. Most warriors don't develop that until years of practice."
I nearly laugh. Of course I'm thinking ahead. I've spent the last three months predicting when rogues would attack, calculating when guards would patrol, planning survival moment by moment.
The Shadowlands taught me strategy better than any training yard could.
We spar for another hour until my arms are burning and my legs are shaking. I'm about to call for a break when Theron launches a combination I didn't anticipate. Slash, thrust, pivot—all designed to disarm me.
But something inside me—something old and ancient and furious—takes over.
I move without thinking. My knife finds the perfect angle. When Theron's blade comes toward me, I twist his wrist and use his own momentum to send his knife flying across the courtyard.
I stand there, breathless, my blade pointed at his throat.
For a moment, everything is silent.
Then shadows erupt from the courtyard walls.
"Well done."
The Obsidian King emerges from darkness like he was always there, watching. His masked face tilts toward me with something that might be pride.
"You disarmed a general who's trained for over a century," he continues. "Not through superior strength, but through understanding. Through seeing the weakness in his attack and exploiting it." He pauses. "That's what makes a true warrior, Elara. Not power. Perception."
Theron bows, retrieving his blade. "She'll be dangerous when she's fully trained."
"She's already dangerous," the King says, his gaze never leaving me. "She just didn't know it yet."
He turns to leave, then pauses. "Rest tonight. Tomorrow, we begin shadow magic training. Your daughter's bloodline demands it."
Then he's gone, dissolving into shadows like he was never there.
That night, I lie in my chambers, every muscle aching, my hands still shaking from adrenaline. Raven brings me food—something warm and comforting—and sits on the edge of my bed.
"You felt it, didn't you?" she says. "During the training. When the King appeared."
"Felt what?" I ask.
"The shift," Raven says. "Everyone feels it when he fully focuses on them. It's like the world reorganizes around his attention."
I don't respond, but she's right. When the King's shadows filled that courtyard, something inside me changed. Like part of me recognized him at a level deeper than consciousness.
"Get some sleep," Raven says, standing to leave. "Tomorrow's going to be intense."
But sleep doesn't come.
Instead, I lie awake, remembering the life I had in Silvercrest. The endless planning for a wedding I didn't want. The pretending to care about pack politics I didn't understand. The slowly suffocating feeling that I was slowly becoming invisible.
Tonight, after hours of combat training, covered in sweat and bruises, feeling every muscle in my body scream—
I've never felt more alive.
I've never felt more real.
Maybe Raven was right. Maybe broken is just another word for free.
At midnight, the voice inside my head—the ancient, furious one—speaks.
Soon, little priestess. Soon your daughter will be born, and the seal will begin to crack. Soon you'll understand what power truly means. And when the time comes—
A new voice interrupts it. Older. Female. Achingly familiar even though I've never heard it before.
Daughter, she whispers from somewhere beneath the palace, beneath the earth itself. Can you hear me? Daughter, it's time to wake up what sleeps inside you. The Moon Court comes, and you must be ready. The King cannot protect you. Not this time. Not from what's coming.
My eyes snap open.
My entire body is glowing.
Silver-white light radiates from my skin like I'm becoming the moon itself. My belly pulses with power so intense that I have to grip the blankets to keep from screaming.
The baby inside me—my daughter—she's moving violently, like she's fighting to break free.
"No," I whisper desperately. "Not yet. Please, not yet."
But the light only grows brighter.
And from somewhere deep beneath the palace, I hear chains breaking.
Long chains. Ancient chains. The sound echoes through the entire kingdom like the earth itself is groaning.
A door—a door that's been sealed for a thousand years—is beginning to open.