Chapter 10 WHEN THE NORTH BLEEDS
The first scream cut through the night like a blade.
Aria didn’t recognize the voice. That didn’t matter. The sound itself was enough—raw, panicked, full of the kind of terror that only comes when death isn’t a rumor anymore.
She was halfway down the West Wing corridor, fresh bandages wrapped tight around her arm, when the second scream came.
This one was closer.
Then came the horn.
Low, booming, vibrating through the stone.
Not the clear note that marked Council sessions or training drills.
This sound was older.
Wilder.
A call to war.
Aria froze.
Her wolf didn’t.
It lunged forward, snarling, demanding movement.
She ran.
The corridor blurred. Servants flattened themselves against the walls as she passed. A child began to cry as someone dragged him into a room, slamming the door. Wolves shouted, doors banged open, boots thundered.
The North was waking to blood.
“Aria!”
She didn’t stop until a hand caught her wrist, spinning her around.
Lysa.
Her usually calm face was pale, eyes huge, apron streaked with something dark.
“Where is he?” Aria demanded, breath sharp.
“Alpha’s heading to the southern wall,” Lysa said, fingers tightening. “You are to stay inside. His orders.”
Aria barked out a bitter laugh. “You think I care about that right now?”
“You should,” Lysa hissed. “You think this is training, girl? This is real. Attack from the south. Reports say they’re not just wolves.” Her voice dropped. “Something else is with them.”
The silver in Aria’s veins surged.
Her wolf paced harder.
“Then you need every weapon you can get,” Aria said.
“You are not—”
“I am exactly that,” Aria snapped. “That’s why they dragged me here like a prophecy wrapped in skin. If they’re bleeding on your walls and I sit in a room pretending I’m helpless, then what’s the point?”
Lysa’s jaw clenched.
Another horn blast.
Closer.
The shake of stone underfoot.
Lysa’s eyes closed for half a heartbeat, a decision carving itself into the lines of her face.
“Stairs at the end of this hall,” she said quickly. “Take them up, then left to the southern parapet. Stay behind the inner shield wall until you see him.”
“Thank you,” Aria breathed.
“Don’t thank me,” Lysa muttered. “If you die, he’ll blame me. If he dies, I’ll blame you.”
Aria didn’t waste time answering.
She ran.
The stairs were a narrow spiral, her boots pounding against stone. By the time she reached the top, her lungs were burning, her veins blazing under her skin like molten silver.
The night hit her like a slap.
Cold air. Smoke. The sharp copper tang of fresh blood.
The southern wall stretched out in both directions, lined with wolves in various stages of shift—some half, some full, some still human but with eyes glowing and teeth bared. Torches burned in iron sconces, lighting up faces twisted in anger and fear.
Aria pushed through until she reached the parapet’s edge.
Then she saw it.
Not a simple pack raid. Not a ragged group of rogues.
An army.
Shapes moved below at the treeline, too many to count—dark bodies rushing the walls, flashing teeth, claws scraping against stone. Not all of them smelled of wolf. Some carried the reek of old blood and something tainted—like flesh left too long in the sun.
Her stomach twisted.
“What are those?” she whispered.
“Southern warlord’s abominations,” a voice to her right spat. A young warrior, barely older than her. “Half-wolves, half—” His voice broke. “We don’t know. They don’t fight clean. They don’t die clean either.”
As if on cue, one of the twisted creatures leapt high, almost reaching the top of the wall. Claws slashed, catching a warrior who hadn’t moved fast enough. The wolf screamed as he went over the side, vanishing into the chaos below.
Aria’s breath stuttered.
“Where is he,” she hissed under her breath.
“Aria!”
This time, the voice was his.
Roman burst up the tower steps at the far end, blood streaking one side of his face, eyes gleaming with a light that was not entirely human. Kael was at his side, sword drawn, armor dented, jaw clenched.
Roman’s gaze found her instantly.
Of course it did.
