The Alpha Wolf stood over the shattered carriage, a mountain of fur and muscle against the blood-red dawn. Its massive chest heaved with each breath, steam rising from its nostrils into the cold morning air. Around it, the remains of nineteen knights lay scattered like broken dolls—torn, crushed, devoured.
Silence.
Complete, absolute silence.
Inside the carriage, Kain pressed himself against the far wall, his heart hammering so hard he could feel it in his throat. The screams had stopped. The fighting had stopped. Everything had stopped.
Did it leave? he wondered, hope flickering despite everything. Did it go after its mistress? Am I alone?
He waited. One second. Five. Ten.
Nothing.
Slowly, carefully, he crawled toward the shattered window. His movements were silent, practiced—the movements of a street rat who had learned long ago how to move without being heard. He reached the window frame and slowly, slowly raised his head to look out.
And found himself staring into an eye the size of his head.
Red and black, swirling like blood in oil, fixed on him with an intelligence that was ancient and patient and utterly without mercy.
Kain's soul tried to leave his body.
The Alpha Wolf's massive head shifted, and its mouth opened.
Jaws.
Not just jaws—a cathedral of teeth. The wolf's mouth opened wider than the carriage itself, wider than anything had a right to open, revealing row after row of dagger-like fangs stretching back into darkness. And caught between those teeth, wedged in the gaps, smeared across the gums—
Human parts.
A brain, still glistening, crushed against an upper canine.
An eye, severed optic nerve dangling, lodged between two teeth like a piece of food.
A hand, fingers still curled in death's final grasp, pierced through by a fang.
Nails. Veins. Strips of flesh. Pieces of people who had been alive minutes ago, now reduced to scraps in a monster's mouth.
Kain's mind couldn't process it.
The world slowed.
He saw death. Not the concept of death, not the fear of death—he saw actual death, inches from his face, teeth closing in, and something inside him simply... gave up.
His heart seized. His vision tunneled. His body, already weak from terror and exhaustion, failed him completely.
He collapsed backward, unconscious before he hit the floor.
The Alpha Wolf's jaws closed.
CRUNCH.
The sound of wood splintering filled the clearing. The carriage roof caved inward. Walls buckled. The wolf's teeth sank deep, searching for the soft meat inside—
And stopped.
A faint golden glow flickered around the carriage's frame. A shield. Ancient magic, woven into the vehicle's construction, flaring to life in the moment of greatest need. The wolf's teeth pressed against it, pushed, strained—but the magic held.
For now.
---
At the edge of the clearing, hidden behind a thick cluster of trees, a single soldier watched in horror.
Private Vex had been sent to buy wine. A simple errand, one he'd complained about, one that had saved his life. His horse had thrown a shoe on the way back, delaying him further. By the time he crested the hill and saw the camp, the attack was already over.
He saw the Alpha Wolf.
He saw the ruined bodies.
He saw the carriage being crushed in those massive jaws.
And he saw Prince Aldric—the Fifth Prince, the useless one, the boy everyone whispered about—disappear into the beast's mouth in one terrible gulp.
Vex didn't wait to see more.
He turned his horse and fled, his mind blank with horror, his only thought to report, report, report.
Behind him, the Alpha Wolf shook the carriage like a dog with a rat, the magical shield flickering with each impact.
---
Inside, Kain lay unconscious on the floor.
He didn't feel the impacts. Didn't hear the snarls. Didn't know that the shield was cracking, splintering, failing with each successive bite.
The wolf's jaws opened again. Wider this time. The shield flickered like a dying candle.
CRUNCH.
Another bite. More wood splintered. The shield dimmed further.
CRUNCH.
A gap appeared in the magical barrier, large enough for a single tooth to pierce through. It sank into Kain's side—not deep, just enough to draw blood, to tear flesh, to mark him as prey.
He didn't feel it.
CRUNCH.
The shield shattered.
The Alpha Wolf's jaws closed around the carriage—and around Kain—and pulled.
In one massive gulp, the beast swallowed him whole.
---
From the hilltop, a flash of light announced the arrival of the Royal Mage Corps.
Too late.
They appeared in the clearing—five mages in golden robes, their leader a woman with silver hair and eyes that missed nothing. They took in the scene in an instant: the bodies, the blood, the wolf, the shattered remains of the royal carriage.
The Alpha Wolf turned to face them, its muzzle dripping with fresh blood, its eyes glowing with challenge.
The lead mage raised her hand. Light gathered.
The wolf snarled.
And then, with the contempt of a predator who had already eaten its fill, the Alpha Wolf turned and loped into the forest, disappearing between the trees like smoke.
