The air in the sanctuary's main training yard was crisp and sharp, smelling of damp earth and pine. In the center of the packed dirt, steel sang. Connall lunged, his practice blade a silver blur aimed at Althea's heart, a test of pure speed. She didn't meet his attack with force, a mistake many made against his brute strength. Instead, she moved with him, a fluid pivot that used his own momentum against him. Her sword slid along his, a serpent of steel deflecting it wide as she spun inside his guard, the blunted tip of her blade coming to rest a whisper from his throat.
It was a dance of lethal instinct, a synergy they had honed over weeks of relentless, grueling practice. His strength, her speed. His raw power, her precise grace. The fated bond, once a source of agonizing, shared pain, now hummed between them, a silent, invisible current of shared intent. It was more than muscle memory; it was a preternatural connection, allowing them to anticipate each other's moves before they were even fully formed.
He recovered, a genuine grin touching his lips despite himself. The raw frustration of their early days had been forged into a grudging, then a genuine, respect. "Getting faster, she-wolf."
"You're getting predictable, my prince," she retorted, her eyes flashing with competitive fire as she stepped back into a ready stance. Her breath plumed in the cold air, her face flushed with exertion.
Before he could craft a worthy reply, the thunder of hoofbeats shattered the morning's rhythm. A rider burst into the yard, his horse a terrified beast of lathered sweat and foam, an arrow shaft broken off high on its flank, the wood dark with blood. The man, a scout named Donnall, slid from the saddle before the beast had even skidded to a stop, stumbling with an exhaustion that went bone-deep. His own arm was wrapped in a crude, blood-soaked rag.
"Donnall!" Connall was at his side in an instant, Althea a pace behind him. "What happened? Who did this?"
The scout ignored their questions, his eyes wide with an urgency that bordered on horror. He leaned heavily against his wounded mount, which shuddered and gasped for air. "Guntram," he rasped, the name a curse. "He's made his move. The Gray Cliff elders… by the gods, Connall… he executed them all. Publicly."
A cold fury, so absolute it felt like ice flooding his veins, seized Connall. The bond flared, and he felt Althea's sharp, vicarious shock as if it were his own. The Gray Cliff clan had been wavering, on the verge of declaring for him. "On what grounds?" he demanded, his voice a low, dangerous growl.
"Royalist sympathies," Donnall said, his voice ragged. "He crucified them on the Great Oak in the valley square. As a message. A warning to any who would even think of siding with you."
Althea's hand flew to her mouth, her face bone-white. This wasn't just a political move; it was an act of pure terror, a desecration of tradition designed to poison the very idea of rebellion.
"That's not the worst of it," Donnall continued, forcing himself to stand straighter, his duty overriding his pain. "I followed his trail. He met with two others on the northern ridge. Alphas. Powerful ones, by their scent and bearing. I couldn't get close enough to hear, but this was no simple alliance. It felt… older. Darker." He fumbled inside his tunic, his hand shaking uncontrollably. "One of them dropped this as they left."
He held out a small, heavy object. It was a token of polished black obsidian, so dark it seemed to drink the morning light. Carved into its surface was a rune Connall had never seen before: three sharp, interlocking claws.
***
The obsidian token sat in the center of the war room table, a small piece of darkness in the flickering lamplight. Alpha Borin Stonecrest, their most powerful ally, stared at it, his heavy brows furrowed into a single line of grim concentration. Ceridwen, the lore-keeper, held her hands clasped so tightly her knuckles were white.
"I do not know this mark," she said, her voice thin with a scholar's worry, which was somehow more terrifying than a warrior's. "It is not in any of the old pact-runes. It is not recorded in the histories of the Great War or the Sundering. It does not belong to any known pack, major or minor. For a mark of power to exist outside the lore… it is deeply wrong. This is… other."
"It's a declaration," Connall snarled, pacing the room like a caged wolf. The image of the executed elders, men who had trusted him, burned behind his eyes. "Guntram is no longer acting alone. He has a council of shadows pulling his strings. We strike now, while they believe they are still hidden. We use this atrocity to rally the other packs."
"And say what?" Borin countered, his voice a low, pragmatic rumble that grated on Connall's raw nerves. "That we march to war because one wounded scout saw a meeting and found a strange rock? Guntram will claim it's your forgery. The other Alphas, the neutral ones, will demand proof we don't have. They will use our accusation as a pretext to declare us rabble-rousers and join Guntram to crush us. I will not lead my pack into a slaughter based on a ghost story."
"This is more than a story!" Connall slammed his fist on the table, making the token jump. "It's proof!"
"It is a symbol, nothing more," Borin said, his voice flat and final. "Accusing two unknown Alphas of treason without a name, without a signed pact, without a witness who will speak it aloud, is suicide. It will ignite a war on three fronts, and we will be the kindling. Bring me undeniable proof, Prince Connall. A name. A face. Something more than shadows and rage. Until then, my warriors hold our borders and nothing more."
Borin stood, his gaze hard as granite. "Rage is not a strategy."
As the heavy oak door closed behind the allied Alpha, Connall turned to Althea, his eyes blazing with frustration. "You were silent. You let him dismiss it."
"He is right, Connall," Althea said, her voice quiet but firm. Her pragmatism, usually a rock he could anchor to, now felt like a betrayal. "We cannot fight shadows with swords. A blind charge will get us all killed, and those elders will have died for nothing."
The tension between them crackled, a stalemate as absolute as the one Borin had just declared.
***
"So we do nothing?" Connall demanded after Ceridwen had also departed, leaving them in the suffocating silence of the war room. His voice was a low, dangerous thing. "We wait for Guntram and his secret masters to pick us off, one by one?"
"We don't do nothing. We do something smart," Althea shot back, stepping toward him, her own anger rising to meet his. It wasn't the hot fire of his rage, but the cold, focused fury of a strategist. "We gather intelligence. We find a name. We find a weakness. Guntram wants you to be rash. He *wants* you to charge out, screaming about conspiracies. It makes you look unhinged, a mad prince leading a doomed rebellion. We do not throw our lives away on wounded pride."
"This isn't pride!" he roared. "It's justice!"
"And justice requires a target!" she countered, her voice ringing with passion. "Not a phantom in the woods!"
Their argument was cut short by a flicker of movement in the doorway. Aella stood there, a shadow in her dark leathers, her expression unreadable. She had slipped in as silently as smoke, her presence a sudden drop in the room's temperature. Their spy had returned.
"Your pride might be wounded," Aella said, her voice a dry whisper that cut through their anger, "but your instincts are sound. There is a council." She stepped fully into the light, her eyes locking with Connall's. "And I have a name."
The air in the room grew heavy, charged with a sudden, terrifying anticipation. The vague need for proof had just become a concrete threat.
"One of the Alphas who met with Guntram has been identified," Aella continued, her gaze unwavering. She let the weight of her words settle in the silence. "He commands the Ironridge pack, a formidable force on the eastern border. He is known for his discipline, his power, and his unwavering loyalty to his family."
Connall's heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drum against the sudden quiet. "Who is he?"
Aella took a slow, steadying breath, letting the silence stretch for one last, agonizing heartbeat before delivering the final, devastating blow.
"His name is Valerius. He is Alpha Borin Stonecrest's brother."