“What are you doing up here?” he snapped, storming toward her as much as anyone could storm atop a crowded battlement. Every step radiated fury. Fear, too. Buried deep.
“You’re under orders to stay inside.”
A creature slammed into the wall to their left, claws digging in, teeth gnashing. Warriors stabbed down at it with spears and axes, shouting curses.
Aria gestured wildly. “Does this look like a night to follow orders?”
His eyes burned. “Yes.”
“How many have died already?” she shot back.
A muscle in his jaw jumped.
He didn’t answer.
He didn’t need to.
The blood running through the drainage grooves in the stone said enough.
Her veins flared brighter, reacting to his anger and the chaos around them, feeding off her own rising fury.
“You drag me here, you train me like a weapon, you parade me in front of a Council ready to ignite at the slightest spark,” she said, voice low and sharp, “and the first time the North actually bleeds, you want me to sit in a room and pretend I’m harmless?”
He stepped closer.
The bond pulsed, hot and painful.
“I want you alive,” he hissed back.
“Then stop wasting me.”
He stared at her.
It felt like the whole wall held its breath.
Below, the creatures howled, charging the gates, bodies piling at the base, clawing, tearing, trying to break through.
Roman looked away first.
Not in surrender.
In decision.
He turned to Kael. “Pull the second line back. Force them toward the bottleneck by the inner ramp. Get the archers higher. They’re adapting too quickly to the lower kill zone.”
Kael nodded and moved, shouting orders, his voice cutting through the din.
Roman faced Aria again.
His eyes had shifted.
Half storm-grey.
Half that dark, wrong silver.
“You step one foot beyond this wall,” he said, voice like iron, “and I’ll personally break your legs and carry you back.”
Her temper flared. “You just said—”
“I am not done,” he snarled.
She shut up.
The warriors nearest them pretended not to listen with the desperate focus of those who didn’t want to be caught eavesdropping on a storm.
“You stay here,” Roman said. “You do not jump down. You do not wade into that chaos. You use what you are from here. You aim it where I tell you. You do not decide alone when the world is ready to see how far this goes.”
His face was inches from hers now, eyes blazing.
“If you lose control in the middle of that madness, I will not be able to stop you. But up here? I can drag you away. I can put my body between you and whatever you become.”
His voice dropped, raw.
“Let me have that much.”
Her anger didn’t vanish.
But it twisted.
It wasn’t about caging her.
It was about containing something bigger than both of them.
She swallowed hard. “Fine,” she said. “But I’m not standing here with my hands folded.”
“I would never insult you that way,” he muttered.
A shriek tore through the air—a sound unlike wolf or man.
Down below, something bigger moved.
Aria looked.
A massive shape pushed through the lesser creatures.
Taller. Heavier. Twisted beyond recognition, its limbs too long, muscles knotted and bulging under patchy fur streaked with black veins. Its eyes glowed a sickly yellow-green, its jaw unhinging too wide as it roared.
The stone under Aria’s feet vibrated with the sound.
“What is that?” she breathed.
Roman’s expression went colder than the mountain wind.
“That,” he said, “is the reason we’re not sleeping.”
The thing slammed into the wall.
Stone cracked.
Warriors stumbled.
Two fell screaming.
Arrows embedded in its flesh. It didn’t slow.
It was headed straight for the southern gate.
“Forces near the gate, fall back!” Kael shouted. “Don’t let it crush you against the—”
Too late.
The creature smashed its clawed hands into the gate, metal groaning like a dying beast.
Aria’s heart pounded.
“They’ll break through,” she said.
“Not if we stop it,” Roman replied.
“We?” she echoed.
He didn’t look at her. Just extended his arm, pointing.
“Eyes on the monster,” he ordered. “Not the rest. Not the blood. Not the fear. That one.”
Her veins burned.
She grabbed the parapet edge, forcing her gaze to lock onto the abomination as it hammered at the gate, each blow ripping more wood from metal, claw gouges tearing deep.
“Feel it,” Roman said. “Focus on the one thing that matters.”
