Elara Moon refused to trade herself for another hostage. She and King Ronan Voss returned to the torchlit bridal chapel at Silvercrest before midnight, using the key from the ambush to enter the archive their enemy had tried to keep buried.
Inside were recordings, legal files, and a wall tracking Elara Moon's life from childhood to the previous night. Someone had planned every loss with patient precision. At the center, a line connected her to King Ronan Voss, then continued toward a sealed record neither of them had seen.
King Ronan Voss reached it first. The evidence proved the truth neither of them was ready to trust: The ring around Ronan's neck matches the half-ring hidden in her mother's grave. It also showed why he had been tied to the conspiracy long before he met Elara Moon.
Footsteps filled the corridor. King Ronan Voss reached for the wolf fighting beneath his skin, but Elara Moon stopped him. Running had brought her here. This time she would make the person hunting them speak.
The archive door opened. The intruder removed a hood, and Elara Moon's breath caught. The face belonged to someone whose funeral she had attended—and the hostage video had been playing from an empty room.
“You finally found the truth,” the stranger said. “Now choose: expose it and destroy King Ronan Voss, or bury it and become the woman who betrays him.”
Elara Moon took King Ronan Voss's hand instead.
The stranger smiled and pressed a remote. Behind them, the archive began counting down from ten.