Chapter 3 The Council's Eyes

I wore black.

Not for mourning, though part of me still felt like I'd buried something.

Kael had sent a uniformtunic, leggings, boots lined in silver thread-but I left the sash folded on the dresser. I wouldn't wear his colors. Not yet. Not when I still didn't know what he saw when he looked at me.

I stepped into the hall with my head high. If I was going to be weighed, I wouldn't walk in like I was already worth nothing.

The corridor leading to the council chamber was narrow, lined with glass lanterns and stone archways carved with Stormveil's crest: three wolves circling a moon.

It looked more like a warning than a symbol.

Corin waited at the chamber door. His face unreadable.

"They'll ask questions," he said.

"Let them."

"Don't answer them all."

I studiedhim. "Why?"

"Because answers are power. And you don't know who's hungry yet."

The room was dim when I entered, despite the tall windows. Seven chairs faced me, curved in ahalf-circle. Kael stood off to the side, silent.

The elders didn't smile. Only one noddedan older woman with sharp eyes and a scar that ran from her temple to her collarbone. She looked like she'd seen too much and stopped flinching.

The rest simply stared.

"She is smaller than I expected," one said.

"She's bondless," another added. "A contract can't fake a Luna's presence."

"Then why do I feel it?" the scarred woman asked.

Kael's voice cut across the silence. "Because the bond is in her blood, not her title."

The words sank into the room like smoke.

I kept my spine straight.

"I am not your Luna," I said clearly. "I'm here because your Alpha made a deal. I intend to honor it."

One of the elderstall, lean, with a permanent sneersmirked. "How noble."

I met his gaze. "How inconvenient."

That got a few murmurs.

But Kael didn't flinch.

"Dismissed," he said.

And just like that, it was over.

Or so I thought.

I found the man with the ice-colored eyes waiting outside.

He leaned against the courtyard wall, arms crossed. Midnight-black cloak, sword sheathed at his back, jaw sharp enough to cut.

He didn't speak when I passed him.

But he followed.

Down the stairs. Through the lower corridor. Into the quiet wing where the healers once lived.

"You're following me," I said finally, stopping.

"No," he replied. "I'm watching you."

I turned. "There's a difference?"

He stepped closer. "Watching doesn't imply trust."

"And stalking does?"

He ignored the jab.

"Rowen Vale," he said.

"Kael's Beta."

He inclined his head once.

"What do you want?"

"I want to know what you are."

I frowned. "I'm the girl your Alpha paid for."

"Liar."

The word didn't sting. Not really. But the certainty in his tone made something inside me shift.

He stared at me like he was cataloguing every breath I'd ever taken.

Then, as quickly as he appeared, he left.

No threat. No apology.

Just absence.

I spent the next hour in the library.

Not to read.

To think.

Stormveil's library wasn't like Ashfall's. No glass cases. No velvet ropes. The books here were old, worn, full of annotations and torn pages. Some in languages I couldn't read.

One book was left open on the far table.

Its title was burned off, but the illustration showed a woman standing over three wolves, each marked with a different crescent.

The text beneath had been scratched out.

I turned the page.

And there it was again.

Moonbound.

The same word I'd heard in the woods.

The same word carved beneath my skin like a whisper no one else could hear.

I copied it onto a scrap of paper.

I'd ask Kael what it meantif I trusted him.

Which I didn't.

Yet.

That night, the scent returned.

Pine. Blood. Stone.

I sat up, heart thudding.

The room was quiet.

Then I heard ita soft scuff against the stone outside my door.

I rose, slowly, reaching for the dagger hidden under the tablecloth.

I opened the door in one smooth motion.

No one.

Just cold air.

But as I turned to shut it, I saw something carved into the wood above the frame.

Three crescent marks.

One full. One broken. One bleeding.

Fresh.

Still red.

At breakfast, Kael didn't mention the council. Or Rowen. Or the marks.

He just looked at me and said, "What did you dream?"

I did not ask how he knew.

"I saw a girl standing in water," I answered. "But she was not drowning."

He nodded once.

"She was choosing."

Later, Corin appeared againquiet as ever.

He handed me a folded cloth.

"Someone left this at the altar," he said. "Said it was yours."

I opened it slowly.

It was a ribbon.

Faded.

Blackened on one end, as if pulled from fire.

I hadn't seen it in years.

It had been tied around my wrist as a childduring a pack ritual meant to welcome me into Ashfall's future.

It should have burned with the rest of my name.

But here it was.

And someone wanted me to remember it.

Or regret it.

That night, the pendant returned.

It sat on my pillow, cool as frost.

This time, I put it on.

And I did not take it off.

Not even when I dreamed again

and saw three wolves standing before me,

not as enemies,

but as choices.

In the dream, they circled me.

Not snarling. Not attacking.

Waiting.

Each wolf bore a mark on its chest. The same crescents I saw carved above my door. One glowing. One fractured. One weeping dark.

When I reached toward them, the sky above split open like paper, and I heard my namenot Lyra, but something older. Something not mine.

I woke gasping, hand clutching the pendant at my throat.

It was warm now.

And this time...

I knew I hadn't put it on myself