Chapter 1 Prologue

Prologue

The Weight of a Silver Crown

The silence of the northern peaks was a lie. To anyone else, it was the peaceful hush of nature, but to Nora Durkehn, it was a deafening scream of everything she had lost.

She sat on a jagged rock overlooking the mist-covered valley, her fingers tracing the rough bark of a fallen pine.

At eighteen, she should have been celebrating the completion of her Wolf Awakening.

As the granddaughter of the Great Priestess, Nora had been born with a rare, ancient power–a hum in her blood that felt like starlight and healing. She was meant to be the pride of the Durkehn line, a beacon of kindness and strength for her people.

Instead, she was a ghost.

"He's a spy, Nora. The boy is a cancer in our midst," her father's voice echoed in her mind.

Jones Durkehn had been a wise Alpha, a man who treated the powerless with the same dignity as the strongest warriors. He had been strict but loving, his eyes always softening when they landed on his daughter.

Nora closed her eyes, and the memory of that night hit her like a physical blow.

"They're wrong about you...," she had whispered that night, "Go. Run before they do something they regret."

But her "mercy" had been the blade that pierced the heart of her people.

Jones had whispered to Nora in his final moments.

"Inside you, Nora... it holds the treasure. You are the only one who can save us."

She hadn't saved them. She had watched from the shadows as the enemies tore through their village.

Her pack was being led away in chains.

A low, mournful vibration hummed in Nora's chest. Her wolf, Mega-sized and silver-furred, stirred in the depths of her soul.

It was a creature so massive that no building could hold it, a titan of fur and fang that Nora now kept tightly caged.

She felt useless, a princess of ashes who had traded her people's lives for a traitor's freedom.

She looked down at her hands. They were steady, but they felt heavy with the blood of her clan.

Somewhere beyond these mountains, her people were being treated as property, living in the shadow of a hidden war she had inadvertently started.

And now, all that remained was a power she could barely control... and a war that had only just begun.

This time, she swore not make the same mistake.