The mages didn't follow.
They stood in silence, surveying the carnage.
"Check for survivors," the lead mage ordered quietly. "Quickly."
They moved through the clearing, finding nothing but death. Nineteen knights. One captain. All gone.
And the prince?
The lead mage approached the carriage remains. She saw the blood. The torn upholstery. The tooth marks on what remained of the frame. And there, caught on a splinter of wood—
A piece of fabric. Royal blue. From a prince's traveling clothes.
She picked it up, her face pale.
"There's nothing left," one of her mages reported, his voice shaking. "They're all... he's..."
The lead mage closed her eyes.
"We're too late."
She looked at the forest where the wolf had disappeared, then at the sky where the sun was beginning to rise.
"Report to the palace," she said quietly. "Tell them... tell them the Fifth Prince is dead. Killed by monsters on the road to the southern border."
The mages exchanged glances. One opened a portal, golden light swirling in the air.
"Wait," another said. "Should we search for—"
"There's nothing to search for." The lead mage's voice was final. "He's gone."
She stepped through the portal. One by one, the others followed.
The last mage paused at the threshold, looking back at the clearing—at the blood, the bodies, the silence. Then he too stepped through, and the portal closed behind him.
Silence returned to the clearing.
The sun rose higher, painting the carnage in shades of gold and pink.
And somewhere deep in the forest, in the belly of a beast, Kain's unconscious body was carried toward a fate no one could have predicted.
The Game of Crown wasn't finished with him yet.
The Kingdom of Austrai stirred with news that traveled faster than wind—news of death, of loss, of a prince consumed by beasts on the road to the southern border.
It began in the Mage Tower, where silence fell like a curtain.
---
The golden portal flickered open in the heart of the tower's highest chamber, light spilling across ancient stone floors covered in woven runes. Dame Elara Voss stepped through first, her silver hair disheveled, her robes streaked with something dark that none of the other mages wanted to identify. Behind her came four more, their faces pale as fresh snow, their hands trembling despite their training.
Master Theron sat in his elevated chair at the chamber's center—a relic of a bygone era, carved from the wood of the World Tree itself, or so the legends claimed. He was old, impossibly old, with eyes that had witnessed centuries of human folly. Those eyes narrowed as they fell upon Elara's face.
"Report," he said. Not a request. A command.
Elara's staff clicked against the stone as she stepped forward. She held herself straight—decades of discipline would not abandon her now—but her knuckles were white where they gripped the wood.
"The Fifth Prince is dead."
The words fell into the silence like stones into still water. Ripples spread across the faces of the junior mages working at their stations. Quills paused mid-word. Conversations died.
Theron closed his eyes for a long moment. When he opened them, they held the weight of mountains.
"Tell me everything."
Elara drew a breath. "The protective barrier on his carriage triggered the alarm three hours past midnight. Standard protocol—we assembled a rescue team immediately. Maximum speed teleportation to the last known location."
"And?"
"We arrived too late." The words came harder now, each one dragged from somewhere deep. "The camp was destroyed. Nineteen knights—dead. Commander Marcus—dead. The carriage..." She paused, steadying herself. "The carriage had been torn apart. An Alpha Wolf, by the tracks. Massive. We found pieces of the carriage, pieces of the prince's clothing, but no body. He was... consumed."
Behind her, one of the younger mages made a small sound—a choked gasp quickly suppressed.
Theron sat motionless for what felt like an eternity. Then, slowly, he rose from his chair. The movement seemed to cost him, though whether from age or grief, no one could say.
"Document everything," he said quietly. "Every detail. Every observation. The King will demand answers, and we will provide them."
He began to walk toward the spiral staircase that led down into the tower's heart, then paused.
"Elara."
"Yes, Master?"
"You did everything you could."
He descended into shadow, leaving the words hanging in the air like a benediction—or an absolution.
---
In the royal palace, the news struck like lightning from a clear sky.
The servants' quarters lay in the oldest part of the castle, a warren of narrow corridors and small rooms tucked beneath the grand halls where nobles walked. Here, the castle's true lifeblood flowed—cooks and cleaners, grooms and gardeners, maids and menservants who kept the great machine running.
Mary sat on the edge of her narrow bed, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes fixed on nothing.
Around her, other servants moved with the quiet efficiency of people trying to be invisible. They brought her tea that she didn't drink. They touched her shoulder with brief, awkward pats. They whispered to each other in voices meant not to carry.
But Mary heard nothing.
