Snow fell so thick it erased the world beyond ten paces. The lake's broken edge lay behind us like a fresh scar, black water already hidden beneath new ice. Ryan's bare skin steamed in the frigid air, yet his teeth chattered hard enough to rattle bone. My glow had dimmed to a faint silver shimmer beneath my skin, but every heartbeat felt like dragging chains of iron. Leo clung to my neck, silent now, too cold even for tears.
We staggered into the treeline, boots and paws punching through crust until knees buckled.
Damon went down first.
His left leg had frozen solid from knee to hip, black with frostbite, the bone visibly shattered beneath. Blood no longer flowed; it had crystallized crimson in the fabric. He collapsed against a pine, breath sawing wet and ragged.
"Leave me, Alpha." His voice cracked like the ice behind us. "I'm dead weight. Get them clear."
Ryan dropped to his knees beside him, naked, dripping, lungs still burning from the lake. "Shut up, Damon." He gripped his Beta's coat with shaking fists. "We started this together. We finish it together."
Damon tried to laugh; it came out a cough that sprayed pink frost. "Always so damn stubborn."
I knelt too, tearing strips from my own coat to bind the ruined leg. My fingers were numb, clumsy, but the royal fire inside refused to let me stop. Leo huddled against my side, small hands buried in Ryan's wet hair.
We were wrapping the last knot when the shadows moved.
Wolves stepped from the trees, dozens, lean and scarred and silent. No polished armor, no royal crests. Only furs stitched from a hundred different beasts, leather cured black with smoke, weapons that had seen too many winters. Eyes reflected green and gold in the storm's half-light. They spread in a slow circle, cutting off every escape.
Ryan surged upright, swaying, planting himself in front of me and Leo. His claws lengthened, but his knees buckled again almost at once. He caught himself on a low branch, snarling through bloodless lips.
A massive gray wolf padded forward through the ranks. Snow steamed where it touched his fur. He shifted mid-stride into a man taller than Ryan, broader, one eye milky with an old sword scar that ran from brow to jaw. The other eye burned winter-blue. A longsword hung across his back, hilt wrapped in silver wire gone black with age.
General Kael, though we did not yet know his name, surveyed us the way a butcher surveys meat.
He drew the sword.
Ryan shoved me behind him, arms spread wide. "You'll have to go through me."
Kael's gaze slid past Ryan, past the snarling Alpha trying to shield his family with a body that could barely stand. The scarred warrior looked at me.
And stopped.
The storm itself seemed to pause.
Kael's nostrils flared. He inhaled once, deep, reverent. His single eye widened until the scar pulled white.
He dropped the sword.
Steel rang against buried stone as the blade fell point-first into the snow. Kael sank to one knee, slow, deliberate, head bowed so low his forehead touched the ground. Behind him, every rogue followed, furs rustling, weapons clattering as they too knelt in perfect silence.
Snowflakes settled on Kael's bowed neck like a coronation mantle.
"We have waited twenty years," he whispered, voice rough as broken gravel. "The Moon has finally returned her daughter."
I stared, breath clouding between us. The silver in my eyes flickered brighter, answering something ancient in the air.
Kael lifted his head. "Princess."
The word struck me harder than any blade.
Ryan's arm tightened around my waist, possessive, protective, uncertain. Damon tried to push upright and failed, staring at the kneeling army with something between wonder and terror.
Kael rose only enough to meet my gaze fully. "You carry the eclipse in your veins. We smelled it across three valleys the moment you used the Voice. Every loyal wolf left alive felt the world shift tonight."
He turned, barked a short command in a guttural mountain dialect. Four rogues sheathed weapons and moved forward. Two lifted Damon as gently as if he were made of glass. Another scooped Leo into fur-lined arms when my exhausted legs finally gave out. The last offered Ryan a massive wolf-pelt cloak, eyes averted in respect.
No one spoke again until the hidden door opened.
It was carved into the cliff face itself, masked by dead vines and illusion runes older than the kingdom. Stone ground aside to reveal torchlight and warmth and the smell of pine smoke and healing herbs.
We descended a tunnel that spiraled deep beneath the mountain. Voices echoed ahead, low, urgent, then hushed as the procession appeared. Wolves lined the walls, men and women with the same half-starved, unbreakable look as their general. Every single one dropped to their knees as I passed.
At the bottom lay a cavern vast enough to hold a village. Fires burned in a dozen pits. Crude banners hung from stalactites, silver eclipse sigils faded but proud. Wounded were tended on rows of cots. Children peered from behind crates stamped with old royal crests. This was no camp. This was a nation in exile.
Damon was carried away immediately by two women whose hands glowed soft green with healer magic. Ryan tried to follow and staggered. Kael caught him effortlessly, steadying the Alpha with a forearm thick as a tree trunk.
"Easy, Black Alpha. Your mate needs you standing, not bleeding out on my floor."
I found strength I did not know I still had. I straightened, Leo now asleep against my shoulder, and faced the scarred general.
"My father," I said, voice raw but steady. "Tell me."
Kael's expression darkened. The torchlight carved deep shadows into the scar.
"He lives, Princess. Chained in the deepest vault of the Silver Prison, dosed daily with enough silver to kill a thousand wolves. The Usurper keeps him alive as a trophy." His fists clenched until knuckles popped. "But the king is changing. The silver eats his mind as well as his body. Some days he remembers who he is. Most days he howls like a beast. Time is running out."
He swept an arm toward the cavern, toward the hundreds of bowed heads, toward the banners that had never surrendered.
"We are what remains of the Royal Legion. We have lived like rats for twenty-five years, waiting for the bloodline to rise again." His single eye fixed on me, fierce and wet. "You are not alone anymore, Princess. You have an army."
I looked at the sea of kneeling wolves, at the children clutching worn eclipse flags, at the old warriors whose eyes shone with tears they refused to let fall.
Power stirred in my chest again, vast, terrifying, inevitable.
I was no longer the rejected mate who scrubbed floors in New York.
I was the storm that would break a kingdom.
And for the first time since the balcony revelation, fear did not come with the thought.
Only fire.