The dawn after Liora's defection came late. The sun dragged itself over the horizon as if reluctant to see what had been broken in the night. Smoke still rose in thin, tired lines from the burned edges of the camp. Wolves moved through the wreckage like men who'd lost a god.
Everywhere Gonzalo's name was spoken, it carried a weight of disbelief.
The Alpha sat in his war tent, his eyes bloodshot, his knuckles white around the edge of a table littered with maps. Those same maps that once made sense of the world were now no better than mockery, thin lines, false borders, promises undone. The air inside the tent was heavy, thick with the iron scent of blood and the cold of loss.
"Liora is gone," his beta said quietly, his voice cautious, as if the words themselves might spark something violent. "She left with the rogues, she took their side."
Gonzalo's head lifted. His eyes were pale storms. "I know. Everyone saw it."
The beta hesitated. "Elira the servant..."
"They will learn," Gonzalo cut in, his voice low but sharp. "They will learn that loyalty is not a choice. It is law."
Outside, the pack's movements had become nervous, erratic. Patrols doubled. Every howl in the night was mistaken for an enemy's cry. The younger wolves, those who had trained under Liora's hand, whispered in disbelief that she was gone, not dead, but gone with the enemy.
The rogues. The hated, feral blood of the Blood Moon.
Liora had been their commander once, their protector, their symbol of defiance. Now her name was a rift tearing through the ranks.
Gonzalo rose from his chair and stepped to the entrance of the tent. He could see the courtyard below, men sharpening weapons they did not need to sharpen, guards pacing with eyes too wide. The fortress that once felt like the spine of their world now looked like an open wound.
"Double the guards," he said, voice cold, command biting through the air. "At every gate. Every tower. Every passage. If she dares come back here, she will find nothing but death."
The beta bowed and hurried off, but Gonzalo remained still. His hands clenched behind his back. He knew the truth, the one no one else dared to speak. If Liora did return, there would be no steel strong enough to stop her.
He had seen the way she fought, the way she moved through battle like a living storm, each strike a piece of poetry carved in blood. And now she had taken that strength to the enemy.
He closed his eyes, just for a moment. The image of her face, streaked with dirt and defiance, flashed behind his lids. The way she had turned from him, cloak trailing in the mud, her voice cutting clean: "I will not fight for those who castrate me with law and call it justice."
Her words still burned. They had settled into him like a brand.
Now, they were his fear.
***
In the Luna's wing of the fortress, Vanya could not sleep.
Her chamber, once perfumed with lavender and the faint, sweet incense she loved, smelled now of sweat and fear. The drapes were closed though it was morning; the candles burned low, guarded by a dozen men who stood at her doors and windows.
Vanya had not left her room since dawn.
She sat on the bed, hair undone, fingers trembling as she held a glass of wine that did not steady her nerves. The guards outside shifted uneasily at every sound.
"She's gone, my lady," said one of her attendants, trying to offer comfort. "She won't come back."
Vanya's laugh was thin, cracked. "You think she won't? You don't know her."
The attendant lowered her eyes. "The Alpha..."
"The Alpha is a fool," Vanya hissed. She set the wine down too hard. The glass cracked. "I told him to kill her before now. That woman...she's not a soldier anymore. She's something worse."
Her voice trembled at the edges, and though she tried to straighten, her shoulders sagged. She remembered the last time she saw Liora's eyes, burning, quiet, too alive. There had been no mercy in them.
Now, she imagined those eyes in every shadow.
"Bring more guards," she said suddenly, turning to the door. "I want two more at the corridor and one on the roof. If I hear the wind, I want to know it's breathing for me, not for her."
The attendants bowed and obeyed, but even the sound of their feet on the stone floor made her flinch.
The Luna of the kingdom, once the most feared woman under Gonzalo's rule, now lived like prey.
***
Nyssa, too, felt the heat and fear.
She moved through the healing quarters with her head bowed, hands busy, voice low. She bound wounds, crushed herbs, spoke soft prayers over broken soldiers. But her heart was not in her work. Every sound of boots outside made her jump. Every howl from the woods felt like Liora's name whispered through the dark.
