ZARIA'S POV 
The quiet of the hallway felt heavy as I walked back toward my room, my mind still trying to process the absolute ruin of Garrick's lies down in the cells. I was completely exhausted, every muscle in my body aching from the fight, wanting nothing more than to close my eyes and let the world fade away for a few hours.
"Lady Zaria?"
A soft, hesitant voice broke the silence. I stopped and turned to see a young palace servant standing a few feet away, clutching a small leather ledger to his chest. He looked incredibly nervous, his eyes darting toward the floor before he forced himself to look up at me.
"Forgive me," he stammered, bowing his head slightly. "King Cassian requested your immediate presence down near the lower vault area. He said there's a strategy update regarding the border security that you need to hear right away."
I frowned slightly, a faint wave of exhaustion washing over me. "The lower vault? Now?"
"Yes, mi lady. He said it was urgent." The boy bowed again, quickly turning on his heel and hurrying down the intersecting corridor before I could ask anything else.
He looked scared and as if he was frightened of me. Or was it Cassian that he was scared of? I shrugged absentmindedly and wiped my eyes. Although I don't understand why he would need me just to discuss border matters, when he could have called his soldiers, I clean my eyes and brace myself to face him.
I let out a slow, quiet breath and adjusted the heavy wool blanket around my shoulders. If Cassian needed me down there, it meant the threat from the neighboring packs was worse than he had let on. I turned around and began making my way down the spiraling stone steps, heading toward the deeper, more secure levels of the palace.
The lower corridor was completely deserted, the torchlight flickering unevenly against the dark granite walls. As I neared the end of the hall, the quiet was broken by the sharp, muffled sound of voices echoing through the heavy oak door of the council vault.
I slowed my steps, my brow furrowing. I recognized those voices. It was Cassian and Helen. I had already met Helen earlier and she didn't look at me with kind eyes, was everything okay?
I walked closer, intending to knock and let them know I had arrived, but the sheer, raw fury in Helen's voice made my hand freeze inches from the wood. The door hadn't latched completely; a tiny gap, no wider than a sliver, left the conversation bleeding out into the hallway with terrifying clarity.
"You brought her here as a weapon, Cassian! Have you forgotten that?"
Helen’s words hit me like a physical blow to the chest. My breath caught in my throat, my hand dropping slowly to my side as my entire body went rigid.
"Have you forgotten the blood on the floor of your parents' chambers?" Helen’s voice climbed, thick with a desperate, angry frustration. "Her father, Alpha Rowan, and Garrick’s father are the ones who orchestrated the raid that destroyed your family. They are the reason you had to take this heavy crown before you were ready!"
The air in the corridor suddenly felt freezing cold. I leaned in closer, my heart hammering against my ribs so loudly I was terrified they would hear it through the wood. My father? Rowan?
"You found her bleeding in the woods," Helen pressed on, her words slicing through the silence, tearing away every ounce of safety I had spent weeks building in this place. "You found her abandoned, and you realized exactly what she was. Her dormant Lycan prophecy bloodline—the very blood her own pack tried to suppress because they were terrified of it—was the ultimate leverage. You knew that if you brought her to the North, if you woke that power up, you could use her to tear their entire alliance apart from the inside out."
Every word felt like a physical strike, a brutal, systematic shattering of every single thing I had come to believe.
"She was your perfect revenge, Cassian! You cannot fall in love with your perfect pawn!"
I waited for him to deny it. I pressed my forehead against the cold wood of the door, silently begging, screaming in my own mind for Cassian to roar back, to tell her she was wrong, to say that he had saved me simply because he couldn't bear to watch me die in the snow.
But there was only silence. A heavy, suffocating silence that confirmed every single word.
Then came the deafening crash of his fist slamming into the stone wall inside, a violent explosion of anger that shook the frame of the door beneath my fingers. But the damage was already done. His fury didn't erase the truth. It only cemented it.
The safety, the warmth, the quiet moments by the window smoothing healing salve over my skin—it was all a lie. The illusion of a sanctuary in the Shadowpelt pack evaporated in a heartbeat, leaving me entirely exposed to the freezing reality. I hadn't been saved. I hadn't been protected. I had simply been traded from one manipulative Alpha who viewed me as a burden to an even more powerful, calculating King who viewed me as a weapon. A tool to be used in a decades-old blood feud against the father who had already abandoned me.
A wave of intense dizziness washed over me, the walls of the corridor spinning as the sheer weight of the betrayal crushed the air right out of my lungs. I needed to get away. I needed to run before the doors opened, before they saw me standing there like a fool.
I took a frantic step backward, but my boots slipped against the damp, uneven stone of the floor. The sudden movement jarred my balance, and a sharp, distinct gasp of pure, agonizing shock escaped my lips into the quiet corridor.
Inside, the voices stopped instantly.
Before I could even steady my feet, the heavy oak door flew open with a violent force. Cassian stepped out into the corridor, his large frame instantly filling the doorway. The furious, alpha heat radiating off him died the exact second his golden eyes locked onto my face.
I watched the color completely drain from his skin, leaving him sickly pale under the torchlight. His eyes widened, shifting from the cold fury of a king to the raw, panicked desperation of a man watching everything slip through his fingers.
"Zaria," he breathed, his voice cracking as he reached a hand out toward me. "Zaria, wait—"
He took a step forward, his fingers brushing the edge of my sleeve, but the touch felt like fire against my skin.
I didn't let him speak. I didn't let him explain, and I didn't stay to hear whatever beautiful, calculated lies he would use to patch up the ruins. Tears finally broke free, hot and blinding as they streaked down my face. I tore myself away from his reach, turned on my heel, and fled into the dark, winding corridors of the palace, leaving his panicked shouts echoing uselessly in the shadows behind me.