Greyhaven slept beneath a sky heavy with frost and silence.
Yet every lord, every soldier, every merchant felt the weight of an unseen hand.
The Wolf's shadow had reached into every corner of the kingdom.
Aren surveyed the map of the realm, spread across the cathedral floor.
North, south, east, and the fractured borderlands—every province was accounted for.
Every lord, every town, every castle now moved under the Wolf's invisible will.
Lysa leaned over the map.
"The northern lords bend quietly. The south obeys. Even the eastern cities fracture before our gaze."
"Yes," Aren said. "Fear, whispers, and inevitability. That is the web that binds kingdoms—not armies, not crowns, not laws.
Even Rowan in Greyhaven… trapped in a kingdom he no longer controls."
The Shadow Army had become more than soldiers—they were instruments of influence.
Spies, couriers, merchants, and servants carried information, falsehoods, and controlled obedience with equal precision.
Every whisper reached Aren before it could grow into rebellion.
From his vantage, the Wolf could see the kingdom's pulse.
Every hesitation, every suspicion, every secret—all fed the web tighter, stronger, inescapable.
Aren's gaze swept from the north to the south, to the fractured east, and back to Greyhaven.
"The web of kings is complete," he whispered.
"Every corner bends. Every lord fears. Every city obeys.
The Wolf does not rule through conquest. He rules through inevitability."
Rowan realized at last: the crown he clung to was meaningless.
Greyhaven, the north, the south, and the east—entirely bound, willingly or not, by fear and shadow.
Aren turned to Lysa and Caelis, eyes sharp as the winter wind.
"The kingdom is ours," he said.
"But the true victory… is not control of land. It is control of hearts, minds, and shadows.
And that… is eternal."