The wolves didn’t leave the floor.

They knelt, they bled, they burned themselves, voices shaking the hall like a storm.

“Bone and Flame. Crown and Scar. Mother. Father. Heir.”

It was no longer prophecy.

It was liturgy.

Every word pressed on me like chains.

Every cry sharpened the shards in my flesh.

Kael tried to rise, but his scar jerked him down, blood searing along its sigils.

The bond was too deep, too raw.

We couldn’t move without tearing each other apart.

And the court ...