Chapter 130 Lost
Chapter 130 Health wing
EVANDER’S POV - THE HEALTH WING
The health wing is a sterile, white-tiled nightmare of antiseptic smells and the frantic, rhythmic beeping of monitors. It’s a stark contrast to the mud and blood of the mines.
I sit on the edge of a treatment bed while a Royal doctor stitches the gash in my shoulder. Zephyra is hovering, her presence a constant, grounding weight at my side. Across the aisle, Kade is being patched up, his arm heavily bandaged.
The room is filled with murmurs—the hushed, awestruck voices of the soldiers who survived. They aren't talking about the tactical retreat; they are talking about the wolf.
"I swear, it wasn't just a shift," a young soldier is telling a nurse, his eyes wide with a manic kind of wonder. "It was like the sky opened up and poured fire onto the ground. The wolf... it had two heads. It was made of starlight."
"I saw it too," Kade says, his voice gravelly as he leans back.
"One head was rage. The other was wisdom. I’ve never seen anything like it. It moved like water, but it froze the very air around it."
"It saved us," another soldier chimes in, his voice cracking.
"We were dead. We were literally being torn apart, and then... that sound. That howl. It wasn't a wolf’s sound. It was the sound of the world breaking."
I watch Zephyra from across the room. She is moving between the beds, touching the soldiers’ foreheads, her hands glowing with that same faint, blue light that she wields when she’s connected to the Stone. I watch as pain leaves their faces, replaced by a quiet, dazed exhaustion.
She is so powerful, and yet she is so delicate. She is carrying our future, and she is exhausting her own life force to heal those who bled for us.
I stand up, ignoring the protest of my ribs, and walk over to her. I take her hand, gently pulling her away from the soldier she’s healing.
"Zephyra," I murmur, my voice low. "Enough. You’ve done enough for today."
She looks at me, her eyes clouded with fatigue.
"They’re hurt, Evander. They’re hurting because of us."
"They’re hurting because of the war," I correct her. "And they’re alive because of you. If you push yourself further, you’ll collapse. The babies need you."
She looks down at her stomach, her hand resting over it, and sighs. A weary, beautiful smile spreads across her face.
"Fine. But I’m staying here until I know every one of them is stable."
I pull her into my arms, heedless of the doctors and soldiers watching us. In this sterile room, amidst the smell of medicinal herbs and surgical spirits, I feel a sense of peace I haven't known in months.
I look around at the surviving men. They are wounded, they are traumatized, and they have seen things that would break a lesser wolf. But as they look at Zephyra, there is no fear. There is only a deep, unwavering loyalty. a devotion that goes beyond the crown.
She isn't just their Queen anymore. She is their savior.
"You hear them?" I whisper into her hair. "They’re not afraid of the war anymore. They’re only afraid of failing you."
Zephyra looks up, her eyes meeting mine. They are clear, resolute, and filled with a terrifying amount of love. "Then we don't fail them,
Evander. We end this. We finish what was started in the mines, and we ensure that no one ever has to see that kind of darkness again."
I nod, tightening my grip on her.
"The war is far from over the shadows are still moving in the north"
"I know little wolf" but as I look at my wife, the High Priestess who commands the stars, I know one thing for certain:
We will not be the ones to fall.