She only sat there, staring at the wall, seeing a different room entirely—a smaller room, in the prince's quarters, where a lonely boy had once asked her to stay just a little longer because he didn't want to be alone.
She had stayed. She always stayed.
Until now.
The tears came silently at first, sliding down her cheeks without warning. Then her shoulders began to shake. Then the sobs came—great, wracking sounds that she tried to muffle with her hands, because servants weren't supposed to cry, weren't supposed to feel, weren't supposed to love the children they cared for.
But she did love him.
From the moment she'd first seen him—a tiny thing, barely walking, abandoned by his nursemaids in a corridor—she had loved him. Not because he was a prince. Because he was just a child. A child who needed someone.
And now he was gone.
An older maid—Marta, who had been in the palace for forty years—sat down beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She didn't speak. There was nothing to say.
Mary leaned into the embrace and wept.
---
The news spread through Austrai like fire through dry grass, carried by merchants and messengers, travelers and traders. Within a day, everyone knew.
In the markets of Aurelios, vendors lowered their prices without discussion—a small gesture, meaningless in the grand scheme, but somehow fitting. In the taverns, men drank in silence, raising glasses to a prince they'd never met. In the temples, candles were lit for a soul that had passed too soon.
The Fifth Prince.
The forgotten one.
The spare that no one needed.
Gone.
Some spoke of him with genuine sorrow—a young man cut down before his time, a life unlived, potential unrealized. Others spoke with the casual indifference of those for whom noble deaths were merely entertainment. And a few—a very few—spoke with something darker: satisfaction that one less royal breathed the same air as them.
But in the royal family itself, grief wore many faces.
And some of those faces were not grief at all.
---
The Northern Border stretched endlessly beneath a sky the color of iron. Mountains rose like jagged teeth against the horizon, their peaks wrapped in clouds that had not lifted in living memory. Snow covered everything in a thick white blanket, and wind howled through the passes with a sound like the world itself was mourning.
In the center of a training ground carved from the living rock, the First Prince of Austrai stood bare-chested in the freezing cold.
Prince Valerius Astra was a monument to violence. Six and a half feet of muscle and scar tissue, his body a canvas upon which battle had painted its history. His arms were thicker than most men's legs. His hands could crush stone. His eyes held the flat, empty look of someone who had killed so many times that death had lost all meaning.
Before him stood a beast that would have made ordinary men flee in terror—a mountain bull, twice the size of any normal creature, its hide thick as castle walls, its horns sharp enough to pierce plate armor. It pawed the ground, steam billowing from its nostrils, red eyes fixed on the prince with murderous intent.
Valerius grabbed its horns and wrestled.
The bull bellowed—a sound like rocks grinding together—and lunged forward, trying to drive those horns through the prince's chest. Valerius held firm, muscles bulging, veins standing out on his neck and forehead like ropes beneath the skin. His feet slid backward through the snow, leaving furrows in the frozen ground.
A servant approached the edge of the training ground, a parchment trembling in his gloved hand. He was young, maybe sixteen, and he looked like he would rather be anywhere else in the world.
"Your Highness!" he called, his voice barely carrying over the wind and the bull's bellows. "News from the capital!"
Valerius didn't look away from the bull. "Read it."
The servant fumbled with the parchment, his cold fingers struggling to unfold it. Finally, he managed:
"Prince Aldric is dead. Killed by monsters on the road to the southern border."
For a moment—just a moment—Valerius's hands loosened on the bull's horns.
The beast lunged forward, nearly catching him off balance. But Valerius recovered with the speed of long practice, planting his feet and shoving back with a roar of effort.
Then he threw his head back and laughed.
The sound echoed off the mountains, wild and loud and utterly without sorrow. It was the laugh of a man who had just been given excellent news.
"My useless brother!" he shouted at the gray sky. "Finally! Finally he's gone!"
He threw the bull aside—actually threw it, sending the massive creature tumbling across the snow to crash against a boulder. The beast lay stunned, mooing piteously.
Valerius grabbed a training sword from a nearby rack and began his forms, his movements precise and powerful despite the cold.
"Good," he said between strikes. "Good. One less weakling dragging down the family name. Now I can focus on what actually matters."
The servant stood frozen, uncertain whether to leave or stay.
Valerius noticed him still there. "What are you waiting for? Get out of here. And send someone to collect that bull—it's not dead yet, and I'm not done with it."
The servant bowed quickly and fled.
Behind him, Valerius continued his training, already forgetting the brother who had never mattered to him.
---
The Royal Palace — Princess Seraphina's Chambers.