She had begged for mercy, and mercy had come but not in the way she hoped.
Now the healer lived with the weight of guilt pressing on her lungs. Had she done this? Had her plea been the spark that led to Liora's escape?
She thought of Elira, that fragile, bleeding girl who had clung to life by faith alone. She wondered where she was now, whether she breathed among rogues, or if she had followed Liora into the same flame.
Nyssa lit a small candle by the window and murmured a prayer to the moon. "Keep her safe," she whispered, though she wasn't sure which her she meant anymore. "If Liora the spirit and strength to forgive. Take away vengeance from her soul and heart."
***
By nightfall, Gonzalo's fortress looked like a cage of iron and nerves. The walls were lined with new sentries; the gates had double chains.
In the council chamber, the mood was no better.
The generals argued. Some demanded vengeance, an immediate strike against the rogues before they grew stronger. Others advised caution, pointing out the wounded and the shortage of supplies.
Gonzalo listened, saying little. His mind was elsewhere, haunted by a single truth: Liora was not just a soldier. She was the heart of the force they once commanded.
And she had turned that heart against him.
"Enough," he said finally, slamming a hand on the table. The sound echoed, silencing the room. "We will not attack blindly. We will not waste lives chasing ghosts. The rogues will come to us. They always do."
He rose. "And when they do, they will find this place ready."
But even as he spoke, his eyes flickered toward the east—the direction where she had gone.
He imagined her there, in the wild lands, among the rogues she had once hunted. He wondered if she slept under open skies, if she remembered the smell of their fire, the heat of his command. He wondered if she hated him as much as he feared she did.
***
Far away, across the dark valleys and forests thick with mist, the Blood Moon rogues' camp thrived like a living, breathing thing.
The air was different here. It smelled of wild roots, wet leaves, and freedom unclaimed by law.
Liora stood in the middle of their training ground, the moon hanging above her like a watcher. The earth beneath her feet was soft, scarred by claw and blade. Around her, rogue warriors formed a loose circle, murmuring, observing.
Elira sat on a low stone near the fire, wrapped in a cloak too large for her. Her small fingers clutched at the fabric as she watched Liora move. Fear still lingered in her eyes, but there was something else too, a spark of awe.
Liora's hair was undone, her face smeared with dust and effort. She had been training for hours, her body slick with sweat, muscles alive under the moonlight. She fought with no armor, no formality, only raw instinct, honed by rage and purpose.
Her movements were poetry and violence braided together.
Each strike she threw was faster, cleaner. Each dodge, sharper. She sparred with two rogues at once—men larger than her, armed with blades dulled by years of battle. She disarmed one, twisted around the other, and landed a blow that sent him sprawling.
The watching rogues cheered, stamping their feet in approval.
At the edge of the ring stood Alpha Dante, his arms folded, his face unreadable. His eyes were fixed on her like a man studying a weapon he hadn't yet decided whether to wield or fear.
"She fights like fire," one of his lieutenants murmured beside him.
"She is fire," Dante replied quietly. "And fire burns what it cannot warm."
He watched as Liora straightened, chest heaving, eyes flashing in the torchlight. For a moment, their gazes met across the field—Alpha to Alpha, though only one had the title.
She looked away first, grabbed her blade again, and began another round of training, faster, harder, as if trying to erase the ghost of Gonzalo from her every movement.
Dante's lips curved slightly, not quite a smile. "Keep her close," he said to the men beside him. "Feed her, train her, give her what she needs. She's worth more than a hundred wolves. But do not trust her. Not yet."
The order went out quietly, and the men nodded.
By the fire, Elira yawned, curling under the blanket Liora had wrapped around her earlier. She looked at the rogue guards, at the faces she did not know, and then at Liora—her savior, her storm.
Liora turned for a breath, just to check that Elira was safe, then looked up at the moon.
Her heart beat hard against her ribs. She could feel it, the thin line between freedom and vengeance tightening like a bowstring.
Each strike she threw from then on was not for training. It was a promise.
When the time came, she would return to Gonzalo's kingdom.