Ardyn POV

The throne room felt wrong.

Not just the air, heavy with incense and wolf sweat. Not just the whispers echoing through the pillars.

The wrongness was in Kael.

His scar pulsed in rhythm with my flames, but it was no longer passive. It watched. It listened. It hungered.

He stood at my side like always, head high, shoulders squared. But his hand twitched against the hilt of his blade as if it didn’t belong to him.

The court stared at him like he was a rabid beast.

And maybe he ...