The carriage wheels groaned against the jagged mountain pass, a sound that set my teeth on edge. Every jolt sent a ripple of cold through my bones, but it wasn't the mountain air chilling me, it was the stagnant pool of shadow sitting where my healing light used to be. I pressed my palm against the frosted glass of the window, watching the Blackwood forest shrink into a dark, insignificant smudge in the valley below.
Three years, I thought, my fingers curling into a fist. Three years I gave them my blood, my sleep, and my soul. And they threw me away like a broken tool.
The Northern Citadel loomed ahead, a monstrous spike of obsidian and granite that seemed to pierce the very belly of the clouds. It didn't look like a home; it looked like a cage. But as the massive iron-bound gates swung open with a shriek of protesting metal, I felt a strange sense of relief. In the North, strength was the only currency. And for the first time in my life, I was wealthy.
"Out, Healer," the guard barked, his breath blooming in a white cloud. He didn't offer a hand. He looked at me with the wary eyes of a man watching a coiled viper.
I stepped onto the cobblestones, my boots crunching on a thin layer of ice. The Citadel was a labyrinth of echoing stone and flickering blue torches that smelled of whale oil and ozone. Every wolf I passed was larger than the ones in the south, their fur thicker, their scents sharper. They didn't smell like pine and rain; they smelled of woodsmoke and old blood.
I was led through a set of double doors carved from the bone of some ancient sea beast. The throne room was vast, the ceiling lost in a haze of shadows. At the far end, behind a desk piled high with yellowed parchments and heavy iron maps, sat the King.
Caspian. The "Monster of the Peak."
He didn't look up when I entered. He was hunched over a map, a compass in one hand and a dagger in the other. His shoulders were so broad they seemed to block out the light from the hearth behind him. He wasn't wearing a shirt, just a fur-lined vest that showed the brutal topography of his torso. His skin was a map of scars: claw marks across his ribs, a jagged silver burn near his heart, and a bite mark on his shoulder that looked deep enough to have reached the bone.
The silence stretched, heavy and suffocating. I refused to be the first to speak. I had spent my first life apologizing for my existence, shrinking myself so Kaelen could feel larger. I wouldn't do it again.
Finally, Caspian stabbed the dagger into the map and looked up. His eyes weren't the warm brown of the earth; they were the terrifying, translucent blue of a glacier.
"The Blackwood runt," he rumbled. His voice was a low-frequency vibration that I felt in my marrow. "You don't look like a Shadow-Witch. You look like a girl who's about to faint from the cold."
"Looks are a luxury the dead can't afford, King Caspian," I replied, my voice steady. "And I've spent enough time among the dead to know that."
He stood up, and the sheer scale of him made my breath hitch. He walked around the desk, his movements possessing a feline grace that was at odds with his massive frame. He stopped just inches away, invading my space. He was so close I could feel the radiant heat coming off his skin, a furnace in the middle of this frozen tomb.
"The rumors say you died," he whispered, leaning down so his lips were level with my ear. "They say your Alpha forced a life-transfer to save a mistress, and you expired in the mud. So tell me, Elara… what is standing in front of me right now? A ghost? Or a miracle?"
"A mistake," I snapped, turning my head to look him in the eye. "A mistake the Moon Goddess made, and one I intend to correct. I don't give life anymore. I siphon it. I am the drain in the sink, Caspian. If you brought me here to heal your men, you've wasted your time."
His eyes flared, the blue darkening into a stormy navy. "I didn't bring you here to heal them with light, little wolf. I brought you here because my borders are being choked by a Shadow Rot that eats my warriors from the inside out. My healers try to push their light into the wounds, and the rot simply swallows them too. They die screaming."
He reached out, his hand hovering near my throat. I didn't flinch.
"I need someone who speaks the language of the shadows," he continued, his voice dropping to a growl. "I need someone who can taste the poison and not choke on it. If you can pull the darkness out of my men, I will give you a name, a title, and a small army to march back south when you're ready to claim Kaelen's head."
The mention of Kaelen's name made the Serpent in my chest stir. A cold, oily sensation began to creep up my throat. "And if I can't? If the shadows are too much for me?"
Caspian's smile was a terrifying thing, all white teeth and dark intent. "Then you'll be just another body for the mountain to bury. The North doesn't keep what it can't use."
He grabbed a torch from the wall and gestured toward a dark corridor. "The infirmary is this way. I suggest you pray to whatever God you have left, Elara. My General is currently dying, and he doesn't have an hour left."
As I followed him, my boots clicking rhythmically against the stone, I realized that for the first time, I wasn't afraid of the Alpha in front of me. I was afraid of the hunger waking up inside my own heart. The closer we got to the dying men, the more the Serpent hissed, its fangs dripping with the anticipation of a feast.