The news of Oakhaven's liberation spread faster than a forest fire.
Gamma Silas's riders had dispersed into the Neutral Zone, carrying the shattered pieces of the Abyssal Weaver's obsidian relic. They didn't bring threats; they brought proof. The High Council, the self-proclaimed voice of the Moon Goddess, was summoning void demons to slaughter its own citizens.
Within forty-eight hours, the landscape outside Oakhaven transformed.
I stood on the balcony of the Alpha's manor, wrapped in Kaelen's heavy fur cloak to ward off the morning frost. Below, the plains that had once been empty were now a sea of makeshift camps, roaring fires, and newly forged banners.
They came by the thousands.
Disenfranchised Betas who had been taxed into starvation. Omegas who had escaped the breeding pens of corrupt southern Alphas. Even rogue packs and lesser Alphas who had long chafed under Lucius's tyrannical holy laws. They marched through the snow, carrying whatever weapons they could find, pledging their lives to the White Wolf and the Lycan King.
Our army of five thousand elite Lycans had swelled into a coalition of nearly thirty thousand souls.
"They are undisciplined, untrained, and poorly equipped," Kaelen observed, stepping onto the balcony and wrapping his massive arms around me from behind. He rested his chin on my shoulder, his crimson eyes scanning the chaotic encampment with a warlord's analytical gaze. "If we put them in the vanguard, they will be slaughtered."
"They won't be in the vanguard," I replied, leaning back into his solid warmth. "They aren't here to break the gates of Solaria, Kaelen. They are here to hold the city once we take it. They are the foundation of the new empire. We are showing the world that the Shadowkeep does not just conquer; it governs."
Kaelen chuckled, a low, rumbling vibration that sent a pleasant shiver down my spine. "You think like a true Queen, Elena. You wield hope as effortlessly as you wield ice."
He turned me around, his large hands cupping my face. The playful glint in his eyes faded, replaced by that intense, terrifying devotion that made my breath catch.
"We march on the capital at noon," he said softly. "Lucius has pulled his remaining loyalists inside the Golden Citadel. He has activated the Aegis Wards—the ancient magical barriers that have never been breached in recorded history."
"They have never been breached because they were built using the stolen magic of my ancestors," I said, a cold, clinical anger settling into my chest. I could feel the hum of the White Wolf magic in my veins, eager to reclaim what had been violently taken centuries ago. "The wards won't keep me out, Kaelen. They will welcome me home."
"Then let us go claim your birthright," Kaelen growled, leaning down to capture my lips in a bruising, dominant kiss that tasted of impending victory.
By midday, the horns of the Shadowkeep sounded—a deep, guttural blast that shattered the stillness of the winter air.
The march on Solaria had begun. The ground trembled beneath the boots of thirty thousand wolves, a tidal wave of ash, iron, and vengeance rolling relentlessly toward the golden heart of the continent.