Chapter 14 Chains of Loyalty
14\. Chains of Loyalty
Mornings in Dravenmoor had a rhythm. Unfortunately, it was the rhythm of a funeral march played every single day by a one-man control freak orchestra.
I woke to find Lucian exactly where no normal man should be at dawn: looming in the corner like he’d been auditioning for Creepy Gargoyle Statue #3 all night. His cloak fell around him like storm clouds, and those silver eyes pinned me the second mine opened.
“Do you ever, I don’t know, not brood?” I asked, squinting at him. Almost sounds done with him.
“I was ensuring you remained unharmed.”
“By what?” I groaned, throwing a pillow at him.
“Dream goblins?”
He caught the pillow one-handed—of course—and set it neatly beside him like even fabric wasn’t allowed to disobey him.
Breakfast was the usual farce. He buttered my bread. He poured my tea. He cut my fruit into perfect symmetrical pieces as if I couldn’t be trusted with a melon.
“Did you… cut my fruit into cubes again?” I asked, staring at the apple slices like they were evidence.
“You are careless with knives.”
“I am not careless,” I protested, grabbing a cube. “I was thriving before you kidnapped me, you know I had opposable thumbs before I got here,” I muttered. “I promise, I was thriving. Knife skills, bread buttering, the whole package.” That's true, I was once a part-time knife sales lady at a supermarket back in college.
His gaze was flat. “And yet, you still got your finger cuts.”
Our score board drastically changed as he remarks that, Keira 8 - Lucian 8.5
Lucian left for a council meeting outside the palace after breakfast, which meant my favorite activity: breaking rules I hadn’t repeated in the last twelve hours.
I wandered until the fortress halls grew quiet and the torchlight stretched thinner. That was when I saw two servants carrying towers of dusty books toward an iron-banded door. The second they vanished, I slipped in behind them.
The library was less “room of learning” and more “temple of nightmares.” Shelves stretched to dizzying heights. Iron ladders clung to rails like skeletons. Tomes sat chained to pedestals, covers etched with claw marks and sigils that glowed faintly in the dim.
“Yeah, this is definitely where bedtime stories go to die,” I muttered, brushing my fingers along spines.
Bestiary of the Forgotten.
The Curse of Hollow Blood.
Wolves and War.
And then I saw it—tucked low, as if someone had tried to bury it. A ledger bound in cracked black leather, stamped with a sigil of two wolves under a blood-red moon.
The title: The Blood Moon Uprising.
My pulse kicked. “Well, that sounds ominous.”
The pages weren’t orderly history. They were fragments. Letters. Trial records. Testimonies scrawled by shaking hands.
As I read, the words seemed to pulse, and in my mind the library melted away. I wasn’t just reading anymore—I was there.
The first entry:
The night bled red. Fire consumed the western wall. The wolves howled, but their voices were drowned in screams. The Alpha’s sons were apart, and the younger was not here to defend us.
Flames roared in my ears. I saw the fortress gates splintering under rebel steel, wolves collapsing one by one, their fur soaked black with blood.
Another record:
The council has made its choice. To preserve our lives, we will hand him over—the boy-general. His loyalty blinds him; he will not see the knife until it is in his back.
My stomach churned. I saw shadows of men in robes whispering, sealing their treason with trembling hands. The very advisors swore to guard the throne… bartering Lucian-like coins.
A soldier’s testimony:
When the young Alpha returned from patrol, he found the gates barred. Inside, his pack burned. He clawed through flame and smoke, his howl louder than the fire itself.
I saw him—Lucian, younger, blood streaked across his face, muscles straining as he tore down a burning gate with his bare claws. His eyes are wild with horror.
Then came the brother.
A note, barely legible:
The elder stands upon the throne, blade wet with Father’s blood. He swears allegiance to the rebels. He names the younger traitor. He laughs as wolves die around him.
I felt my throat close. Lucian’s brother, smiling in the firelight, crimson dripping from his hands.
And then the last entry:
The youngest cursed son slaughtered them all. Rebel, traitor, kin. He cut down his brother and held him as life fled. His howl carried across the ruins until the moon itself dimmed.
The vision burned itself into me: Lucian, kneeling among ash, cradling his brother’s body, his face twisted with rage and grief. The fortress a graveyard around him.
I slammed the ledger shut, gasping. My hands trembled against the black leather.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
The voice snapped the air in two.
The book slipped from my grip. Lucian stood in the doorway, tall, terrible, his cloak dragging shadows into the room. His claws flexed against the table as if even wood might betray him.
“I was just—” I stammered, reaching for humor, “—brushing up on local history? Did you know your kingdom exports paranoia in bulk?”
He stalked forward. In three strides he was at the table, slamming the ledger shut with a snap that rattled the shelves.
“You read too much. You see too much.” His silver eyes burned into me, all storm and steel.
And then he froze. His gaze fell to my face, catching the tears I hadn’t even realized were there.
“You… wept for me?” His voice cracked, raw, as if the idea was foreign to him.
I swallowed hard. “You lost everyone. And the people who were supposed to stand by you—sold you like livestock. Of course I cried.”
His hand hovered in the air, trembling just enough to betray him. Then it touched my cheek—so gently, so uncertainly, like I was something he feared would vanish if he pressed too hard.
“You should fear me,” he whispered, breath ragged. “Not pity me.”
“I can multitask,” I whispered back, voice shaking. “Fear and pity. Comes with the sarcasm package.”
A strangled sound escaped him—half-growl, half-laugh. His forehead pressed to mine, claws digging into the table to anchor himself.
“Loyalty is a chain,” he said, voice rough. “Once, mine bound me to traitors. Now…” His breath shuddered against my skin. “Now it binds me to you.”
My pulse thundered. “Lucian—”
“Do not break it,” he warned, desperate, his voice shaking like the fortress itself. “Because if you do… I will not survive it twice.”
The torches guttered. Shadows clawed across the shelves. And I stood there, heart in my throat, realizing that the scariest part wasn’t his threat.
It was that a piece of me didn’t want to break it.