Greyhaven lay beneath a moonless sky, the city alive yet silent, a kingdom that breathed only through shadows.
Aren stood atop the cathedral tower, cloak whipping in the wind, his eyes tracing the sprawl of the lands he now ruled completely.
Every province, every city, every lord and soldier moved to the rhythm of the Wolf—unseen, inevitable, eternal.
Rowan lingered in the palace, a prince without command, watching as the crown, once a symbol of authority, sat unused and hollow.
Even his closest advisors whispered carefully, fearful that their words might be twisted into obedience for the Wolf.
Aren turned from the city below, voice low, unwavering:
"The Wolf does not merely rule. The Wolf exists. In every shadow, every whisper, every doubt.
The crown is meaningless. The throne is meaningless. The kingdom itself bends—not to force, not to law, but to inevitability."
Lysa and Caelis flanked him silently.
"Will this ever end?" Lysa asked, almost to herself.
"End?" Aren's eyes glinted like steel. "There is no end. Shadows are eternal. Fear is eternal. Obedience, once perfected, is eternal.
The Wolf endures… and so does his dominion."
From the cathedral tower, Aren gazed across the north, the south, the fractured east, and Greyhaven itself.
Every lord bowed quietly. Every soldier obeyed silently. Every city trembled in anticipation of the Wolf's unseen hand.
Even Rowan knew: he no longer ruled a kingdom. He ruled nothing.
Aren lifted his hand, and the night seemed to answer him, shadows stretching across the land like a living web.
"The kingdom bends. The lords obey. The people fear.
The Wolf endures.
And the shadows… are eternal."
And so, the Wolf's dominion was complete.
Greyhaven, the provinces, the fractured east and south—all bound under inevitability, silence, and fear.
The kingdom had a ruler no one could see… but everyone obeyed.
The Wolf was eternal.
The shadows were eternal.
And the heartbeat of the kingdom… belonged to him.