Rumors did not walk—they ran.
They seeped through the cracks of castle stone, whispered through tapestries, spilled from the curled lips of chambermaids and the cracked tongues of drunks. They slithered beneath doorways, coiled through alleyways, and climbed—faster than flame—up the spires of marble sanctuaries and down the gutters of slum-choked districts.
They spoke with too many mouths to silence.
The werewolf king has vanished.
He was never one of us.
He has returned to his true kind—to them.
The words warped as they spread, turning suspicion into certainty. By the time they reached the palace, they had grown claws.
Disbelief cracked first, like frost spidering over the surface of calm water. A fragile layer giving way beneath a single step.
Then disappointment. And then—fury.
The council chamber was ablaze with noble outrage. It swelled with the scent of sweat, old parchment, and fresh betrayal. Sunlight streamed in through the stained glass, painting the floor in fractured halos, but nothing could warm the frost blooming in the air between them.
They gathered like vultures in brocade, each face carved from stone, each voice honed to a blade.
“How dare he desert the realm after all we’ve done to protect his place on the throne!”
“Protect him?” scoffed a baron with trembling hands. “We crowned a beast and dressed it in gold!”
“He slaughtered Maren to silence the truth. And now he escapes justice!”
“I warned you—blood will call to blood. This was always coming.”
The chamber quaked beneath the weight of their voices, words ricocheting off the high ceilings like volleys of arrows. The storm of sound struck again and again, relentless.
But to Siera, seated high above them all, they were distant thunder, muffled as if from beneath water.
She sat with her back impossibly straight, hands folded so tightly in her lap the knuckles paled. Her chin lifted. Her gaze unmoving.
A queen. Still. Always.
But beneath the velvet of her composure, she was burning hollow.
Her ears rang, not with the noise of the lords, but with a quieter roar. The kind that followed ruin. The kind that rushed in when something vital had gone missing.
Her fingers were cold.
She could not feel the tips.
To her left, Eros stood like a statue carved of rage, lips drawn tight, jaw clenched. His eyes flicked to her—once, twice, again—waiting. Waiting for her to speak, to rise, to command.
But she didn’t.
She couldn’t.
Not yet.
Then, the doors slammed open.
A gust of wind chased in behind Thiery, his armor half-fastened, his face blanched white.
He did not bow. Did not wait for acknowledgment.
“There’s been an attack,” he said, breathless. “The border district of Onar… was razed. At dawn.”
The storm in the chamber froze solid.
All turned.
“Destroyed?” someone managed to croak.
Thiery shook his head. “Killed. An entire village. Men. Women. Children. Burned. Torn apart. We found barely bones.”
Gasps tore through the council like rips in silk.
A few lords staggered back into their seats. One lady covered her mouth, knuckles pale against ruby rings.
Siera’s lips parted, but no words came.
Thiery continued. “Only one survived. A boy. We brought him to the palace infirmary. The healers… they say he may not last the night.”
Siera rose.
The chair behind her barely scraped the floor, but the sound was deafening.
“Treat him,” she said, voice calm but low, as if forced through a narrowing throat. “He is to be given every comfort.”
“And you, Your Majesty?” came Catelyn’s voice from the back. She had entered quietly, drawn by the tremor in the air.
Siera turned her head. “I will see him myself.”
Alone.
Later That Evening
The hallway to the infirmary was colder than the rest of the palace. Silent. The air carried the faint smell of wet stone and lavender oil, unable to mask the stench of suffering that clung to this wing like mildew.
The candlelight inside the room flickered—unsteady, fragile. The shadows it cast danced across the pale boy lying motionless beneath too-clean linens.
Burnt poultice. Blood not yet washed out of the stone tiles. The hush of breaths barely taken.
Siera stepped inside.
She dismissed the healers with a glance. They left without protest.
She moved slowly, the weight of her gown dragging behind her like grief itself. The chair beside the boy was small. She lowered herself into it with a grace that belied the iron in her spine.
He was no older than nine.
A thin, bird-boned child with bandages where skin should be. His breath rattled like wind through brittle leaves.
Siera watched him for a long time, hands unmoving in her lap.
Then: “Can you speak?”
A twitch. His eyelids fluttered. The faintest nod.
She leaned closer, shadows deepening in the hollows beneath her eyes.
“Did you see what attacked your village?”
The silence that followed stretched and ached. Then—his voice came.
“It was… black,” he rasped, like wind scraping ash. “Like coal. But it… shone. Like shadows moving.”
His hands trembled under the blanket. Siera didn’t touch him.
“Too big… too big to be a man,” he continued. “Eyes like the sun. But wrong. Too bright. Too angry.”
She swallowed, throat tight. “Golden eyes?”
He nodded slowly. “Burning.”
His voice broke.
“When he came through the gate, the ground shook. He—he tore it open. He killed—he killed everyone. But then…”
His lashes were wet.
“He saw me. He just… looked. And then he ran. He could’ve killed me, but he didn’t. He looked at me. I saw his eyes.”
The boy’s voice gave out. His body slackened. Sleep claimed him again.
Siera sat frozen, her fingers clenched over her abdomen as if to keep herself from shattering.
Golden eyes. Raven fur. The shadow of a beast.
It was him.
There was no doubt. No doubt at all.
She stood too quickly, her chair scraping back.
Her breath was short. Her limbs numb.
Out in the hallway—where no one could see her—she staggered against the cold stone wall. Her hands gripped her sleeves, nails digging in through the fabric.
Had he… had Gwi—her Gwi—traded the throne for blood? For vengeance?
Had he gone to them? Had he become them?
The sob escaped before she could stop it.
A dry, ragged sound. Then another. Her shoulders shook as her mouth pressed hard into her palm.
The tears came fast—furious, wild, wounding.
Each one a crack.
Each one a question that would never have an answer.
She had trusted him.
She had loved him.
And if this was true—if he had truly turned against them—then he had not just betrayed their kingdom.
He had broken her.