Chapter 4 Elara's pov

I hadn't seen that pendant in four years.

It had been burnt into my memory since the day I'd pulled it from the rubble after the raid. I'd clutched it in my hands until my fingers bled. I'd worn it like a weight around my neck, hidden under my shirt, until the pain became too much.

Then I buried it beneath a tree near the cliffs.

That's why my mouth went dry when Lena held it out.

That pendant was gone.

Buried

Not lost

Not left behind.

Not something a patrol should've found at the Western Gate, hours after a massacre.

"I don't understand," I said, barely hearing my own voice. "Where did you say they found this?"

Lena didn't blink. "At the scene. In the dirt, half-covered. There was blood on the chain."

My fingers curled slowly into my palms. "Did they confirm whose blood?"

"They're testing it now," she said. "But Elara... that necklace only ever belonged to one person. You know that."

Kael watched me carefully, but he didn't speak.

He was smart enough to know this wasn't his question to ask.

"It can't be him," I said. "Orin's dead."

"Are you sure?"

Lena wasn't challenging me. She wasn't pushing. But she was asking the one thing I'd been trying not to think about for years.

Because the truth was, I'd never seen his body.

I saw what was left of the wreckage. I saw what they told me to see. But no one had recovered him. No funeral. No ashes. No closure.

Only smoke and silence.

"I buried that pendant myself," I whispered. "Under the cedar tree on the edge of Hollow Ridge."

Kael's voice was quiet but steady. "Then someone dug it up."

I looked at him.

And in that moment, something shifted.

Because for the first time since I returned, I didn't see Kael as just the alpha or the boy who'd left me behind. I saw him as a man who was trying to keep something broken from falling completely apart.

He didn't ask me to explain.

He didn't question the gap in my story.

He simply said, "Get your coat."

"Why?"

"Because we're going to the ridge."

We left through the East border gate at dusk.

Lena covered for us, said Kael was on a Council errand, and no one questioned it. I followed Kael through the woods, past the frost-covered trees and into the thick underbrush of Hollow Ridge. It took us hours, mostly in silence, before we reached the cliffs.

The air was colder here.

I found the tree easily.

I'd been back once before-years ago-when I thought the pain might finally be small enough to carry. It wasn't.

I pointed to the roots. "There."

Kael knelt down and started digging without asking. No tools. Just his bare hands.

I dropped beside him and helped.

The soil was frozen. It took us nearly half an hour to reach the small hole I'd carved out years ago. The tin box I'd buried it in was still there. We pulled it out together and cracked it open.

Empty.

Kael looked at me. "You're sure this is the spot?"

"I carved the mark into the trunk," I said, pointing up. "See that?"

A jagged "O" sliced into the bark.

Kael stared at it for a long time.

Then he stood.

"Someone knew where you buried it."

I nodded, standing beside him. "Someone who's either playing with us or-"

"-Or trying to frame you," he said.

The thought hadn't even crossed my mind until that moment.

I was too wrapped in the ache of maybe-Orin, in the guilt I'd carried since the night we lost him. But Kael saw the bigger picture. He always did.

"I need to see the patrol," I said.

"They were burned," he said. "Nothing left but bones."

"Still. I need to see them."

Kael studied me.

Then he nodded.

"Alright. We ride back tonight. But if we do this, you need to understand something, Elara."

"What?"

"They're going to look at you differently now. With that necklace found... with the scroll gone... they're going to think you're involved. Maybe not directly. But you're not a neutral party anymore."

I knew he was right.

But I also knew one thing with absolute clarity.

If someone was using my brother's memory, using his face or name or blood to start a war, I was going to find them and end it myself.

The bodies had already been moved by the time we returned.

The Council had placed them in the catacombs beneath the main hall for inspection, and only a few people were allowed down there without permission. Kael didn't wait for permission.

He dragged the iron doors open just after midnight.

The corridor reeked of smoke and decay.

Six slabs, Six covered forms.

I stepped inside, heart thudding.

Kael stood beside me, silent, as I pulled the sheet from the first body. Burned. Beyond recognition. Only bones and blackened flesh. No scent I could track.

Same for the second.

Third.

But when I got to the fourth, I paused.

There was something different.

The arms were bent strangely. Like they'd been tied.

Kael noticed it too. "Restraints?"

I nodded. "Why tie your own patrol?"

He crouched beside the slab and looked closely. "These burns aren't uniform. There's a clear point of origin."

"What does that mean?"

He looked up at me.

"It means this was deliberate."

He stood slowly, eyes dark.

"This wasn't an ambush. It was a message."

I took a breath.

"And the necklace?"

He exhaled through his nose. "It wasn't dropped."

"What?"

Kael looked toward the shadows behind us.

Then he walked to the far end of the chamber and pulled open a drawer.

He reached inside and came back with something in his hand.

Ash.

And a second chain.

My eyes locked onto it.

It was clean, newer, a copy.

"They planted it," he said. "To lead us somewhere."

I stared at the metal.

It wasn't Orin's.

But someone wanted us to think it was.

Kael stepped closer to me. "Someone is setting you up. They want you to be emotional. Off-balance. Reactive."

"Well, it's working," I said.

He gave a humorless smile. "You don't say."

We stood there a long time, not speaking.

Just thinking and planning.

He looked at me then-not like a soldier or a rogue or even his former mate.

But like something more complicated.

"You said you didn't know what I wanted from you," he said quietly. "But maybe I do."

I raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"I want you in this with me. Not as a favor. Not because you owe me anything. But because you're the only person left I trust to see the truth."

I didn't speak.

Not because I didn't believe him.

But because I did.

And that scared me more than anything.

We didn't sleep.

By dawn, we had a plan.

Track the false pendant. Identify who brought it into the gate. Check the border shifts from the last 48 hours.

Lena helped us dig through logs and footage. Most of it had been scrubbed. Someone had wiped two hours of records between the fire and the patrol's last check-in.

But they missed one thing.

A scent.

Faint, but there.

Kael passed me the cloth. "Smell that?"

I nodded slowly. "Lavender."

He met my eyes.

We both said it at the same time.

"Councilwoman Maren."

And just like that, everything snapped into place.

She'd been pushing Kael to take a mate from the Western Alliance.

She'd been rallying to open trade lines with the East.

And she'd hated me from the moment I stepped back onto Blackthorn soil.

"This isn't about Orin," I said. "This was never about him. It's about power."

Kael's jaw tightened. "Then it's time we take it back."

I didn't get to answer.

Because the next second, the alarm bell started ringing.

Not just once.

But again

And again

And again.

Kael was already running for the door.

I followed him out into the courtyard as Lena came sprinting toward us, blood on her sleeve.

"They've breached the wall," she yelled. "Eastern scouts. Armed. Already inside."

"How the hell did they get past the sentries?" Kael growled.

Lena looked at me.

And then, slowly-

At the necklace in my hand.

"You were the distraction," she said softly. "They never wanted the scroll."

I gripped the pendant tight enough to cut into my palm.

"They wanted me."