Chapter 16 The meeting
“Please,” he begged, voice cracking, trembling with both shame and terror. “Do not let this... Please… let it be your hand. Let me die… as I lived… loyal to you, my King.”
The council held its breath. Murmurs died abruptly, replaced with the tension of knowing life and death were balanced on a knife’s edge.
Arwen’s throat tightened, though her posture remained unbroken. “Ronan,” she said softly, almost reverently. “This… you must be certain.”
A commander muttered from the side, barely audible. “He’s unstable. The corruption is eating him.”
“Do it fast,” another elder whispered. “Before it spreads further.”
Before anyone could process what was happening, Kael’s body locked. Then it broke.
A sound tore out of him, raw and animal, as the corruption surged past whatever fragile hold he had left. His spine snapped backward, bones cracking, fur rippling and then sloughing off in wet, unnatural patches. One arm elongated grotesquely, claws stretching too long, too sharp.
He lunged.
Not at the council.
At Ronan.
The hall erupted.
“Your majesty!”
“Guards—”
But it was too late. Kael moved fast, faster than he should have been able to in that state, driven by whatever had been planted inside him. His claws sliced through the air where Ronan’s throat had been a heartbeat earlier.
Ronan was already gone.
He pivoted aside with brutal efficiency, cloak snapping as Kael’s strike slammed into the stone dais instead. The impact sent fractures spidering through the floor. Dust burst upward.
Kael staggered, snarling, eyes wild and unfocused. “I can’t—” he gasped. “I can’t stop it!”
He turned again, body jerking violently, control slipping completely. This time he didn’t aim. He just attacked, blind and desperate.
Ronan stepped in.
One clean motion.
His blade flashed once, silver catching torchlight, and then it was over.
Kael collapsed mid-shift, the corruption evaporating like smoke torn apart by wind. His body hit the floor hard, final and still. The wolf did not rise again.
Silence crashed down.
Ronan stood over him, chest rising once, twice. His red eyes dimmed slightly, though the glow remained, contained now by iron control.
He looked down at Kael’s still form.
“At ease,” Ronan said quietly, not to the council, but to the fallen warrior.
Then he straightened and turned to the room.
“Kael of the Eastern Guard died in service to the crown,” Ronan said, voice carrying without effort. “He will be buried with the warriors. Full honors.”
The words were not ceremonial.
They were absolute.
Matthew bowed his head.
Arwen closed her eyes for a brief moment, then inclined her head once in agreement.
No one argued.
No one dared.
Because Kael had not been executed.
He had been released.
Silence returned, heavier than before. Kael was gone. Only the faintest scent of wolf lingered.
Matthew exhaled, wiping his hand across his face. “We cannot underestimate them,” he said quietly, gaze scanning the room.
Silence returned, heavier than before.
Kael was gone. Only the faintest trace of wolf lingered, swallowed quickly by stone and incense.
Matthew exhaled slowly, dragging a hand down his face. “This wasn’t random,” he said, voice steady but grim. “Everything about this was deliberate.”
Arwen’s gaze did not leave Ronan. Her voice, when she spoke, was quieter now, sharper. “What was done to him was meant to test our reach,” she said. “And to probe our defenses.”
Her eyes flicked briefly to the bloodstained floor where Kael had fallen. “If they were willing to touch one of our own so thoroughly… then the entire shifter community is no longer a question of if. Only when.”
The chamber shifted.
That was when Ronan’s red eyes flared at the thought of them coming for Elara again. Not in loss of control but In warning.
“Nothing like this will ever reach her,” he said more to himself than to any other person, voice low and absolute. “Before any hand gets close enough to take from me again, I will remove the threat myself. Entirely.”
The air seemed to tighten around the words. One by one, the council members inclined their heads.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
The meeting resumed, subdued, efficient, stripped of unnecessary debate. By the time it ended, the sun had shifted beyond the high windows, shadows lengthening across the hall.
Kael was buried before nightfall.
No pageantry. No delay.
Red-eyed Ronan stood apart as the earth closed over his fallen warrior. His fist clenched once at his side, knuckles whitening, before he turned to Matthew.
“Arrange condolence provisions for Kael’s family,” he said. “And then mobilize the trackers. I want the heads of every Nosferus or rogue involved in this placed at our borders.”
His jaw tightened. “I will not tolerate parasites on my land. Not now.”
Matthew bowed. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
He did not hesitate. Authority radiated from the king before him, clone or not.
They dispersed quickly.
Ronan turned without another word and headed straight for the inner chambers.
The moment Red-eyed Ronan crossed the threshold, pain detonated through him.
He coughed, blood spilling down his chin at the exact same instant the golden-eyed Ronan staggered beside Elara’s bed, gripping the stone frame as crimson dripped from his nose.
Arwen gasped. “Ronan!”
She was already moving, calling for the witch even as the air chilled.
Blue smoke coiled into the room.
The witch emerged, staff striking the floor sharply. “You are fortunate,” she said at once. “Another hour and the separation would have turned permanent.”
Ronan wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and nodded toward his other half. “Do it.”
The witch did not argue.
“Stand opposite each other.”
The two Ronans complied, mirroring one another across the chamber. The witches reappeared, forming a tighter circle this time. The sigils ignited again, brighter, angrier, the air humming with strain.
“This will hurt more than the division,” the witch warned. “Reintegration is not gentle.”
Ronan only inclined his head.
The chant began.
The pull was immediate.
Not tearing this time, but crushing, like being forced back into a shape too small to contain everything he had become. Memories slammed together. Instincts collided. Control and fury fought for dominance.
Fenrir roared.
The red-eyed Ronan took a step forward. The golden-eyed one matched him. Their shadows overlapped, merged, twisted.
Pain lanced through Ronan’s skull as their forms blurred, edges bleeding into one another. His knees buckled briefly before he forced himself upright.
With a final surge of magic, the two became one.
Ronan collapsed to one knee, breath ragged.
When he lifted his head, his eyes were no longer purely gold.
They burned in an ombre of molten gold edged with red.