Chapter 14

*Dax*

The run helps. It always does. 

My wolf bursts forward through the trees, shaking off the weight of the palace and the storm brewing behind Kael’s eyes. He runs beside me, darker than a shadow, faster than I remember. It’s not just adrenaline fueling him.

It’s the bond.

It’s breaking him.

His wolf is at war with his human self, and what he did is haunting him.

He doesn’t say anything as we run, but I feel it through the link—the strain, the fire eating away at his chest. I don’t think he’s slept in days. The scent of Aria has poisoned his space, his mind. And the longer she stays gone, the deeper he sinks into something I don’t know if I can pull him from.

I don’t want to tell him what I know.

Not yet.

Not when he’s like this.

We run for miles through the forest until the palace disappears behind us, until the air stops tasting like politics and blood and starts to taste like pine and sky.

Only then do we stop.

There’s a clearing near the western cliffs—an old training ground our fathers used to bring us to before everything went to hell. I slow and shift first, letting the shift burn through me and settle the ache in my chest. Kael follows a moment later, his breath ragged, his eyes already narrowed.

He knows.

"You didn’t bring me out here just to run," he says.

I sigh. I grab the pack I carried with clothes, food, and water for both of us, grab what is mine, and toss him the rest. I take a deep breath. I can feel his gaze boring into me. I run a hand through my hair. "No."

He waits. Silent. Tense. He does that now—waits like the next word might be the one that breaks him. I have never seen him like this. 

I lower myself onto a moss-covered boulder and look out toward the treetops.

"I went to see my mother."

Kael stiffens. "You never said."

"Didn’t know if it mattered. Not until now."

He crosses his arms, jaw tight. "What did she say?"

I hesitate. The silence stretches between us like a canyon.

"Dax," he growls.

"She told me about the Nightshades," I say quietly. "About what really happened the night your father took the throne. About the proposed alliance, his true intentions and the slaughter that followed."

His breath catches. Not a gasp. But something close.

I continue. "She said the Nightshades weren’t just rulers. They were guardians. The balance between the old magics and the packs. And your father didn’t defeat them in battle. He ambushed them. They met to sign an alliance. A peace."

Kael turns away, fists clenched. "That’s not what I was told."

"No. It wouldn’t be." He was the perfect warrior, the perfect heir.

I stand. Step closer.

"The final battle wasn’t a war. It was a betrayal. A slaughter of the true rulers of our world."

He shakes his head, but he doesn’t speak.

"My father was there too," I add. "He died protecting them. Protecting her. Lyriana. Aria’s mother."

His eyes snap to mine.

"Aria’s mother?"

I nod slowly. "They say she died that day, alongside her mate. But there were rumours. That she escaped. That she was pregnant. That she was taken by a guardian loyal to the old line."

Kael backs away a step shaking his head. "And you believe this?"

I don’t answer right away.

"I believe my mother," I say finally. "And I believe in what I saw. In what I felt when I stood near Aria. The way the bond hummed through you. The way her power woke the forest."

Kael sits heavily on the fallen trunk near the edge of the clearing. His shoulders sag. His wolf growls low in his chest.

"If it’s true," he says, "then I rejected the heir to the Nightshade line."

I nod.

"I destroyed the one thing that could unite the old world and the new."

Still, I say nothing.

Because he already knows.

He drags a hand down his face. "The council wants me to pick a Luna. They think the bond’s been severed. That the throne needs an heir."

"You can’t," I say.

"I know."

He looks up at me. There’s something desperate in his eyes. Something I’ve never seen in him before.

"If she knows… if she comes back," he says, "she could challenge me. Take the throne."

I cross my arms. "Would she be wrong to try?"

That silence comes again. Long. Heavy.

He doesn’t answer.

"Would you follow her?" he asks.

It cuts deeper than I expected.

I look at him—this boy I grew up with. The man I bled beside. The king I swore to protect.

And I say the one thing I never thought I would, never thought I’d have to.

"If she’s the true heir. If the blood in her veins can heal what was broken. If she can restore the balance your father destroyed..."

I breathe. He doesn’t.

"Then yes."

Kael stands, every muscle tight. I can see his wolf pushing to come out, wanting to be with his mate no matter who she is. 

"You’d betray me."

"No. I’d serve the kingdom."

He looks like he's been stabbed. I should stop, but there's one more thing I need to bring up. 

“My Mother told me that your Father planned to capture Lyriana, that he wanted to forcefully breed her to ensure your family line inherited the Nightshades magic.”

I watch as he visibly looks like he wants to refute what I said, but then something passes over his face. His eyes slam shut before he swallows hard, and when he opens his eyes again. The pain I see is endless. “But my mother had just died.” He murmurs.

I do not answer him, I don't tell him what I suspect, what I learned about his father, and what kind of male he was.

Kael takes my silence as confirmation and shutters. 

We stare at each other. Years of friendship, loyalty, and pain, all hanging in the air like frost.

He turns away first.

"I’m not ready to lose everything."

"Then don’t. Find her. Fix this."

He nods once, almost too small to see.

But I catch it.

I don’t know what path lies ahead.

I don’t know what Aria will choose.

But I do know this:

If she returns, she won’t be the girl he rejected.

She’ll be the queen he was never worthy of.

And I’ll follow her.

Even if it means walking away from the only brother I’ve ever known.