Chapter 26 THE NIGHT THE CASTLE BLEEDS
It began with a scream.
Not the kind that comes from fear.
The kind that comes from inside the blood.
Aria had been walking back from the old library, her thoughts too loud and too full — Liora’s truths echoing in her mind, her mother’s warning still written behind her eyelids, Roman’s presence staying with her like a second pulse — when she heard it.
A scream. Sharp. Short. Cut off too soon.
She stopped in the corridor.
Stone walls. Faint torchlight. No one in sight.
Then—
Bang.
Something slammed against a door nearby.
A snarl ripped through the wood.
Not wolf.
Not normal.
Something wrong.
Her veins lit silver.
Her heartbeat didn’t speed.
It slowed.
Roman’s training had begun to work.
She moved toward the sound — swift, silent — and the moonfire didn’t surge out of control this time. It waited.
Another thud.
Someone was hitting a door—
No.
Someone was trying to break through it.
Aria turned the corner, arriving at the East Wing servants’ dormitory.
Three guards were already at the door — all three pale, swords drawn but not advancing.
“Say it,” Aria ordered.
The closest guard swallowed. “It’s Jerome, Luna. He started seizing an hour ago — healer said fever. Then he just—”
Bang! The door frame shook.
The guard flinched.
“He started speaking,” the guard whispered. “Not in a language I–I know. We tried to go in. He—”
A guttural, inhuman growl tore through the wood.
Aria didn’t wait.
She shoved the guard aside and threw open the door.
Two guards shouted behind her.
She didn’t hear them.
She saw him.
Jerome.
Stable young warrior. Quiet. Unremarkable.
He was kneeling — in the middle of the floor, shirt torn, back arching like something inside him was ripping for a way out.
His eyes—
Were glowing.
Not wolf gold.
Not moon silver.
Pale.
Empty.
Grey.
Her stomach dropped.
The Caller.
Aria stepped forward without thinking.
Jerome’s head snapped toward her.
His mouth opened—
But it was not his voice that spoke.
It was worse.
The voice wasn’t deep or taunting like before.
It wasn’t whispered through a puppet.
It was calm.
Soft. Almost kind.
“You’ve taken one step too far toward him, little moon,” the Caller said, using Jerome’s lips.
Aria didn’t move.
She didn’t blink.
Jerome’s body jerked, bones creaking under skin too pale to be living.
“But I warned you,” the Caller whispered.
“Don’t bind to what you cannot protect.”
Her veins burned.
She didn’t lash out.
She remembered the courtyard.
She remembered control.
“This isn’t you,” she said softly. “You don’t break people like this.”
The voice through Jerome smiled.
“No,” it breathed. “I break them quietly.”
His head tilted, neck cracking at a wrong angle.
Aria took one slow breath.
“Why him?” she asked.
Jerome’s face contorted — grief — fighting under the possession.
He was still in there.
“He saw something,” the Caller said through him. “He saw you take the King’s hand. He felt something crack inside him. In his loyalty. In his belief. He lost his Alpha when he saw…”
Jerome’s eyes flicked to hers.
“…what you are becoming to him.”
Her heart stopped.
He didn’t say prophecy.
He didn’t say Luna.
He said—
What you are becoming to him.
Aria’s voice felt like glass. “And what am I becoming?”
Jerome’s head tilted.
The Caller smiled through him.
“His limit.”
Something inside her cracked.
Not magic.
Her human fear.
Then—
Jerome moved.
Not at her.
At himself.
His hands—trembling violently—reached for his own throat.
No.
No—
Aria lunged forward.
Her magic flared—but not outward. It wrapped around her arm like liquid light, pushing down her instinct to burn.
She didn’t blast him.
She caught him.
His throat was bruising under his own grip.
She forced her hand between his fingers.
Jerome choked on air.
Fought.
Cried without tears.
“Help… me…”
His voice.
His.
The Caller’s presence fractured.
Aria didn’t scream or panic or lose control.
She leaned forward and whispered—
“I choose.”
Moonfire shot from her hand—not uncontrolled, not wild.
It wrapped around Jerome’s wrists.
Not burning.
Binding.
The Caller hissed.
Jerome’s eyes flickered—
Grey.
Human.
Grey.
Human.
And then—
A voice not belonging to either of them said—
“He wants to bleed you. Bit by bit.”
Jerome’s mouth went slack.
The Caller was gone.
He collapsed.
Aria caught him before he hit the floor.
Guards ran in.
Kael followed, sword drawn, eyes wild.
Roman reached her moments later—barefoot, shirt half-buttoned, breathless.
He saw her kneeling over Jerome, moonfire still faintly flickering around her fingers, not burning — holding a man together.
Holding herself together.
Roman didn’t speak at first.
Just looked at her.
Looked at the glow under her skin.
Looked at the boy still trembling in her arms.
Looked at the horror in the guards’ eyes as they realized:
The Caller didn’t need beasts.
He could use them.
Roman knelt beside her.
Slowly.
Jerome moaned, half-conscious.
Aria’s hands trembled — not with magic.
With effort.
With restraint.
Roman didn’t reach for Jerome.
He reached—
For her wrist.
Just one hand.
Just one touch.
Not to anchor her.
Not to control her.
To tell her—
I’m here.
She closed her eyes —
And did not fall apart.
Jerome was carried out.
Seris arrived and saw the blood oath still fresh on both their wrists. Her quill fell from her hand.
“It's started,” she whispered. “The Caller is changing his game.”
Liora appeared silent in the doorway, watching—but not entering.
Not speaking.
Roman didn’t move his hand from Aria’s wrist.
Not once.
The castle bled that night.
Not from walls or beasts or moonfire.
It bled from inside.
From its people.
Aria finally spoke.
Her voice was low.
Steady.
“He’s done waiting.”
Roman nodded slowly.
“He’s hunting.”
“No,” Aria whispered.
Her silver eyes rose slowly, chilling the air.
“He’s testing.”
Roman met her gaze.
“He thinks he can break us.”
Aria didn’t blink.
“He still believes the prophecy will break me first.”
Roman leaned closer.
“No,” he said.
“He fears something worse.”
She waited.
Roman didn’t hesitate.
“He fears what happens if neither of us break.”