The sound of shattering ice was the most beautiful music I had ever heard.
I stood on the glacier overlooking the ruined river, my breathing heavy, my eyes glowing with absolute, blinding white light. Below me, the freezing waters churned with the desperate, dying thrashing of thousands of the Council's soldiers. The Vanguard was completely broken.
I hadn't stayed in the inner courtyard. The moment Kaelen's forces had engaged in the Jagged Maw, the sheer volume of chaotic energy had pulled me forward. I was not a fragile ornament to be hidden behind stone walls while my pack bled for me.
"A flawless execution, My Queen."
Gamma Silas stepped up beside me on the glacier, entirely unbothered by the sheer drop or the carnage below. His tailored suit was miraculously devoid of blood, though he calmly wiped a few specks of freezing water from his circular spectacles.
"It was only the first wave, Silas," I said, my voice resonating with the ethereal echo of the White Wolf. I looked past the ruined river, toward the massive, untouched sea of golden torches still waiting on the distant hills. "Lucius still has forty thousand men. He is trying to exhaust us."
"Indeed," Silas agreed, his pale blue eyes narrowing as he analyzed the enemy lines. "Grand Marshal Valerius will not make the mistake of sending infantry into a chokepoint again. He is repositioning the heavy cavalry. He intends to flank the mountain."
Through the psychic tether on my neck, a sharp, sudden pulse of pain spiked into my brain.
I gasped, my hand flying to the mate mark. It wasn't my pain. It was Kaelen's.
"The King?" Silas asked, his calm facade slipping for a fraction of a second.
I closed my eyes, diving into the mental link. I saw flashes of blinding gold, felt the searing heat of concentrated Sun-Fire, and smelled the burning flesh of Lycan warriors.
"Lucius didn't just bring Paladins," I said, opening my eyes, the white light flaring dangerously. "He brought the Inquisitor Elite. The zealots. They aren't fighting with swords; they are using suicide tactics. Kamikaze strikes infused with holy explosive magic. Kaelen is in the thick of it."
I didn't wait for Silas's tactical assessment. I leaped off the glacier.
The fall was over a hundred feet, but I didn't hit the ground. A vortex of white, freezing magic erupted beneath my boots, cushioning my descent, turning my kinetic energy into a shockwave that blew the remaining snow into a blinding mist.
I sprinted toward the Jagged Maw, moving faster than any mortal wolf. My inner wolf, Nyx, was howling a war cry that rattled my skull. I was the White Wolf. I was the Queen of the Shadowkeep. And nobody touched my King.
As I plunged into the dark, claustrophobic canyon, the sheer scale of the violence was suffocating. The air was thick with smoke, blood, and the toxic clash of holy and dark magic.
At the center of the battlefield, a massive circle had been cleared.
Kaelen was there. He was surrounded by two dozen Inquisitor Elite—fanatics clad entirely in glowing white robes, their bodies literally radiating unstable, explosive thermal energy. They were essentially living bombs, willing to detonate their own life force just to inflict damage on the Lycan King.
Kaelen's dark armor was scorched, his breathing heavy. He had already slaughtered ten of them, their bisected bodies littering the ground, but he was pinned down. Every time he swung his blade, the Inquisitors violently detonated their shields, sending concussive waves of heat that were slowly melting his armor and burning his skin.
"Submit to the light, beast!" the lead Inquisitor screamed, his eyes rolling back in his head as he prepared to detonate his entire core. "Burn in the holy fire!"
The Inquisitor lunged at Kaelen, his body glowing like a miniature sun.
"KAELEN!" I roared.
I didn't use a weapon. I became the weapon.
I leaped into the air, clearing the distance between us in a single, gravity-defying bound. I landed directly between Kaelen and the detonating Inquisitor.
I didn't raise a shield. I simply opened my arms and caught the explosion.
The holy fire, designed to obliterate dark magic, slammed into my chest. But instead of burning me, my White Wolf aura violently absorbed it. The golden thermal energy was instantly swallowed by my blinding white light, neutralized, and weaponized.
The battlefield went dead silent as the explosion was snuffed out in a fraction of a second.
The remaining Inquisitors stared at me in absolute, mind-shattering horror.
I stood before them, completely unharmed. My leather armor was pristine. My eyes were burning with the fury of a dying star. I slowly lowered my arms, letting the stolen thermal energy crackle along my fingertips.
I turned my head slightly, glancing back at Kaelen over my shoulder. He was panting, his chest heaving, his crimson eyes wide with a mixture of shock and profound, overwhelming lust.
"Are you injured?" I asked him, my voice completely calm, ignoring the terrified zealots surrounding us.
"Merely inconvenienced, My Queen," Kaelen rumbled, a dark, blood-soaked smile spreading across his face as he wiped a streak of soot from his jaw. He stepped up beside me, his massive presence merging with my own.
I turned back to the Inquisitors. They were already taking a step back, their fanaticism completely broken by the impossible reality standing before them.
"You wished to see the holy fire," I whispered, the sound carrying an ethereal, lethal resonance.
I raised both hands and unleashed the absorbed energy back at them, multiplied by the wrath of the White Wolf.
A catastrophic wave of blinding white fire erupted from my palms. It hit the remaining Inquisitors with the force of a hurricane. There were no screams. There was no resistance. They were instantly, flawlessly incinerated, turned to nothing but fine, gray ash that scattered in the freezing northern wind.
I lowered my hands, the white fire fading back into my veins.
Kaelen stepped forward, his massive hand wrapping around the back of my neck, pulling me flush against him. He kissed me—a hard, brutal, claiming kiss right there in the middle of the slaughter, surrounded by the ash of our enemies.
"The Vanguard is broken," Kaelen announced to his roaring Lycan army, his voice echoing through the canyon. He lifted his massive broadsword, pointing it toward the distant golden hills. "Now, we march on the Marshal. Take no prisoners!"