Chapter 4 CHAINS OF FLESH AND FATE

The rogue stronghold was unlike anything I'd imagined. I expected filth, chaos, the stench of blood and sweat. Instead, I found stone halls lit by warm torches, organised supply stations, and sentries who obeyed silent commands. There was no laughing, no chatter.

Just a quiet efficiency that disturbed me more than brutality ever could.

I kept my head down as I moved through the corridors. Ivara had given me a thin cloak to wear, and though the fabric scratched at my skin, it at least hid the soul mark on my neck. I couldn't bear to see it, couldn't bear to feel it burning every time I thought of him.

Maddox.

The name was a wound. The image of him biting me replayed in my mind like a curse. His golden eyes. That quiet anger. The way he looked at me like I was both salvation and punishment.

I passed what looked like a weapons room, rows of blades gleaming on a rack. Noted the back gate beyond the courtyard. Counted the guards, the shifts, the gaps in patrol. Everything I could use to run.

But something in the air warned me: this place was alive. Every move I made was being watched.

In the central hall, Maddox stood before a group of rogues. No throne, no raised dais. Just him in a dark tunic, arms folded, commanding the room with silence. They reported to him one by one, updates, territory maps, and recovered supplies. No one questioned. No one lingered.

He was cold, exacting, and yet...fair. He punished a thief but spared a hungry pup. He ordered a scout flogged for disobedience but let a healer speak freely about her needs. It wasn't kindness. It was control.

I hated how easily my eyes followed him. How my heart twisted when he glanced my way and said nothing.

Later that night, after the courtyard emptied and shadows stretched long through the stone halls, I wandered deeper than I should have. Past a rusted archway hidden behind a cluster of spears and broken crates, I found a narrow corridor that sloped downward.

It smelled like old blood and damp ash.

Curiosity tugged at me. Maybe it was foolish. Maybe it was something more. My steps echoed softly, bare feet brushing cold stone as I followed the tunnel until it opened into a low-ceilinged chamber carved into the mountain.

It was colder here. Older, somehow.

Six black tombstones stood in a perfect circle, worn but humming faintly with power. Ancient symbols had been etched into each, runes I didn't recognise, but that pulsed in my bones like thunder. One resembled the mark now scorched into my neck.

I stepped closer to the centre, where a fire pit lay cold. A strange pressure built behind my eyes, as though the air itself resisted my presence.

I ran a trembling hand across the first stone.

A wolf howled inside my mind. I stumbled back.

"You shouldn't be here," came a voice behind me. I whirled.

Ivara stood just beyond the archway, torch in hand, her eyes shadowed and unreadable.

"What is this place?" I asked, heart racing.

She didn't answer immediately. Instead, she crossed the chamber, laying a hand on one of the stones with reverence. "The Circle of the Fallen."

My breath caught. "These are... graves?"

"Not just any graves." Her voice dropped. "This was Maddox's first pack. Before the war. Before the title."

I swallowed. "He had a pack?"

She nodded slowly. "When he was still just a boy. Before he was Maddox the Rogue King... he was Maddox of Duskang. The son of a disgraced Beta. Born under a blood moon, marked by loss. His pack was wiped out in a single night. Betrayed by their own Alpha, sold to humans for silver."

My chest tightened. "All of them?"

"Every last one." Her fingers lingered on the stone. "Six warriors. His only family. He buried them himself in the ruins of their village and carved these stones by hand."

I stared at the grave circle. The symbols now felt heavier. Sadder. "What happened to the Alpha?"

Ivara met my gaze. "Maddox hunted him. Found him. Ripped out his heart before the entire Council of Elders. That was the day the packs cast him out. Called him rogue. Called him a monster."

"But they didn't banish him for the betrayal, only for the vengeance?"

Ivara's smile was bitter. "Justice is only clean when it serves those in power."

A long silence passed.

I looked again at the stones, then at the cold, empty pit in the centre. "Why keep this room?"

"Because some things should not be forgotten," she said. "Not even by kings."

And then she turned and walked out, leaving me standing alone with ghosts, in a place built on blood and memory.

Back in my room, I paced. I'd spent hours mapping corridors in my mind. I had observed when the guards rotated. There was a gap just after moonrise. If I moved fast, if I made it to the ridge, I could find a way home.

I slipped out under a moon-choked sky, every step a silent scream. My breath caught in my throat as I crept through the garden. Almost there.

Pain exploded in my skull. No. Not mine. Someone else's.

I collapsed to my knees, clutching my head. Visions flooded my mind, fire, blood, chains tightening around flesh.

Maddox, on his knees in the dark, his hands gripping the stone floor as something tore through him from the inside.

My breath hitched. I saw his face. Eyes wild. Sweat-soaked. A growling cry ripped from his chest, then silence.

The mark on my neck flared like fire. I screamed.

The forest exploded with sudden movement, torches lit, footsteps thundered. Shouts echoed through the trees as Maddox's pack scrambled toward the sound of my scream.

Leaves crackled.

A pair of wolves howled in alarm, closing in fast. But by the time they reached the clearing, I was already on the ground, trembling, the mark still glowing faintly on my neck. Pain swallowed me whole.

And then, darkness.