The moon hung low over Greyhaven, casting long, cold shadows across the empty streets.
Aren stood at the highest tower of the cathedral, gazing across the city he now ruled completely.
Lysa and Caelis flanked him silently.
"The kingdom bends," Lysa said softly. "Every province, every lord, every citizen… all obedient. But… what now?"
Aren's eyes glimmered in the silver light.
"Now," he said, "we ensure it remains. Obedience must be maintained. Fear must be tempered. Shadows must endure."
He knelt briefly before the Silent Throne.
Not to claim it, but to mark the oath he took—not of ambition, not of gold, but of eternal vigilance.
An oath to the kingdom, bound by shadow.
"The Wolf does not rule for glory," he whispered.
"He does not rule for power. He rules for inevitability, for patience, for the certainty that no one may rise against him without the weight of shadows crushing them."
Even Rowan, confined to the palace, understood the truth: the kingdom's heart had shifted.
The crown he wore meant nothing.
The lords he commanded were whispers.
The soldiers he trusted were pawns.
All that remained… was the Wolf.
Lysa looked toward the horizon, voice low and reverent:
"And if a new threat rises?"
Aren's smile was faint, sharp, and assured:
"Then the Wolf's shadow will already be there.
It will be in the whispers, the fear, the hesitation… and it will bind the kingdom again.
That is the Wolf's oath: eternal vigilance, eternal control, eternal dominion."
The wind swept through Greyhaven, carrying a quiet truth:
The Wolf ruled not with a crown, not with armies, not with law…
But with inevitability.
And shadows, once woven, never broke.