Chapter 145

Chapter 145
Francesca D’Arven.

The ritual had been performed.
Yet all we had was silence.
Two days.
Two full days since Adrian had been taken to the Moon Altar. The door had been sealed with ancient symbols I didn’t even recognize. Two days without answers. And no one—absolutely no one—dared say whether he was alive… or if that moment had been nothing more than a mother’s desperate final act of denial, refusing to lose her son.
Elenna wasn’t there anymore.
My aunt, my mentor, the woman who shaped everything I thought I understood about power…
She simply vanished.
Aunt Elenna didn’t speak to me, didn’t say goodbye—she just disappeared.
The Elder gave only vague answers, saying some matters couldn’t be explained to “people like me,” to those who didn’t know the sacred laws and rites “yet.”
And he was right.
I didn’t know them.
Not yet.
But I would. I would find a way, become stronger, more influential—do whatever I had to, to help, to prevent something like this from happening to me one day.
I stood by Elenna’s side. Not for long, but long enough. I watched. I learned. I absorbed every gesture, every calculated action, every elegant cruelty.
And still, when the price came due… I was left outside.
Alone.
Now, with Adrian declared dead to the Council, Elenna gone for good, and the Valehart House collapsing, my fate had been decided without anyone bothering to ask what I wanted.
My mother, Yollena, along with the rest of the D’Arven clan, had already arranged everything: I would be “assigned” to another allied house as a mentee.
A pretty word that meant I would be observed, shaped, tested… until they decided what to do with me.
My heart tightened when I realized that everything I had done while I was here had been exactly that—watching.
But through that… I learned.
I learned the world is merciless to anyone who hesitates.
That power is never requested—it is taken.
I learned that love, when it exists, is a weakness waiting to be exploited.
Elenna was everything the world respected and feared. Strong. Proud. In so little time, she had become the most remarkable woman I had ever known.
And now… she no longer existed.
Those two days brought news from the Council like consecutive blows, no pause to breathe between them.
Luke Hines had been named the new Supreme Alpha.
His rise was fast.
And with it came the definitive downfall of the Valehart House.
With Adrian dead and Will Valehart on the brink of death, the Council—under the immediate blessing of the new Supreme Alpha—appointed a new heir to the Valehart name.
Edgar Black.
The moment I heard the name, I wanted to vomit.
Disgust. Disbelief. A revulsion I didn’t even know how to name.
He was Adrian’s cousin—how could he stand on the opposite side?
Edgar Black was an opportunist. A traitor.
The Council didn’t give details—because they never do—but the implications were too obvious for someone who had learned to read the game.
Ally of Luke.
Ally of the new regime.
Accomplice to the death of his own blood.
Will Valehart was removed from his own house without ceremony or pity.
A broken, sick man discarded like an inconvenient mistake.
The only place that took him in was the D’Arven House.
Because of old contracts and promises made to Elenna.
He was being brought in at that very moment.
And with that news… came fear.
Because now Edgar was the Valehart heir.
And I… was a D’Arven.
A political marriage would be the perfect solution to calm tensions.
And the thought of it—of marrying someone like him, of sharing a home, a lineage, a future—made me want to die.
That could not happen.
I had to think of something—anything—to free myself from that fate.
Now, after everything I’d seen and lived through, I was no longer the timid girl, the foolish girl who avoided conflict. I was no longer the shy young woman who hid behind my aunt’s rigid posture.
That Francesca had died—buried along with Elenna, with Adrian, with the Valehart House, with the people and places I grew up with.
What remained… was waking up.
And I needed to think carefully, to use every situation to my advantage, even if it meant… revenge.
If they forced me to marry Edgar… should I?
Could I destroy him from the inside?
Elenna’s words echoed in my mind.
Sometimes, sacrifices are necessary.
Occasionally you must dirty your hands so the world takes the right shape.
Before, that terrified me.
Now… it sounded more than true.
I took a deep breath as I stepped outside the altar chamber, stopping by the doorway, the cold night air keeping me awake. The moon hung above—almost full. Almost at her day.
I looked back once more, at the sealed door behind which Adrian lay.
I didn’t know what the future held.
Whether Adrian would return… or whether my fate had already been carved by others.
But one thing I did not doubt:
If they thought they would turn me into a bargaining chip—
If they thought I would obey quietly—
They were wrong.
Very wrong.
I would not accept anything in silence.
The world, and its people, had shown me their true face.
And I was ready to strike back.
I was deep in thought, circling the building where Adrian rested, when I felt it—
a presence.
When I turned, I saw him.
“Who are you?” I demanded. “And what do you want?”