Chapter 55: Not Everything Is What It Seems - Riven's POV

“What happened to those wolves?” Someone asked from just in front of us, though I didn’t catch who.

Mr. Cross’s expression darkened as he studied us. “They were executed quietly without an audience or public acknowledgment. As you know that isn’t how we typically operate,” he said, his face grim. “Their families were told they died in training accidents or during the territorial disputes. The truth died with them, buried along with any official records of what really happened.”

My blood ran cold. They were executed, just like the Alpha King had told us. This wasn’t just him, but a pattern that stretched back centuries ago, before he was king.

They had to pass down the information from king to king, which explained the old leather journal he had with the details.

“But why hide it?” Another student asked. “If wolves were going mad and attacking people, then wouldn’t the packs need to know? They’d want to protect themselves by knowing what to look for.”

Mr. Cross nodded, setting the book down on his desk. “You would think so, but the Alpha King made a decision at that time, which carried down through all of his successors. He decided that the knowledge of those incidents would cause too much panic and would cause wolves to question their sanity. So instead of documenting what was really happening, he covered it up and rewrote history to make it cleaner and safer for all.”

“Why?” Someone else asked.

“Have you seen what happens when a detail comes to light? Everyone starts pointing fingers,” Mr. Cross said, shaking his head. “One slightly aggressive Alpha would then be accused of being a demon, when he might not be. It would be a witch hunt, making families and packs turn against each other until they ate the other alive.”

It made sense when Mr. Cross put it like that. In a way, the Alpha King was saving us from turning on one another, but still…to rewrite history wasn’t the best way to handle it. Not that I would know another way to do it.

“It seems like a bad idea,” Callista said, and I could hear her barely controlled anger. “But I think I understand it when you phrase it like that. If someone thought a demon was running around, people would start accusing everyone they slightly suspected.”

Mr. Cross looked at her, something almost approving in his expression. “That, Miss Monroe, is exactly the right question. Erasing the truth is almost never the answer for anything, because it makes the next generation unprepared should another incident occur.” He paced in front of the board. “This pattern repeats through history. Anytime something occurred that threatened the Alpha King’s authority or the pack’s sense of safety, it was either erased entirely or disguised as something more acceptable.”

“What about people who…weren’t possessed by this thing?” A girl near the front asked. “What then?”

“Those who were reported were sent away to special training that very few returned from. It’s also why there are less packs today than there were centuries ago. They were absorbed into what you have today.”

"How many incidents are we talking about?" I asked, needing to know. "Throughout history, how many things got covered up?"

Mr. Cross stopped pacing, his eyes meeting mine. For a moment, I could swear he knew exactly why I was asking.

"Dozens, at minimum," he said carefully. "Possibly hundreds, if we count smaller incidents that were handled quietly at the pack level before ever reaching the Alpha King's attention. The historical record is full of gaps, which are convenient absences of information during periods when unusual events were likely occurring."

"So how do we know any of this?" Another student asked. "If the records were destroyed, how do historians know it happened at all? How do you know about it?”

Mr. Cross stared blankly, his eyes darting to the back of the room where Callista and I sat. Something about his expression told me that he knew something. I wasn’t sure what or how he did, but it was making me uncomfortable.

Slowly, I slid down in my seat.

“Private journals survived because they were never a part of the official archives,” he said, looking down at his. “This one belonged to an ancestor of mine, who was an advisor to the Alpha King.”

“Which one?” A boy in the middle of the classroom asked.

“Alpha King Dami. He was one of our most ruthless ones, if I remember correctly,” he said, then returned his gaze to the class before getting into another drawer. He pulled another book from his desk. This one was smaller and more worn. "This is a journal from the late 1800s, written by a Beta who served under Alpha King Marcel. In it, he describes watching young wolves being taken away in the night, wolves who had shown signs of what he called 'internal darkness.' The official records from that time period make no mention of this. But we know from this journal and others like it that it happened."

He didn’t have to say what internal darkness meant. We already knew. He was talking about the demon again.

“The Beta never elaborated,” Mr. Cross said, his voice low. “He couldn’t or chose not to, but he noted that these wolves were also never seen again. Their families were generously compensated by the Alpha King, which was probably to keep quiet about their disappearances.”

The demon stirred at the back of my mind, finally interested in the conversation.

Internal darkness, it whispered. That's what they called us back then. Before they understood what we really were.

I shoved it down, focusing on Mr. Cross.

"The point of today's lesson," he continued, "is to understand that official history is often incomplete. The Alpha Kings have had both the power and the motivation to control what information gets preserved and what gets buried. As future pack leaders—many of you in this room will serve as Alphas, Betas, or other high-ranking wolves—you need to understand this. Because someday, you might be faced with the choice between preserving an uncomfortable truth or maintaining a comfortable lie."

He let that sink in for a moment before returning to the board.

"For your project on territorial expansion, I want you to dig deeper than the official records. Look for discrepancies, gaps in the timeline, and events that don't quite add up. Question everything, and see if you can find the truth beneath the official story."

I glanced at Callista, and she looked back at me, her gaze narrowed. Our project had just become a lot more important than either of us had anticipated. And its due date was the day after we had to tell the Alpha King our answer.

The rest of the class passed with Mr. Cross discussing specific examples of territorial expansion and how Alpha Kings had justified their actions to the packs. But my mind went elsewhere, connecting the dots he didn’t say.

He knew too much. I wondered if the Alpha King knew. If he did, I doubted he’d let Mr. Cross discuss it so freely. My gaze narrowed at the board.

Something wasn’t adding up.

No other class had ever been taught about this in the territorial expansion part of history. It wasn’t even in our class notes from the start of the year. Neither my old academy’s or this one’s syllabus had it in it.

Once the bell rang, Callista and I were slow to leave, but as we did, I noticed Mr. Cross watching us a little too closely.

I let Callista slip past me to go out the door first, and right as I was in the doorway, I heard him whisper, “Good luck, Mr. Nightshade. Not everything is what it seems.”