The northern tower hums with quiet power.
Not the oppressive thrum of the Spire’s corrupted heart, not the silent menace of Malrik’s blood-tinged rituals, but something steadier. Something holy. Moonlight spills through the arched windows, painting silver rivers across the stone floor. Candles flicker in iron sconces, their flames steady, warm. The air carries the scent of crushed rosemary, iron, and the faint, wild musk of Kaelen—still clinging to the furs of the bed where we lay tangled only hours ago.
He’s gone now.
Called away by Taryn—urgent whispers at the door, something about the eastern wall, about patrols, about Malrik’s absence being more dangerous than his presence. He kissed me before he left. Not deep. Not claiming. Just a brush of lips to forehead, a hand cradling the back of my neck, a whisper: *“Don’t move. Heal.”*
As if I could.
As if my body weren’t already screaming to act.
The wounds still ache—deep cuts on my arms, whip marks on my thighs, the puncture on my neck where Malrik injected the shadow venom—but the pain is dulled, wrapped in layers of healing magic and exhaustion. My body is weak. Still healing. But my mind?
My mind is a storm.
Because last night—after the council, after the blood test, after the vial flared silver and the elders murmured their reluctant acceptance—I found it.
Hidden in a false bottom of the stone chest where Kaelen kept his armor. Not the journal. Not my mother’s journal—though that lies closed on the ledge, its truth already known.
No.
This was something else.
A smaller book. Bound in black leather. The edges worn, the spine cracked with age. And on the first page—
Lyra Moonblood.
My mother’s handwriting.
But not her words.
Not her truth.
Her confession.
I shouldn’t have read it.
Should’ve waited. Should’ve shown Kaelen. Should’ve let him explain, let him soften the blow, let him prepare me for whatever poison Malrik had already poured into my veins.
But I didn’t.
I read it.
And now?
Now I can’t unsee it.
“I loved him,” she wrote. “Not the monster who sits on the council now. Not the liar who called me traitor. But the man before the power. The man who whispered poetry in the old tongue. The man who kissed me beneath the full moon and swore he’d burn the Pact for me.”
My breath stopped.
“But he chose the council,” she continued. “Chose power over love. And when I told him I was with child—your child, Sage—he begged me to end it. To hide you. To deny you. And when I refused… he signed the order.”
No.
No, no, no.
That wasn’t possible.
Malrik didn’t love her.
He hated her.
He killed her.
He framed her.
He—
“Forgive me, daughter,” the entry ended. “I thought I was protecting you. But the greatest lie wasn’t the council’s. It was mine. I believed he could change. I believed love could win. And for that belief, I got us both killed.”
The book slipped from my fingers.
Hit the floor with a soft thud.
And I sat there—on the edge of the bed, in the dim candlelight, my body still humming with healing magic—and I broke.
Not with a scream.
Not with a curse.
With silence.
With the kind of stillness that comes when the world tilts, when the ground you’ve stood on for years turns to dust, when every truth you’ve fought for crumbles in your hands.
Malrik didn’t just kill my mother.
He loved her.
And Kaelen—
Kaelen knew.
He had her journal. He knew her words. He knew her pain. He knew the man who signed her death warrant wasn’t just a cold politician—he was a spurned lover, a man twisted by betrayal, a monster she helped create.
And he said nothing.
He let me believe he was the villain.
He let me hate him.
He let me think the only justice was blood.
And all this time—
He was protecting me from a truth even darker than the one I already carried.
The door opens.
I don’t turn.
Don’t have to.
“Sage?”
Kaelen.
His voice is low. Rough. Concerned.
He steps inside, boots silent on stone, shadow-woven armor still in place, fangs retracted, but his eyes—silver, sharp, searching—are locked on me. He takes in the scene: the open chest, the book on the floor, my stillness, the way my hands are clenched in my lap, white-knuckled.
And he knows.
Of course he knows.
“Where did you find it?” he asks, voice careful.
