Frostfang Castle seemed to breathe differently when Aldric returned — as though the ancient walls themselves had grown restless, burdened by the rumors and grief that had swept through them while he was gone. The howling wind rattled the stained-glass windows, making them hum with a low, ghostly lament.
As he rode through the grand gates, memories flooded back: the courtyard where his father had taught him to wield a blade, the archways where his mother had once braided his hair and sung him lullabies in the moonlight. Now, those memories lay like brittle bones beneath layers of ice.
The guards saluted stiffly, helmets polished but faces drawn and wary, as if haunted by nightmares that dared not be named. Their hesitation was telling, the scent of unease drifting through the air as sharp as scorched herbs.
Rowena rode beside him, her travel-stained cloak snapping in the cold. She kept her hand near her sword even among their own soldiers, a gesture that told him Frostfang no longer felt as safe as it should.
The massive iron portcullis groaned as it lowered behind them, trapping a sense of suffocation within the courtyard. Servants scurried away from the Alpha King as though he carried a curse on his breath.
"See how they flinch?" Rowena said under her breath, eyes narrowing, scanning for hidden threats.
"They smell fear," Aldric replied grimly. "Fear I intend to use."
They dismounted and stepped through the main hall. The flagstones had been swept, but there were still faint brown stains — old blood, impossible to scrub away fully. Tapestries depicting the Crescent Wolf in all its divine glory hung from the vaulted arches, their silken threads catching the failing winter light.
As they crossed into the throne chamber, Aldric paused, catching a faint acrid scent.
"Burned sage," he muttered, nostrils flaring. "They tried to cleanse something."
Rowena knelt, touching the flagstones. A powdery white residue clung to her fingers. "Salt and iron filings. Wardbreakers."
Aldric's eyes turned to ice. "Someone tried to weaken the castle's protections."
At that moment, a servant emerged — a trembling boy no older than fifteen, pale as new-fallen snow.
"M-my king," he stammered, bowing so low his forehead nearly touched the floor, "the High Priestess requested your presence. She said… she said the old wards were failing."
"Who gave her permission to alter the wards?" Aldric demanded, voice a blade drawn in the dark.
The boy flinched. "N-no one, Your Majesty."
Rage rippled through Aldric's aura, making the flames in the braziers quiver. "Bring her to me. Now."
The boy fled like a startled hare.
Hours later, the High Priestess was dragged in, robes fluttering like the wings of a trapped dove. Her silver circlet had slipped sideways on her brow, revealing sweat-damp gray hair.
Aldric studied her from the throne's shadow. "Who ordered you to break the wards?"
Her voice shook, fragile as glass. "My king… I felt… a darkness creeping, something unnatural. The gods showed me a vision—"
"You felt?" Aldric interrupted with lethal softness. "Or you were guided by poison?"
She shrank back. "It was no poison, my king! Only the divine."
"Divine," Aldric repeated flatly, leaning forward, his wolf-amber eyes pinning her. "Then let the gods protect you. You will remain in the West Tower until I return."
"My king, please—!"
He turned away, signaling the guards to take her. "If she resists, gag her. I will tolerate no more weakness."
Later that evening, Aldric retreated to his personal chambers. The place felt hollow, the tapestries lifeless and the hearth fire dull, no matter how high the flames leapt.
Rowena waited for him there, polishing her blade. She looked up, dark hair cascading like ink over her shoulders, eyes gleaming with that dangerous loyalty he had come to rely on.
"You cannot watch them all at once," she warned softly.
Aldric rubbed at the knot of tension in his neck. "No. But I can remind them why they should fear me."
He paced the stone floor, boots echoing through the gloom. "The Midwinter Moot is gathering. If I let these petty lords scheme without showing my teeth, they will devour us."
Rowena inclined her head, a wolf acknowledging her Alpha. "Then we ride."
The next dawn came hard and cold, pale light creeping across the frost-coated battlements. A hundred banners snapped in the wind, wolves sewn in black and silver, declaring the might of House Aldric.
Steel rang against steel as soldiers strapped on mail, their breath rising like steam in the bitter morning. Aldric moved among them, letting his presence bolster courage where their hearts faltered.
When they set out, it was as if a storm was rolling across the land — the pack of warriors dark as ravens, led by a king whose fury made the ice crack beneath their hooves.
