Kaelen’s POV

"Your Majesty, we have a situation."

Seraphine’s voice cut through the quiet of my study like a blade drawn from its sheath. I looked up from the territorial map spread across my desk—ink-marked routes, supply lines, troop positions along the northern corridor. The afternoon light slanted through the tall windows, casting long shadows across the stone floor.

She stood in the doorway holding a leather-bound dossier pressed tight against her chest. Her expression was composed, but her knuckles were white around the binding.

"What kind of situation?"

"The northern defensive line." She crossed the threshold and laid the dossier before me. The imperial seal on its cover had been broken hastily—wax crumbled at the edges. "Three scouts from the Rogue tribes crossed the border at dawn. Our patrols picked up their tracks just inside the frost markers."

I opened the dossier. The first page was a field report from a border commander, written in the clipped, efficient style of a man who didn’t waste words. Three unidentified figures. Wolfprint impressions in the frozen mud. No direct engagement. They’d slipped back across the line before our sentries could close the gap.

Reconnaissance. Testing our response time.

My jaw tightened.

"How deep did they get?"

"Deep into our territory before they turned back."

Too deep. Far too deep for a casual probe.

I flipped to the second page. Patrol schedules. Guard rotations. Someone had circled a gap—a narrow window just before the shift change where the northern approach sat exposed for a significant amount of time. The kind of gap you’d only know about if you’d been watching.

Or if someone had told you.

I closed the dossier. Pressed my palms flat against the desk.

I’d planned to leave shortly. The training grounds weren’t far—a short ride through the western gate, down the hill road. Elara had been working there since morning with the junior archivists on their archival duties. I was going to meet her before sunset. Walk back with her. Maybe convince her to eat dinner somewhere outside the palace walls, away from the weight of court eyes.

That plan crumbled like the broken wax seal.

"Send for the full reconnaissance log," I said. "Every patrol report from recent days along the northern corridor. I want them on my desk before nightfall."

"Already requested, Your Majesty. They should arrive soon."

I nodded. Then I pulled a sheet of parchment from the stack beside my inkwell and wrote quickly.

Something came up. Can’t come to meet you today. Will return to the palace late. Look after the children.

I folded it, pressed my seal into the wax, and handed it to the waiting page by the door.

"To Lady Elara. At the royal training grounds. Quickly."

The boy disappeared down the corridor at a run.

I turned back to the map. Three scouts. Dawn crossing. If the Rogues were mapping our patrol gaps, they were preparing for something larger. A raid. A supply disruption. Perhaps worse.

Seraphine stood at the edge of the desk, watching me trace the patrol route with my finger.

"There’s more," she said. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

I didn’t look up. "Go on."

"An informant arrived at the lower gate not long ago. Anonymous. Refused to give a name or affiliation. But they claim to have intelligence about the Rogue movements—specifics. Routes, numbers, possibly their staging area."

My finger stopped on the map.

"Where are they now?"

"The second council chamber. Third floor. I had them escorted there and placed under guard."

A knock at the study door. The page had returned, holding a folded note. I took it.

Are you alright? What happened?

Elara’s handwriting. Quick, slightly slanted—the way it always looked when she was worried.

I read it once. Set it aside.

I didn’t write back.

Not because I didn’t want to. But because I didn’t have an answer yet. Three scouts slipping through meant a potential breach in the northern defensive line. Until I knew what we were dealing with, I wasn’t going to send her half-formed fears wrapped in reassurance. She’d see through them anyway. And then she’d worry more.

Better to handle it. Bring her answers, not questions.

I spent the next stretch of time reviewing the remaining three pages of intelligence—troop disposition estimates, weather patterns along the border, a crude sketch of the scout tracks rendered by one of the field officers. The tracks were wrong. Too clean. Too evenly spaced. Like someone wanted us to find them.

"Your Majesty." Seraphine again, at the door. "The informant is growing restless. They’ve asked twice now when you’ll arrive."

I stood. Rolled my shoulders. The tension had settled deep between my shoulder blades, a familiar ache.

"Let’s go."

We walked in silence through the upper corridors. The palace was quiet at this hour—most of the court had retired to the gardens or the lower halls for afternoon tea. Our footsteps echoed against the polished stone. Two members of my personal guard fell into step behind us, their armor clinking softly.

Third floor. East wing. The second council chamber was a small, windowless room used primarily for private audiences with minor officials. Stone walls. A single long table. Chairs pushed against the sides.

The guards at the door straightened as I approached.

"One person inside, Your Majesty," the senior guard reported. "Unarmed. Searched twice."

I pushed the door open.

And stopped.

Gareth sat at the far end of the table.

He hadn’t changed. The same sharp features gone slightly soft with indulgence. The same posture—one ankle crossed over the opposite knee, arm draped across the back of the chair, shoulders tilted at an angle that said I belong here and you can’t make me leave. His coat was expensive—dark wool with silver thread at the cuffs. New money. Someone else’s money.

And that smirk. That familiar, infuriating, cold-blooded smirk.

"Brother." He spread his hands. "It’s been too long."

My blood went hot. Then cold. Then very, very still.

"Where’s the informant?" I said to Seraphine without turning.

She hesitated. "Your Majesty, I—this isn’t who I was told would be—"

"There is no informant." I kept my eyes locked on Gareth. "Is there?"

Gareth’s smirk widened. He unfolded his legs and leaned forward, resting both elbows on the table.

"The Rogue intelligence was real enough to get you here. Three scouts, northern border, dawn crossing—all true, by the way. I simply... borrowed the delivery method."

"You have a few short moments," I said. "Talk."

"Isolde."

The name landed in the room like a stone dropped into still water.

"Your mate’s estranged stepsister," Gareth continued, watching my face with those pale, calculating eyes. "She’s frightened, Kaelen. Truly frightened. She’s been living on the fringe of Rogue territory, and she wants out. She has information—real information this time, not the kind I had to fabricate to get your attention. Names. Routes. Camp locations."

"And she sent you to deliver this message?"

"She sent me because I’m the only person in this empire who’d bother listening to her." He tilted his head. "She wants to reconcile. With Elara. With the crown. She’ll trade everything she knows in exchange for protection."

Something in his voice almost sounded sincere. Almost.

I knew better.

But the name Isolde prickled at something beneath my skin—a protective instinct that had nothing to do with Gareth and everything to do with Elara. If Isolde truly had intelligence on the Rogues, if she was genuinely embedded near their camps, the information could be critical.

And if she posed a threat to Elara—

I needed to know.

"Where is she now?" I asked.

Gareth opened his mouth to answer.

Then I smelled it.

Sweet. Cloying. Like artificial flowers soaked in something chemical—an alchemist’s compound, not a natural bloom. It coated the back of my throat. Thick. Wrong.

"Do you smell that?" I turned toward Seraphine.

The words came out strange. Thick. My tongue felt heavy. I tried to repeat myself, but my lips wouldn’t form the syllables correctly.

"Your Majesty?" Seraphine’s voice reached me from somewhere distant—muffled, warped, like she was calling from beneath deep water.

The room tilted. The magic lamps on the wall flared too bright. Then too dim. Gareth’s face swam before me—his smirk gone, replaced by something flat and patient.

Waiting.

He’d been waiting for this.

My knees buckled. I reached for the table. Missed.

My vision blurred. The magic lamps were too bright. Then too dark.

The floor rushed up to meet me.

Or maybe I was falling.

I couldn’t tell anymore.

Everything spun. Faded. Dissolved into a sweet-scented darkness I couldn’t fight.