“Where you hid it,” I say, flat. Empty. “In the false bottom. Behind the armor. Like it was something shameful.”
He doesn’t deny it.
Just moves closer, slow, deliberate, until he’s standing in front of me. “I didn’t hide it to hurt you.”
“Then why?” My voice cracks. “Why keep this from me? Why let me believe Malrik was just a monster? Why let me think the only justice was revenge?”
He doesn’t answer right away.
Just kneels. Not in submission. Not in surrender. But to meet my eyes. To be on my level.
“Because some truths,” he says, voice low, “are heavier than others. And I didn’t know if you could carry this one.”
“You didn’t know?” I laugh, but it’s hollow. Broken. “You had her journal. You read it. You knew she loved him. You knew he loved her. You knew he signed the order because she chose you.”
He flinches.
Just slightly.
But I see it.
“I didn’t know that part,” he says. “Not for certain. The journal didn’t say it. Not in those words. I suspected. Feared it. But I didn’t know.”
“And you didn’t ask?”
“Would you have wanted to hear it?” he counters, voice rising. “Would you have wanted to know that the man who murdered your mother didn’t do it out of duty or hatred—but out of jealousy? That he was a man scorned, not a political executioner? That the monster you came to destroy was broken by the same woman you were trying to avenge?”
My breath hitches.
Because he’s right.
I wouldn’t have wanted to know.
I couldn’t have known.
Not then.
Not when every step I took into the Spire was fueled by fire, by fury, by the need to burn everything down.
“You think I’m weak,” I whisper.
“I think you’re human,” he says. “And I’ve seen what happens when the truth breaks someone. I didn’t want that for you.”
“And now?” I look at him, my vision blurred. “Now that I know? Now that I’ve read it? Do you still think I’m too fragile to handle the truth?”
He reaches for me.
I pull back.
And the moment cracks.
Not with magic.
Not with violence.
With silence.
With the kind of quiet that follows a betrayal so deep, so intimate, that words can’t touch it.
“You lied,” I say, voice low. “You let me believe you were the enemy. You let me hate you. You let me fight you—every step of the way—while you held the one truth that could’ve changed everything.”
“I didn’t lie,” he says. “I withheld.”
“Same thing.”
“No.” He stands, his voice hardening. “Withholding is protection. Lying is betrayal. I never lied to you, Sage. Not once. I just didn’t give you every piece of the puzzle. Not until I knew you could survive the picture.”
“And who made you the judge of that?” I snap, rising to my feet, wincing at the pull in my wounds. “You think you get to decide what I can handle? That you get to control the truth like it’s some kind of weapon?”
“Yes,” he says, stepping closer. “Because I love you. Because I’ve seen what vengeance does. Because I’ve watched good people burn themselves alive for justice that never comes.” His voice drops. “And I wasn’t going to let that happen to you.”
“You don’t get to decide that for me,” I whisper. “You don’t get to protect me from the truth. I came here to burn them all. Not to be coddled. Not to be shielded. Not to be controlled.”
“I wasn’t controlling you,” he growls. “I was loving you.”
“And love means keeping secrets?”
“Love means knowing when to fight—and when to hold back.”
I shake my head. “You don’t get it. You think you were protecting me. But you weren’t. You were protecting yourself. You were afraid that if I knew the truth—if I knew Malrik loved her, if I knew he killed her because she chose you—then I’d see you differently. I’d see you as the reason she died. And you couldn’t handle that.”
He freezes.
And for the first time—
I see it.
The crack in his armor.
The fear beneath the fury.
“Maybe,” he says, voice raw. “Maybe I was afraid. Maybe I didn’t want you to look at me and see the man who got your mother killed. Maybe I didn’t want you to hate me for that, too.”
“Then you should’ve let me decide,” I say. “Not made the choice for me.”
He steps closer, his hand lifting, hovering near my face. “And if I had? If I’d told you the night we met? That Malrik loved your mother? That he killed her because she loved me? What would you have done?”