Three days later, they reached the Moonlit Steppes. The ancient gathering place of the lords looked like a city made of silk, a thousand tents rippling with house colors: azure, crimson, gold, midnight blue. Smoke from their cookfires twisted up into the gray sky, carrying the smell of roasted venison and spiced wine.
But beneath the festival cheer lurked a current of tension, like a wolf pack on the verge of turning on its own.
Aldric dismounted, cloak billowing behind him as he strode toward the central pavilion where the council would meet.
Inside, nobles gathered around a great brazier blazing with sacred flame. Their faces were painted by flickering firelight — masks of fear, arrogance, or barely disguised hate.
Lord Marius of the Frostmarche, broad-shouldered and battle-scarred, was first to greet him with a mocking bow.
"High King," Marius drawled, "we thought you might leave us to settle things ourselves."
Aldric let silence answer him for a moment, then spoke low and dangerous. "Be grateful I did not."
Chuckles broke around the circle — the uneasy laughter of men who had not yet decided if they would live or die by his side.
Rowena stepped forward, voice as cold as a winter storm. "While you polish your jewels and argue titles, our borders burn."
The silence afterward was suffocating.
As the moot continued into the night, Aldric listened to a thousand petty quarrels while his mind boiled. These men and women — they had once been warriors, but time had turned them soft, their eyes glazed with greed instead of bloodlust.
They will not survive what comes, Luceris whispered within him. They are fat sheep, bleating at the wolves.
Aldric closed his eyes, feeling the spirit of the Crescent Wolf stir deeper, a pulse of raw power and ancient rage that had passed down through the blood of kings since the time of the first Moon Pact.
When the moot adjourned, he stepped outside, stars wheeling overhead like blades of ice. Ravens circled the fires, cawing warnings only he seemed to hear.
Rowena found him at the edge of the steppes, alone.
"You looked ready to kill every last one of them," she observed dryly.
"I was."
She laughed softly, leaning closer. "Good. They need to know you can."
He let out a long breath, feeling the night wrap around him like an old cloak. "The prophecy… it's breathing down my neck."
Rowena nodded, eyes steady. "Then let it. We will face it together."
He met her gaze, searching for doubt, but found only ferocious loyalty — the kind of bond no blade could sever.
The next morning dawned blood-red, a sky that looked as though the gods themselves had painted it in warning.
Trumpets blared, echoing across the plains. Aldric's name was shouted in a dozen languages as he approached the moot's high platform.
He stepped forward, towering, the crescent wolf sigil gleaming like a promise of ruin on his breastplate.
"Lords," he called, voice rolling like thunder, "hear me."
A hush fell.
"There are traitors among you. There are cowards who would see our people torn apart to feed their own ambitions."
Faces shifted uneasily.
"I will root them out," he vowed. "I will burn them out if I must."
The firelight behind him seemed to leap higher, as though drawn to his rage.
"And to those who doubt me…" He paused, letting the silence draw taut as a bowstring. "Remember whose blood runs in my veins."
He raised one gloved fist, the wolf ring gleaming.
"Remember whose howl shakes the stars."
And for the first time, the gathered lords flinched, many bowing their heads in a ripple of submission.
Later, in the privacy of his tent, Aldric slumped onto a carved bench. The weight of the entire realm seemed to press against his shoulders.
Rowena slipped in quietly, kneeling before him. "My king," she said softly, "you are holding too much alone."
He looked at her, voice raw. "If I fall, everything falls."
She placed a warm hand on his, eyes wide and fierce and absolutely unwavering. "Then let me hold some of it."
He swallowed hard, letting himself believe her. Just for a moment.
Night settled over the steppes again, but the camp felt like a storm's eye — deceptively calm, while lightning waited to strike.
Out in the darkness, crows perched in the crooked trees, watching. Somewhere, far beyond the moot's fires, another power was gathering, something older than kings or prophets.
Aldric lay awake long after Rowena slept, his eyes fixed on the shifting shadows of the tent.
The one you love will break you…
The Oracle's words gnawed at him, as cruel as any blade.
He gripped his sword hilt so tightly the wolf crest bit into his palm, a sharp reminder that even an Alpha could bleed.