He realised it too late that Torin was just the distraction, the expected consequence of Elias's fake "clemency."
The Alpha had played his hand, now Kael would play his.
He pulled himself back into the ventilation shaft, the dust of the old manor coating his skin.
He was no longer just running.
He was hunting a ghost hired by a secret enemy,
and he now had two vital clues
Cinderwood and the fact that Meridas, the Lycan architect, and Torin, the Lycan executioner, were both taking orders from a non-Lycan source.
The rhythmic thump-thump of boots entering the office below was heavy and purposeful.
Torin was furious.
"He is in here, gentlemen," Torin's voice was a low, dangerous growl.
"Seal the doors. We find the Rogue, and we send him back to the earth where he belongs.
No Alpha interference this time."
They didn't search. They didn't scout. They went straight to the center of the room, using technology or scent magic to pinpoint the disturbance where Kael had been standing.
They were not looking for an explanation they were looking for a corpse.
He knows I found something.
Kael pressed his body flat against the cold metal duct.
The scent of silver was so powerful it felt like a physical pressure against his chest.
He reached into his boot, his fingers finding the familiar, rough grip of the cold iron dagger.
It was heavy and clumsy, but unlike silver, it didn't announce its presence.
He listened to the movements below: four pairs of boots, shifting furniture, and then a series of clicking sounds Lycan tracking emitters being placed on the desk and the floor.
They were locking down the room.
Kael slid silently backward through the duct. The path led directly to the old chimney line. He had minutes, maybe seconds, before they tracked his body heat through the metal.
He reached the end of the shaft where the old flue used to vent. Using the iron dagger, he quickly, desperately worked the rusted bolts of the inspection hatch
. It opened not into the room, but into the narrow space between the chimney wall and the outer stone facade a forgotten space of soot and cobwebs.
He slid down the rough stone channel, the descent fast and painful, ignoring the scraping of concrete against his clothes. He was leaving behind the clean, masked scents of Elias's office and plunging into the raw, unadulterated smell of the Earth.
Kael emerged silently into the shadows of the stable block, half a mile from the Alpha's office.
He was coated in dust and ash fitting, since he was now hunting a ghost connected to Cinderwood.
He knew what Cinderwood meant. It was the heartland of the Eastern Druid Enclaves, the most formidable, private, and magically shielded organization outside the Lycan Compacts.
They never got involved in Pack business. They only acted for an astronomical fee, and their currency was power.
The tracking wafer Kael had salvaged a dull silver wafer magnetized to the smallest concentrations of Lycan magic led him not to a bustling city or a distant territory, but to a seemingly innocuous abandoned hunting lodge nestled deep within the neutral foothills.
It was a place neither Pack dared claim, forgotten by human cartography. Perfect for a ghost seeking refuge.
Kael approached in absolute silence, his movements a fluid contradiction to the ache in his muscles.
The manor was ancient, stone choked with ivy, yet the air around it felt strangely stagnant the magical signature of a powerful Lycan, intentionally dulled and contained.
Meridas was here, and he was barricaded.
Kael slipped through a breach in the foundation, entering a cellar carved from bedrock.
The stone here was too deep to carry the scent of Cinderwood, but the false security of the location itself spoke volumes.
Meridas didn't hide from enemies, he hid from those who knew his secrets.
He found the elder in the lodge's main room, which was shockingly well-furnished.
Meridas, a figure of lean, scholarly authority, was seated by a roaring stone hearth. He wasn't surprised.
He didn't even flinch as Kael emerged from the shadows, the cold iron dagger now resting on the hearth's mantle a silent threat and a promise of restraint.
"You took your time, Kael, Meridas said his voice quiet, the warmth of the fire doing nothing to thaw the cynicism in his eyes.
He didn't offer a greeting, or an apology, only a statement of fact.
"I knew Elias would give you a chance to run. I simply underestimated how long it would take Torin to track the heat signature."
"You are the ghost I was hunting," Kael stated, his voice low and heavy.
"You set the stage. You gave me the knife. You sold the North."
Meridas smiled a thin, unnerving gesture that didn't reach his eyes.
"I didn't sell the North, Kael. I facilitated its inevitable transition.
You saw Valerius. Stubborn, outdated. A relic destined to drag the Pack into ruin. I merely provided the catalyst."
"And the price?" Kael asked.
"Who hired you to use me as the Alpha-Slayer? The name, Meridas. The one who benefits from a broken North and hires Druids."
Meridas looked into the flames, a deep, unsettling sadness flickering across his aged features.
"The name, Kael? It is far less important than the mechanism.
" He gestured around the room. "I was trapped in a lie older than you, Kael.
Valerius's Pack was bound by a secret debt, a magical covenant to an organization that ensures balance a balance achieved only by dissolving powerful, independent Packs."
"Who?" Kael insisted, stepping closer, his shadow falling across Meridas.
Meridas finally met Kael's eyes, and there was no deceit there, only a profound weariness.
"You want the name of the organization? You want the proof that Druids were hired by them to frame you? I can give you the scrolls, Kael. But the truth is far simpler, and far more dangerous."
Meridas leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, forcing Kael to strain to hear over the crackling fire.
"I didn't put the knife in your hand because I was paid. I did it because I was afraid."
"Afraid of what?"
Meridas closed his eyes. "The forces that required Valerius's death, Kael, are the same forces that keep the sun moving across the sky. They don't have a name you can fight. They have an Agenda.
They offered me two choices
Frame a willing victim and live in comfortable obscurity, or expose the debt and watch them obliterate the entire Bloodmoon Pack."
"I chose the lie that saved us," Meridas finished, finally looking at the dagger on the mantle.
"And that lie, Kael, is far, far larger than a simple political hit."
The room went cold despite the roaring fire. Kael understood.
Meridas wasn't a mercenary; he was a terrified survivor who sacrificed Kael to protect the Pack from an unimaginable threat. The external war wasn't political it was cosmic.
"The Druids," Kael rasped, his mind racing. "The Cinderwood scent. They are the field agents for this 'Agenda.' Where are they operating now?"
Meridas pointed a trembling finger toward an unadorned leather-bound ledger resting beneath the mantle.
"The Agenda moves East, Kael.
The ledger contains the names of every Lycan Elder who swore the ancient oath to them. Find that ledger, and you will find the next Elder they intend to sacrifice to maintain their 'balance.'
That is where the Druids are hunting now."
Kael snatched the ledger, his mind already calculating the fastest route East.
He looked back at Meridas, whose eyes were filled with tears of relief and despair.
"Thank you, Architect," Kael said, the words heavy with betrayal, yet laced with a strange gratitude for the truth.
He turned and melted into the shadows, leaving Meridas to the quiet, terrifying solitude of his safe haven and his overwhelming guilt.
The real weight of the lie had just begun to crush Kael.