Kael's POV
Kael stood in the archive room long after she left. The shadows flickered against the shelves, but his mind was louder than the silence.
She knew.
And not just about the treaty.
She knew something was wrong.
He knelt beside the empty slot Arielle had touched. The edge of the missing file had a scent. Not hers. Male. Familiar.
Leif.
He didn't want to believe it. But the unease curled in his gut like barbed wire.
His wolf growled, restless.
She's not safe. Someone's watching her.
Kael clenched his jaw. Watching? Or targeting?
He had ordered the treaty sealed years ago — under pressure. But he'd never seen the rune. Never signed the revocation. So who had?
And what did it mean that someone else wanted it hidden?
Arielle's POV
Morning.
The training field was half-empty. Cloud-covered skies cast a strange gray glow over everything.
Arielle stood facing the dummies, but her blade didn't move.
Not yet.
She wasn't here to train today.
She was watching.
Leif arrived late — again — and jogged up with an easy grin.
"You're early," he said, tossing her a waterskin.
She caught it without looking at him. "And you're predictable."
Leif laughed. "You say that like it's a bad thing."
But she didn't return the smile.
Instead, her eyes flicked to the fresh cut along his hand. Tiny, almost invisible. But parchment leaves razor-thin marks.
"You went to the archives," she said flatly.
He froze.
Just for a second.
But it was enough.
"...I don't know what you mean," he lied.
Her voice sharpened. "Why was the Stormblood treaty revoked?"
"That's not my—"
"Don't." She stepped closer. "You were there before me. That file didn't vanish on its own."
Leif's expression twisted — not angry, but regretful. "You should let this go, Arielle."
Wrong answer.
She stepped back, jaw tightening. "So it's true. You're protecting them."
"I'm protecting you," he said, voice low. "You don't know who you're up against."
"Then tell me," she snapped.
But he didn't. He just looked away.
[Later – Council Room | Kael's POV]
Kael faced the council — five elders seated in a crescent. Councilor Brynn spoke first.
"We've received word," she said. "Arielle Stormblood accessed the sealed records."
Kael's spine stiffened. "How do you know that?"
"She triggered the rune seal."
The same rune Arielle had found — it wasn't meant to warn her.
It was meant to warn them.
"She's a threat," Councilor Dareth said. "A rejected mate shouldn't have access to ancestral secrets. You need to rein her in before she spreads her family's poison again."
"Again?" Kael echoed. "What poison?"
But the council was already rising.
Leaving.
Like they always did when the truth got too close.
They know something.
And for the first time in years, Kael realized — he wasn't leading them.
He was being used.
Arielle's POV
That night, Arielle stood at the cliff's edge above the eastern ridge.
Wind howled through the trees, but she was still.
In her hand, she held the rune she copied from the archive page — redrawn with charcoal, pulsing faintly.
Magic.
Old, buried magic.
Not Blackthorn's.
Something else.
Something older.
Her mother's voice whispered in her memory again:
"There are truths that sleep in blood."
She didn't know what came next.
But she knew this:
She wasn't just a rejected mate.
She was a threat.
And now?
She was done playing quiet.
"Let them come," she whispered. "I'm not afraid of ghosts anymore"
[To be continued…]