The candle flickered on Seren's desk, casting dancing shadows across the parchment.
She had been writing for hours. Draft after draft, crumpled and discarded in a pile beside her chair. Words that felt false. Promises that felt hollow. Oaths that sounded like someone else's voice, not her own. The traditional coronation oath—the one that mentioned gods and bloodlines and wolf supremacy—sat open on the corner of her desk, a relic from another age.
The triplets were asleep. But Seren could not rest. The coronation was two weeks away. The council expected her to swear the traditional oath.
She would not.
She picked up her quill and began again, dipping it into the inkwell with a steady hand.
*I, Seren Ashwood, swear to serve the kingdom of Silvermoor...*
The next morning, she presented her oath to the council.
