Greyhaven lay beneath a moonless sky, yet every street, every tower, every courtyard seemed alive with the unseen presence of the Wolf.
Aren stood before the Silent Throne, hands resting lightly on its armrests.
Not to sit, not to claim it.
The throne itself no longer mattered—power flowed through shadows, whispers, and the inevitability of fear.
Lysa and Caelis watched quietly from the cathedral steps.
"The kingdom bends beneath you," Lysa said softly.
"Yes," Aren replied. "But a kingdom held by fear alone is fragile. Shadows must be constant, and vigilance unending.
The Throne of Shadows is not a seat. It is a network. A pulse. A heartbeat that guides the lives of all beneath it."
Even Rowan, isolated in his chambers, understood too late that authority had slipped from his hands.
His advisors whispered carefully, his soldiers obeyed silently, and his own thoughts betrayed him to the Wolf's unseen reach.
Aren's gaze swept across Greyhaven, the north, the south, and the fractured east.
"Every lord, every city, every village… bound quietly by the same web," he murmured.
"Obedience is ensured not by war, but by the inevitability of shadows.
That is the true Throne. That is the Wolf's dominion."
The wind whispered through the city streets.
Every shadow seemed alive.
Every heartbeat trembled in quiet fear.
And the kingdom's pulse was no longer its people's—it was the Wolf's.
Aren's voice, low and unyielding, echoed silently to the empty cathedral walls:
"The crown is irrelevant. The throne is irrelevant. The kingdom belongs to the shadows… and I am their master."