The underground shrine shook again.
This time, the tremor did not feel like a warning.
It felt like recognition.
The silver crest hanging above the altar brightened until the chamber itself seemed submerged in moonlight. The ancient carvings along the floor burned with pale silver lines that spread outward in branching patterns, circling the broken altar, the chained skeleton, the imperial guards, the southern wolves, and Selene herself as though the shrine had finally decided who belonged inside its memory.
Kael still held her at the waist.
His hand was steady. Warm. Unmoving beneath the violent pressure surging through the chamber. Selene could feel the tension in him now, not the usual calm control he wore so effortlessly, but something deeper and more instinctive, like the body beneath the crown was reacting before the mind could finish calculating the danger.
The throne recognizes him.
That thought hit Selene with more force than the tremor.