“The one thing that terrifies me?” she snapped through gritted teeth.
“No,” he said. “The one thing that will destroy what’s yours if you do nothing.”
The word yours rattled something inside her.
This wasn’t her home.
But—
She thought of Lysa’s hands shaking, of Kael’s steady loyalty, of Seris watching her with sharp, tired eyes. Of the warriors who had watched her in the ring, who might die convinced she was a threat while another monster ripped them apart.
Her heartbeat slowed.
Not calmer.
Sharpened.
The abomination reared back, both arms raised.
Ready to slam the gate off its hinges.
“Now,” Roman growled. “Call it.”
“How?” she hissed.
“You already know how,” he said. “You did it in the ring. You did it in the hall. Stop pretending you don’t.”
Her lungs expanded, full of smoke and cold and fear.
She reached for the thing inside her.
It didn’t wait.
It lunged.
Moonfire roared to life in her veins, responding not just to her will—but to the sheer fury flooding her chest.
Her hands lifted of their own accord, fingers spread toward the creature below.
Light poured from her palms.
Not gentle.
Not controlled.
A brutal, blinding column of silver-white slammed downward from the parapet, crashing into the abomination with enough force to make the stone underfoot shudder.
The creature screamed.
Not like an animal.
Like something that had once been human—and remembered, for one bright, agonizing second, what it had lost.
The smell of burning corruption filled the air.
The monster dropped to a knee, clawed fingers digging furrows into the ground as it fought against the pressure crushing it down.
“Harder,” Roman snarled. “Do not pity that thing. You are not killing a wolf. You are destroying a weapon built to tear you apart.”
Aria’s arms shook.
The light trembled.
The creatures around the abomination scattered, shrieking, blinded. Some caught edges of the blast and collapsed, writhing, smoke rising from their twisted hides.
Her head spun.
Her vision narrowed.
The power wanted more.
It wanted to spread.
If she let it, the entire battlefield would burn.
“Aria,” Roman snapped. A hand closed like iron around her shoulder, grounding her. “Eyes on it. Just it. One target.”
Her breathing hitched.
A single point.
A single monster.
She forced everything inward.
The column of light narrowed—from a wild river to a focused spear.
It bored into the creature’s chest.
Bone cracked.
Flesh split.
The monster gave one last shuddering roar—then collapsed, steam rising from its ruined body as the light finally, mercifully faded.
Aria staggered.
Roman’s grip tightened, holding her upright.
The world came back in pieces.
Screams.
Shouts.
The clang of steel.
Then—a new sound.
Howls.
Not from the creatures.
From the North.
From the wolves along the wall, throats lifted, voices merging in a fierce, victorious cry that sent chills racing over her skin.
They were not howling for Roman.
They were howling for what she’d just done.
“Look,” Roman said roughly.
She forced her eyes open.
The twisted army below was in chaos. Some fled. Some turned on each other, tearing and biting, whatever control had been on them broken when their leader died. The organized assault had turned into a frenzy of confusion.
Kael’s voice rose above it all, ragged and fierce. “Push them back! Don’t give them time to regroup!”
Arrows rained down.
Wolves leapt from the walls, shifting mid-air, crashing into the ragged retreat. Steel flashed. Teeth tore. The North answered blood with blood.
Aria swayed.
Her veins still glowed—not as bright, but enough to make her fingers tremble.
Her knees nearly buckled.
Roman’s arm slid around her waist, holding her up.
Not gently.
Possessively.
His breath was hot against her ear.
“You did that,” he said.
She let out a shaky, humorless laugh. “So now they’ll love me?”
“No,” he said simply. “Now they’ll fear you for the right reasons.”
Below, the battlefield churned.
Above, the wolves of the North howled again.
This time, under the noise, Aria heard something else.
A whisper.
Not Roman.
Not the Council.
The moon.
You are no longer just a prophecy, it seemed to say. You are a threat.
She wasn’t sure yet whether that terrified her…
Or finally made her feel like something more than a mistake.