I don’t answer.
Because I don’t know.
Would I have believed him?
Would I have turned my dagger on him instead?
Would I have run?
Would I have broken?
“You wouldn’t have trusted me,” he says. “You would’ve thought I was manipulating you. That I was using her memory to control you. And you would’ve been right to doubt. Because the truth is manipulation. It’s a weapon. And I didn’t want to be the one who wielded it against you.”
My breath hitches.
Because he’s not wrong.
The truth is a weapon.
And he just handed me a blade coated in poison.
“You should’ve trusted me,” I whisper. “You should’ve let me choose.”
“I do trust you,” he says. “With my life. With my kingdom. With my heart. But I don’t trust the world. I don’t trust Malrik. I don’t trust the council. And I sure as hell don’t trust the past.”
“And what about us?” I ask, voice breaking. “Do you trust us?”
He doesn’t hesitate.
“More than anything.”
“Then why lie?”
“I didn’t lie.”
“You withheld the truth.”
“And I’d do it again.”
The words hang between us.
Heavy.
Final.
And they cut deeper than any blade.
Because he’s not sorry.
He’s not begging.
He’s not trying to fix it.
He’s standing there, in all his Alpha strength, in all his king’s pride, and saying he’d do it again.
And that—
That breaks me.
Not because he kept the secret.
But because he doesn’t see it as a betrayal.
He sees it as love.
And maybe that’s the worst part.
Because if love means lies, then what does hate look like?
I turn away.
Walk to the chest.
Pick up the journal.
And throw it at him.
It hits his chest, falls to the floor.
“You want to protect me?” I say, voice cold. “Fine. Protect me from you.”
“Sage—”
“No.” I step back, my hands trembling. “I came here to burn them all. I didn’t come here to fall in love. I didn’t come here to be protected. I came here to make them pay. And you—” my voice cracks, “—you made me forget why I came.”
“And now you remember?” he asks, voice low.
“Now I see,” I say. “I see that the real enemy isn’t just Malrik. It’s the lies. The secrets. The people who think they know what’s best for me.”
He takes a step forward.
I take one back.
“Don’t,” I say. “Don’t touch me. Don’t speak to me. Don’t look at me.”
His jaw tightens.
“And if I don’t let you go?”
“Then I’ll make you.”
He doesn’t move.
Just watches me—his silver eyes blazing, his body coiled, his breath steady.
And I know.
He could stop me.
He could pin me to the wall.
He could claim me with a bite.
He could force the bond to hold me.
But he won’t.
Because he’s not Malrik.
He’s not a monster.
He’s Kaelen.
And even when I hate him—
He still lets me go.
I turn.
Walk to the door.
My body aches.
My magic is still weak.
But my will?
My will is fire.
“Sage,” he says, voice rough. “If you walk out that door—”
“Then I walk,” I say, not looking back. “And you stay.”
The door closes behind me.
And the silence returns.
But it’s different now.
Not peace.
Not quiet.
Not even grief.
It’s something colder.
Something sharper.
Loss.
I don’t go far.
Just to the chamber next door—the one Riven uses when he visits. The Fae prince isn’t here, but his scent lingers—ozone and old wine, danger and charm. His shelves are lined with forbidden texts, his desk scattered with sigil sketches, his window open to the night.
I sit on the edge of the bed.
Stare at the journal in my hands.
And I realize—
I don’t want to burn them all anymore.
Not Malrik.
Not the council.
Not even Kaelen.
I just want to be free.
Free from the lies.
Free from the secrets.
Free from the love that feels like a cage.
And as the moon climbs higher, as the northern tower breathes around me, as the bond hums beneath my skin like a dying star—
I make a decision.
I’m leaving.
Not to run.
Not to hide.
But to find the truth—on my own terms.
And if that means breaking the bond?
Then so be it.
Even if it kills me.