If Valerius was a monument to violence, his younger sister was a masterpiece of cruelty.
Princess Seraphina Astra lounged on a chair that might as well have been a throne—cushioned in silk, surrounded by velvet drapes, positioned so that everyone who entered had to look up at her. Her beauty was the cold, sharp kind, the sort that made people uncomfortable rather than admiring. Dark hair fell in perfect waves past her shoulders. Her eyes held the calculating gleam of someone who had never met a person she couldn't use.
Around her, servants moved like shadows, anticipating her every need before she voiced it. Wine appeared at her elbow. Grapes materialized on a silver plate. The fire was stoked to exactly the right temperature.
A messenger knelt at the edge of the carpet, his head bowed, a parchment clutched in his hands.
"Speak," Seraphina said, examining her nails.
"The Fifth Prince, Your Highness. He's... he's dead. Killed on the road to the southern border."
The room went still.
Seraphina's hand paused mid-examination.
Then, slowly, a smile spread across her face. It wasn't a nice smile. It was the smile of someone who had just been given a gift they'd always wanted but never expected to receive.
"Dead?" she repeated, savoring the word. "Dead. My dear little brother is actually dead."
She rose from her chair, silk robes flowing around her like water. She walked to the window, looking out at the palace grounds below, at the people going about their lives, unaware that the world had just improved.
"That bastard," she said softly. "That little black-haired imposter. Finally gone."
She turned back to face her servants, spreading her arms wide.
"Rejoice!" Her voice rang through the chamber. "The traitor has been killed! Bring me the finest wine—no, bring me the second finest, I'm saving the best for something truly special. Tonight, we celebrate!"
The servants moved to obey, their faces carefully blank. None of them met each other's eyes. None of them smiled.
But they brought the wine anyway, because that was what you did when a princess commanded.
Seraphina accepted a goblet, raised it high, and drank deeply.
"To my dead brother," she said, laughter in her voice. "May whatever gods exist have more use for him than I ever did."
---
The Eastern Garrison — Fourth Prince's Quarters.
Prince Darian Astra sat alone in his chambers, a sword across his knees and a whetstone in his hand. The rhythmic shink-shink-shink of stone against steel was the only sound in the room—a meditative sound, the sound of a young man preparing himself for a future he could only dimly perceive.
He was not like his siblings.
Where Valerius was violence incarnate and Seraphina was cruelty perfected, Darian was... softer. Kinder. The sort of person who smiled at servants and thanked them for their work. The sort who played with the palace cats and fed scraps to the dogs. The sort who had, somehow, become best friends with the brother everyone else ignored.
The door opened.
Darian looked up, expecting a servant with news about dinner or a message about training. Instead, he saw an old soldier—one of his father's veterans, a man named Corvin who had served the royal family for forty years.
Corvin's face was gray.
"Your Highness," he said. His voice cracked on the words. "I bring... I bring terrible news."
Darian set down the whetstone. "What is it?"
Corvin opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. No words came.
Darian stood slowly, suddenly afraid in a way he hadn't been since childhood. "Corvin. Tell me."
"It's Prince Aldric, Your Highness." The old soldier's eyes were wet. "He's gone. Killed on the road. An Alpha Wolf—"
The sword clattered to the floor.
Darian didn't hear it. Didn't feel it. Didn't know anything except that the world had just tilted sideways and nothing made sense anymore.
"No," he whispered.
Corvin reached out as if to steady him, then stopped, uncertain. "Your Highness, I'm so sorry. I'm so—"
"No."
The word was louder now, carrying the weight of denial, of refusal, of desperate hope that this was all a mistake, a lie, a terrible dream.
But Corvin's face told him it wasn't.
Darian's legs gave way. He sank to his knees, his hands reaching for nothing, finding nothing. His little brother. The one he had taught to climb trees. The one he had defended from bullies. The one who laughed at his jokes when no one else did.
Gone.
A sound escaped him—not a word, not a cry, just... anguish. Pure, unfiltered anguish that tore its way out of his chest and filled the room.
Corvin knelt beside him, one gnarled hand on his shoulder. "Let it out, lad. Let it all out."
Darian did.
He wept until he had nothing left. He tore at his tunic, needing to feel something other than the gaping hole inside him. He screamed his brother's name at walls that didn't care.
And when the tears finally slowed, when the sobs became gasps became silence, he reached for his sword.
His hand wrapped around the hilt with a grip like iron.
He rose.
Without a word, without a sound, he raised the blade high above his head and brought it down on the stone floor.
The sword split the stone like water.
