The emergency Council session isn't held in the grand hall—not anymore.
After Lucien's rejection, the elders herded everyone down a narrow stone staircase, the kind that winds so deep into Ironhaven's foundations you can hear the moon-steel beams groan under the citadel's weight. The air here smells like old stone and fear, thick enough to taste, and the only light comes from glowing runes carved into the walls—faint blue, the color of a dying moon.
At the bottom, the room opens up into a circular chamber. In the center, an obsidian table floats six feet above a gravity well—black, bottomless, swirling like liquid void.
The elders take their seats around it, their robes dragging on the floor, their faces set in the same cold, unyielding expressions they wear when they talk about "saving the realm." Lucien stands apart, his back to the wall, his armor still dusted with fragments of the shattered mirror ceiling. He doesn't sit. He doesn't even lean. He just watches, his jaw tight, like he's waiting for the other shoe to drop.
It does. Elder Voss slams a dagger onto the obsidian table.
The blade is moon-forged—pale silver, etched with tiny runes that glow luminescent blue the second it hits the stone. It's not a normal dagger, not by any stretch. The hilt is wrapped in black leather, worn smooth from years of use, and the tip is sharp enough to catch the rune-light and turn it into tiny sparks. But what makes everyone freeze is the countdown.
Right there, along the blade's edge, numbers pulse: 29-23-59-57.
They tick down as they watch—one second at a time, blue light flickering like a heartbeat. Elder Voss leans forward, his elbows on the table, his eyes locked on Lucien. He's the oldest of the seven, his beard streaked with silver, his face lined with scars from a rogue attack decades ago. When he speaks, his voice is like gravel in a bucket.
"Thirty days," he says, tapping the dagger with a gnarled finger. "Mate publicly within thirty days, or abdicate. And if you abdicate…" He trails off, letting the gravity well below do the talking. The void swirls faster, like it's hungry. "The dagger claims your life-force as forfeit. No exceptions. No loopholes."
Lucien's heartbeat syncs with the countdown. He can feel it—thud, thud, thud—matching the numbers as they tick: 29-23-59-52. It's not just his imagination. The runes on the dagger glow brighter every time his heart beats, like they're feeding off his tension. He fists his hands so tight his nails dig into his palms; he doesn't flinch. Not even when the memory hits—his father, lying on the floor, his own life-force draining into a similar moon-forged blade.
"You can't do this," he says, his voice lower than he means it to be. "The Alpha King's right to choose his mate is—"
"Void," Elder Voss cuts in. "Void, now that you've spit on the Council's arrangement with the DuVals. Celeste's family has stood with the Blackthorns for a century. You reject her, you reject the alliance. You reject the alliance…" He nods at the gravity well. "You reject the realm."
The other elders murmur in agreement. Elder Hale, the youngest, pipes up—quiet, like he's afraid to speak too loud. "Lucien, we don't want this. But the moons are splitting. The Void's getting closer. We need stability. A royal mate—"
"A royal mate won't stop the Void," Lucien snaps. He pushes off the wall and takes a step toward the table, his boots clicking on the stone. The gravity well below hums, like it's responding to his anger. "My father had a royal mate. Look what happened to him. Look what happened to the realm after he died."
Elder Voss's face hardens. "Your father was assassinated by rogues. You're letting grief cloud your judgment—"
"I'm letting sense cloud my judgment," Lucien fires back. "I'm not going to marry a woman I don't want just because you're all too scared to face the truth. The problem isn't my lack of a mate. It's the Void. It's the moons. It's—"
"The problem is your arrogance," Elder Voss says, slamming his fist on the table. The obsidian shakes, and a tiny fragment of stone falls into the gravity well—swallowed up before it even hits the bottom.
"You think you can rule alone? You think the packs will follow a king who can't even honor a basic alliance? The answer is no. And if you don't fix this in thirty days…" He nods at the dagger again. The numbers now read 29-23-58-41. "The dagger will fix it for you."
Lucien stares at the blade. He can feel the magic in it—old, cold, unforgiving. It's the same kind of magic they use to bind rogues, to seal void rifts, to make sure oaths are kept. If he doesn't mate, it won't just kill him. It'll drain him, slow and painful, until there's nothing left but a empty shell. He knows. He's seen it happen to a wolf who broke a Council oath when he was a kid.
He also knows the elders aren't bluffing.
The room falls silent. The only sounds are the tick of the dagger's numbers, the hum of the gravity well, and the distant creak of the citadel above. Lucien's jaw works, his mind racing—through pack laws, through old treaties, through any loophole he can find. But there's nothing. The Council's got him cornered.
Then the screens flicker on.
They're moon-tech, embedded in the stone walls—small, rectangular, usually used for sending messages. But now, they're showing a live feed: LunaFlix. The realm's watching. Every pack, every rogue camp, every human town that trades with the wolves—they're all tuned in. On the screen, Lucien can see his own face, tight and angry, reflected back at him. He can see the dagger, the countdown, the elders' stern expressions.
Elder Voss smirks. "They're watching, Lucien. Every wolf in North America. They'll watch if you accept. They'll watch if you refuse. They'll watch if the dagger takes you." He leans back in his chair, folding his arms. "What's it going to be?"
Lucien doesn't answer. He just stares at the screens. At the faces—wolves from the Blackthorn Dynasty's thirteen regions, their expressions a mix of fear and hope. At the kids, sitting on their parents' laps, staring wide-eyed at the Council chamber. At the rogues, huddled in camps, their faces hard, like they're waiting to see if the king will finally stand up for them.
He thinks about his father. About the way he used to say, "A king's first duty is to his people—not to the Council." He thinks about the dagger, about the countdown, about the aurora still bleeding across the sky.
He thinks about Celeste, and the silver tear that burned a circle into the marble.
The numbers on the dagger tick down: 29-23-57-18.
Lucien's hands unclench. He takes a deep breath, the metallic-cold air stinging his lungs. He opens his mouth to speak—then freezes.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees movement.
The servant gallery. It's a narrow walkway above the chamber, hidden behind a low stone railing, where the citadel's staff linger to fetch drinks or relay messages. Most of them fled when the session started, but one remains.
A hooded figure, their back to the room, their hands clasped behind their back. They're small—smaller than most wolves, even in a bulky cloak—and they're standing so still they look like a statue.
Then they lift their wrist.
Just a fraction, just enough for the hood to slip back a little. Lucien's eyes narrow. He can't see their face, can't even see their hair, but he can see their wrist. And on it—faint, glowing, exactly like the dagger's runes—is a countdown. The same numbers. 29-23-57-12.
The figure freezes, like they know they've been seen. For a second, they hold still. Then they pull their hood back up, their wrist dropping to their side, and vanish into the shadows of the gallery.
Lucien blinks. When he looks again, the gallery is empty.
"Aurora's first cry splits the sky—twin moons fracture with an audible crack." No, wait—no, that's later. He shakes his head, trying to focus. The elders are staring at him, waiting for an answer. The screens are still live. The dagger's numbers tick: 29-23-56-59.
But all he can think about is that hooded figure. That wrist. That countdown.
Who are they? And why do they have the same rune as the dagger?
A hooded figure in the servant gallery lifts her wrist—an identical countdown rune flickers under her cuff.