The tunnel swallowed us whole.
No torch could live long down here; the air itself seemed to drink flame, suffocating any light we tried to kindle. We moved by the cold, sickly green glow of runes etched into the walls thousands of years ago—runes that bled slow tears of salt and iron. The passage was not carved from stone; it felt like the fossilized gut of something ancient and enormous. Ribs of black basalt arched overhead, slick with centuries of seepage. Every footstep echoed too long, bouncing off the damp walls as though the Vein listened, tasted, and remembered every soul foolish enough to enter.
The smell was worse than death. It was old blood baked into stone, brine from a sea that no longer existed, and beneath it all, the metallic reek of silver so pure it burned my lungs with every breath.
General Kael led the way, his massive shoulders almost brushing both walls. Ryan followed close behind, his hand resting on the small of my back, steadying me over patches where the floor fell away into nothingness. Behind us came the two shadow wolves: Jax, young and eager, his eyes reflecting the green runes like a cat's, and quiet, older Soren who never spoke unless someone was dying.
We had been walking for hours that felt like days. Time had no meaning in the dark. My legs burned, but the adrenaline of the mission kept me moving.
Then Jax's boot scraped something wrong.
A single rune flared crimson beneath his weight.
Time slowed to a crawl.
I heard the click—faint, like a bone snapping—before I saw the movement. Jax tried to jerk back, his instincts sharp, but the stone under his foot simply opened. A perfect circle of darkness yawned wide beneath him. He pitched forward with a startled yelp that cut off the instant he fell.
No scream followed. No sound of impact. Only the wet, distant splash of a body striking water far, far below, followed by a silence thick as burial dirt.
"Jax!" Soren lunged forward, but Kael's arm shot out, barring his path.
"Don't," Kael snarled, slamming his sword point-down into the floor to mark the trap. "He's gone. Pressure plates from the old wars. They never disarmed the Vein. They only fed it."
I stared at the black hole where the young wolf had been just seconds ago. One heartbeat he was there, breathing, alive, ready to fight for a kingdom he had never seen. The next he was gone, erased as casually as breath on glass. My stomach lurched violently.
Ryan's arms circled me from behind, pulling me back from the edge. His chest was a solid wall of warmth against my shivering back.
"Keep moving, love," he whispered, though his voice was tight with rage. "Eyes forward. Don't look down."
We stepped over the marked stone with exaggerated care after that, every footfall a silent prayer. The cost of this mission had just become terrifyingly real.
Deeper we went. The walls began to pulse faintly, like a dying heart struggling to beat. The runes shifted color, bleeding from green to bruise-purple, then to arterial red. The air grew warmer, humid, tasting of copper and magic.
Finally, Kael stopped.
Before us rose a wall that should not have existed.
It was a seamless slab of obsidian that stretched from floor to ceiling, veined with silver so pure it glowed in the dark. Ancient script crawled across its surface like living things, writhing when the dim light touched them.
"The Blood Gate," Kael said, his voice hushed with something close to fear. "The last defense before the prison levels. It drinks what it is offered and judges worth."
He drew a dagger from his belt, sliced his own palm without hesitation, and pressed the open wound to the stone. Blood hissed where it touched, steaming away to nothing.
The gate did not move. It did not even shimmer.
"Royal blood only," Kael reminded us, stepping aside. He looked at me, his single eye filled with a heavy expectation.
I swallowed hard. This was it. The moment I proved I wasn't just a rogue with delusions of grandeur.
I rolled up my sleeve, exposing my forearm. The others formed a silent half-circle behind me. I took the dagger from Kael. The blade was cold, but my blood was hot. I cut deeper than necessary—punishment or proof, I was no longer sure. Crimson welled up, hot and bright in the gloom.
I laid my palm flat against the freezing stone.
The reaction was immediate and vicious.
The gate lunged forward—not physically, but inside my mind. It invaded my blood, my bones, my memories. Images hammered me with the force of a physical blow: myself as a starving rogue scrubbing floors in New York; myself crawling on hands and knees for scraps; myself crying in the rain as Ryan walked away.
Weak, the magic whispered in my head. Unworthy. Tainted by human cities. Tainted by shame.
The magic recoiled from the memory of my rejection, from the years I had worn shame like a second skin. It tried to push me out, to burn me from the inside.
You are no princess. You are filth. You are forgotten.
Pain exploded through every vein, silver fire racing up my arm toward my heart. My knees buckled. I gasped, trying to pull away, but my hand was stuck fast to the stone.
Ryan caught me before I hit the ground. His arms locked around my waist, his chest pressed to my back.
"I have you," he whispered against my ear, fierce and steady. "Breathe, Aria. You are not alone. Never again."
His strength poured into me, grounding me when I felt like I was dissolving. I sagged against him, my vision tunneling, but the gate kept drinking, greedy, trying to empty me of everything that made me royal.
Enough.
The word rose from the deepest part of me. Not from the princess, but from the mother. From the woman who had carried Leo alone through blizzards and hunger and heartbreak. From the survivor who had built an empire from nothing.
I straightened in Ryan's arms. I dug my heels into the stone floor. I lifted my bleeding hand and slammed it back against the obsidian so hard the impact cracked bone.
"I am Aria of the Silver Eclipse," I said. My voice was not loud, yet it filled the tunnel until the runes themselves trembled and dimmed. "Daughter of the true king. Mate of the Crimson Alpha. Mother of the twice-born prince. I was rejected, yes. I was broken, yes. But I rose. And you will open."
The gate shrieked.
It was not a metaphor. The obsidian actually screamed—a sound of tearing metal and breaking teeth that drove spikes into my ears. Silver veins shattered outward from my palm like frozen lightning. The magic fought, clawed, tried to brand me unworthy one final time.
I bared my teeth and let the power inside me loose. I let the Voice pour out—ancient, merciless, absolute.
"OPEN."
The command struck the stone like a hammer of god.
The gate exploded inward in a storm of black shards and silver dust.
Kael dropped to one knee without thinking, his head bowed so low his forehead scraped the floor. Soren followed an instant later. Even Ryan's arms tightened around me in instinctive submission to the aura rolling off my skin.
The way ahead was clear—a jagged maw leading down into perfect, suffocating darkness.
I sagged, the power draining out of me like blood from a cut artery. Ryan held me upright, pressing desperate kisses to my temple, my hair, anywhere he could reach.
"You did it," he breathed. "Goddess, you did it."
Kael rose slowly, awe written plain across his scarred face. He looked at me as if I were a ghost come back to life. "I followed a legend for twenty years," he said, his voice rough with emotion. "Tonight, I met my queen."
I managed a trembling smile, though my hand throbbed with a dull, heavy ache. "Help me walk, General. We're not finished."
We moved again, slower now, supporting each other over rubble still smoking from the gate's death throes.
The tunnel narrowed, then widened into a natural cavern. The air changed instantly. It became thick with despair and the unmistakable stench of long suffering—rotting straw, unwashed bodies, and fear. Iron bars appeared ahead, ancient, thick as a man's thigh, laced with silver that still wept liquid poison after centuries.
We had reached the lowest level of the Silver Prison. The place where they kept monsters.
Silence should have greeted us.
Instead, a scream tore through the dark. It was raw, inhuman, ending in a wet cough that sounded like blood spraying against stone.
I froze. My heart hammered against my ribs. That sound... it was the sound of a soul breaking.
Then another voice drifted from the shadows. Cultured. Amused. Dripping with poison.
"Welcome, niece," the voice said softly. "I've been expecting you."