Greyhaven lay beneath a sky veiled in stars, yet the city itself seemed darker than the night.
Every alley, every tower, every quiet courtyard carried the pulse of the Wolf—silent, constant, eternal.
Aren walked alone through the streets, unseen, yet felt by all who dwelled there.
The kingdom had bent completely, not through force, but through fear, whispers, and inevitability.
Rowan remained confined to the palace, a ruler in name only.
Every plan he conceived crumbled before it could leave his lips.
Every ally he trusted had become a pawn in the Wolf's unseen hand.
Aren stopped in the central square, the moonlight catching the edges of the Silent Throne in the distance.
"Power is not worn, nor fought for," he murmured.
"It is woven into shadows, whispered into hearts, and made inevitable in every hesitation, every doubt, every secret."
Lysa approached from the shadows.
"They obey… yet do they fear enough to never rise again?"
"They will," Aren said, voice low, unwavering.
"Fear tempered with patience is eternal. Doubt made inevitable binds the strongest hearts.
The Wolf's shadow does not pass… it endures. And so will his dominion."
The city breathed beneath him, alive yet silent.
Even the rivers seemed to flow more quietly, the wind more cautiously, as if the kingdom itself bowed to the unseen ruler.
Aren gazed to the horizon.
The Wolf's reach had stretched across every province, every court, every village.
The kingdom was his—not through conquest, not through crowns, not through blood—but through the eternal shadow of inevitability.
"And thus," Aren whispered, voice barely carried by the night air,
"the kingdom bends.
And the shadows… are eternal."