Kael stood rigid against the wall outside the Ante-Chamber, the cold iron dagger now sheathed.
He could hear the weary scribe inside, complaining about the light and the fading ledger.
A tired mind is an easy target.
He wouldn't use force yet; a struggle would invite the immediate attention of the internal patrols. He needed to pull the scribe out, away from the documents, into the relative silence of the service corridor.
He took a slow, deliberate breath, relying on the Lycan's inherent ability to subtly manipulate sound.
He didn't speak loudly, but he pitched his voice to carry a strange, muffled resonance, as if he were speaking into a large, empty chamber.
"The Commander… he knows the genetic markers were falsified."
The scraping of the pen stopped instantly. Kael heard a sharp intake of breath inside the room.
He waited five seconds, letting the silence magnify the impact of the accusation.
He spoke again, keeping his voice low and laced with an icy authority that mimicked the new Alpha's guard
"The original ledger... the one with the mixed blood notation.
It must be secured now."
The effect was instantaneous and exactly what Kael had hoped for. The scribe didn't call for a guard.
The scribe panicked about the ledger.
The "Agenda" wasn't just about security; it was about protecting the fabricated historical narrative.
Kael heard the chair scrape back, followed by the clatter of a heavy book being quickly shelved.
The latch on the wooden door clicked open, and the scribe burst out, their eyes wide with fear and distraction.
He was a middle-aged, thin man, not a Lycan, dressed in the pale, starched uniform of a high-level administrative assistant.
His hands were shaking, and he was clutching a small, tarnished key on a chain.
The scribe didn't even look left or right, his entire focus drawn to the voice that had vanished.
"Who said that? Where is the Commander? The markers are correct—I verified the Alpha's bloodline—"
"The Commander is waiting for you," Kael's deep voice cut in, this time coming from directly behind the scribe.
The man whirled around, letting out a choked cry as he finally registered the monstrous figure looming over him
Kael, smelling intensely of rotting sea brine and oil, his eyes sharp and merciless.
"W-who are you? How did you... the perimeter—"
Kael didn't give him time to raise an alarm. He pressed the flat of his hand against the man's chest and shoved him silently, efficiently, back against the wall of the service corridor.
He wasn't using Lycan strength, just pure shock and leverage.
"Where is the original ledger? The one that records the true parentage?" Kael demanded, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper.
The scribe was paralyzed by fear. "It's sealed! It's not here! Only the Elder has the key to the vault, I just work with the copies, please—"
Kael noted the desperation. The scribe had the key to the Ante-Chamber, but not the vault itself.
However, the scribe's work area was the immediate prize.
"The copies will do," Kael growled. He snatched the small, tarnished key from the scribe's chain and shoved the terrified man back into the darkness of the maintenance closet he had just exited.
Before the scribe could register the insult of the hiding place, Kael slammed the heavy steel door shut and locked it from the outside.
He had bought himself minutes, maybe less.
Kael didn't waste a second. He unlocked the heavy wooden door, slipped inside the Ante-Chamber, and locked the door behind him.
The chamber was small, dominated by a large mahogany desk covered in stacks of crisp parchment.
On a secure, rotating stand was the device the scribe had mentioned: a high-resolution optical scanner used for digitalizing old documents.
And right next to the scanner, open and gleaming faintly under a shaded lamp, was a massive, leather-bound book—the ledger the scribe had just been reading.
The scent of ancient parchment and dry ink filled the air.
Kael moved to the desk, his heart pounding. This was it.
The book felt heavy, fragile, and utterly vital in his hands.
He flipped it open to the section the scribe had marked, plunging into the labyrinthine records of the Sunstone Pack's bloodlines.
He had seconds before the alarm from the water intake was fixed and the fortress security began its systematic search.
Kael has the ledger! Where should he look first for the "mixed blood" or the "falsified markers" within the Sunstone records?
Alpha-Elect Varian & Luna Leila.
It was the official story—the lie he had always been told.
He slammed his hand down, frustratingly finding nothing out of the ordinary, yet the scribe's fear and the mention of "falsified markers" confirmed this was the right place.
He looked closer at the page.
The entries were made in immaculate, official script, but he noticed a subtle, almost invisible difference in the ink color on his entry line.
Under the bright lamp, the words Pure Sunstone Lineage seemed a fraction darker, the ink slightly thicker, suggesting they had been written over.
He carefully ran his thumb across the page. The old parchment was thin, and under the light, he could see a ghost image of the words originally written beneath the bold script.
The original text was scratchy, almost scrubbed out.
Using the faint light, Kael deciphered the ghost words.
His heart hammered against his ribs, finally understanding the true weight of the lie.
The original entry had read:
Offspring is Kael but a Mixed Lineage of Sunstone and Cypress Valley Pack. Alpha Candidate .
The truth hit him like a physical blow: He wasn't pure Sunstone.
His mother, Luna Leila, had lineage tied to the neighboring, smaller Cypress Valley Pack, a pack deemed 'weaker' and less dominant.
The lie wasn't about treason; it was about purity.
The new "Agenda" wasn't just consolidating power—it was an ethnic cleansing, rooting out any Lycan with blood that didn't meet their arbitrary standard of genetic superiority.
Suddenly, a new sound cut through the silence of the Ante-Chamber
the high-pitched chirp of a two-way radio coming from the Elder's inner suite, adjacent to the chamber.
The water crisis was over.
The fortress was locking down, and the hunt for the intruder would now shift from the outside infrastructure to the inside.
Kael quickly snapped a clear, precise image of the page with his phone the image showing the overwritten text was the only evidence he needed.
He slammed the massive ledger shut, placed it exactly where he had found it, and spun toward the door leading to the Elder's inner suite.
The scribe's frantic call hadn't been about the ledger; it had been about the vault key the scribe didn't have. Kael had the truth, but the full details of the "Agenda"—the names of the conspirators, the plans for the elimination—were likely in a secure vault, which Elder Lysandra herself had access to.
He had minutes to find the key before the locked-down fortress found him.
The only way forward was to go deeper into the heart of the conspiracy.