A crack ran across the room, deep and permanent, a scar in the earth that would remain long after everyone in this room was dust. The blade embedded itself in the floor and stayed there, quivering.
"I swear it," Darian said. His voice was raw, broken, but absolute. "I swear on his memory—I will find whoever did this. I will make them pay. I will—"
His voice broke again.
He left the sword in the floor and walked to the window, staring out at a world that had just become much darker.
Behind him, Corvin bowed his head and wept too.
---
The Strategy Chamber — Prince Cassian's Domain.
If grief had many faces, so did its absence.
Prince Cassian Astra sat at the head of a long oak table surrounded by maps and reports and the finest military minds the kingdom could produce. Generals with scars and hard eyes. Advisors with ink-stained fingers and sharper tongues. Officials of every rank, every specialty, every ambition.
All of them silent.
The silence was not the respectful silence of mourning. It was the terrified silence of men who knew they were sitting across from a predator, and that predator was not happy.
Cassian's face was calm. Perfectly, terrifyingly calm.
The Mage Report lay before him, each word a nail in the coffin of his plans. He had read it three times, searching for something—anything—he could use. A discrepancy. A loophole. A single thread to pull.
There was nothing.
The protective barrier had triggered the alarm. The rescue team had arrived within minutes. They had found the camp destroyed, the knights dead, the prince consumed. Witnesses—multiple witnesses—had seen everything and reported it in detail to the Mage Council.
He couldn't twist this. Couldn't manipulate it. Couldn't use it.
And the King—his father—had already responded. Not war. Not demon blame. Just a hunting expedition. Kill the wolves in that region and be done with it.
All that planning. All those pieces. All that work.
For nothing.
Cassian picked up a silver wine cup from the table. It was beautiful work—engraved with hunting scenes, inlaid with gold. He examined it for a long moment, watching the candlelight play across its surface.
Then he hurled it against the wall.
The cup clanged and clattered, wine splashing across the stone in a spray of red that looked disturbingly like blood.
"FUCK!"
The generals flinched. The advisors looked at their feet. No one moved. No one breathed.
Cassian stood, his chair scraping back, his golden eyes blazing with a fury that made hardened warriors want to hide under the table.
"Where did it go wrong?" His voice was low, controlled, more dangerous than any shout. "I planned everything. Everything. Every contingency. Every possibility. And now—" He gestured at the report with a sharp, angry motion. "Now I have nothing. Not a single survivor we can use. Not a single thread to pull."
He began to pace, his steps sharp and precise, each one a small violence against the floor.
"Someone find me a survivor." He didn't look at anyone in particular—he didn't have to. "Someone find me anything I can use. A witness who saw something different. A piece of evidence that doesn't fit. Because if I have nothing—"
He stopped pacing. Turned to face them.
"Then all of you will have nothing as well."
The threat hung in the air like smoke, acrid and unavoidable.
General Marcus Vane's replacement—a man named Aldric, ironically, though no one laughed—cleared his throat carefully. "Your Highness, the Mage Council has already filed their official report. The King has accepted it. Any attempt to contradict—"
"Contradict?" Cassian's smile was terrible. "I'm not going to contradict anything. I'm going to use it. I just need something—some tiny detail—that points in a useful direction."
Silence.
No one had anything.
Cassian stared at them for a long moment, then laughed—a short, humorless sound.
"Get out," he said quietly. "All of you. I need to think."
They fled.
---
Outside the strategy chamber, in a dark corner where the torchlight didn't reach, a young maid named Juliya pressed herself against the cold stone wall.
She had heard everything.
She had been listening for hours, ever since Cassian sent her here with that final command: Watch. Listen. Report.
She didn't know why he had spared her. In that moment when his sword should have taken her head, something had flickered in his eyes—interest, amusement, something she couldn't name. He had sent her away with a warning and a purpose.
Now she had purpose.
But as she listened to his rage echo through the stone, she wondered what came next. The game wasn't over. It was only changing.
And somewhere in this vast, cruel kingdom, a dead prince's body was being carried through the darkness toward a fate no one could predict.
---
Far away, in the depths of the ancient forest, the Alpha Wolf moved through the trees like a shadow made flesh.
Its belly was full—not satisfied, wolves were never truly satisfied, but full enough. Inside that belly, surrounded by darkness and acid and the remains of its last meal, Kain's unconscious body was carried deeper into the wild.
Toward what end, not even the wolf knew.
But somewhere, far to the east, in the mists of the Veilborn Expanse unknown entity.
As if sensing something.
As if knowing that their guardian was coming.
Even if he didn't know it yet.