Chapter Thirty Three
The dining hall glittered with low candlelight and forced civility.
Golden goblets, silverware polished to a mirror shine, crystal glasses that caught the firelight just right. And beneath all of it, the quiet scrape of silver knives against porcelain and the murmured threat of war dressed as conversation.
It was Eclipse Hollow's table, technically.
The meal, the invitation, the territory, it was Dax's. But the Council House still carried the weight of old decisions. Of old allegiances.
I sat at his left, Lucien across from me, watching the Southern Alphas with the look of a man wondering how many of them he could outwit in one move and how many he'd need to.
Alpha de Silva sat a few seats down, close enough to project warmth, far enough to remain untouchable.
He was smiling.
That always meant something terrible.
"Of course, we all respect Alpha Varyn's autonomy," he said casually, slicing a fig with dainty precision. "What's a bond, after all, if not freely chosen?"
The room went still in the subtlest way. An imperceptible shift of spines, a pause between bites.
"But some," he continued, "might say that breaking such a bond publicly... without consulting your allies... suggests instability. Or perhaps external influence."
My jaw tightened. Dax didn't move.
Lucien leaned back in his chair and smirked. "If you're going to accuse someone of seduction-by-political-subversion, just say it, de Silva. The food's too good to waste on half measures."
"I'm not accusing anyone," de Silva said, folding his napkin with slow elegance. "I'm merely observing how quickly alliances can shift when personal feelings interfere with inter-pack diplomacy."
"Are you implying I made a political decision based on emotion?" Dax asked, finally lifting his gaze from his plate.
"I'm not implying anything," de Silva replied, his voice soft as butter on warm bread. "But if someone in your position were to... act irrationally after engaging so closely with a Northern delegate, it might raise concern. About priorities. About loyalties."
He took a sip of his wine. "About where Eclipse Hollow truly stands."
And there it was.
Not a threat. Not yet.
But a story being told. One that would spread faster than truth ever could.
Across from me, Lucien muttered, "They're not testing you. They're baiting you."
I looked at Dax.
His jaw was locked, his shoulders squared, but he didn't rise to it. Not here. Not yet.
This is how wars were started.
Not with blades.
With whispers.
The tension followed us out like smoke, clinging to my skin even after we left the banquet room behind.
Lucien walked beside me in silence for a few steps, long enough for our footsteps to echo down the marble corridor before he finally spoke.
"Well," he said dryly, "that went down like poisoned tea."
I didn't answer.
Because I could still feel the way they'd looked at Dax. Not with anger. With doubt.
And that was worse.
We turned a corner, heading toward the smaller council library, the one no one used except for Lucien, Talia, and me. The one that didn't smell like ceremony.
He pushed the door open with a casual flourish and let me pass.
"I assume we're not done chasing ghosts through shipping ledgers and half-burned manifests?"
"Not yet," I said, already moving toward the desk where Talia's notes still lay in careful disorder.
"Good," Lucien muttered, shutting the door behind us. "Because whatever's coming next... it's not going to be decided over wine and flattery."
He didn't need to say what we were both thinking.
The war wouldn't start in the Council chamber. It would start in the shadows. In the records. In whatever we were about to find.
I tapped my finger against the edge of the manifest, eyes skimming the columns Talia had annotated in her sharp, looping scrawl. Something was missing. A connection, a gap.
Another set of eyes might help.
"Don't say it," Lucien said, flipping through a ledger on his lap without looking up.
I paused. "Say what?"
He glanced over the page at me, one brow raised. "I know that expression. You're thinking of bringing in the golden boy."
"His name is Dax," I said dryly.
"He has a name. So did every traitor in history."
I rolled my eyes. "He's not—he's trying, Lucien."
"I'm sure he is," he said easily. "But trying doesn't erase what he's been part of. Council blood runs deep. So do Council secrets."
I didn't respond right away. Just looked back down at Talia's notes. I could still hear her voice echoing off the paper, teasing me for alphabetizing by instinct.
Lucien watched me in silence for a beat longer, then softened.
"I'm not telling you not to trust him," he said. "I'm asking if you're sure he deserves to be in this room."
I met his eyes. "I think he wants to fix it."
Lucien nodded once, slowly. "Then I hope, for both of you, that he does."
Dax hovered near the edge of the desk, hands braced on either side as he studied the ledger I passed him. Lucien leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, eyes flicking between us with quiet calculation.
"There," I said, tapping a row in the manifest. "That's the company name. Same forged seal as the poisoned shipment. Talia matched it three times."
Dax frowned. "I know this name."
Lucien arched a brow. "How convenient."
Dax ignored him, flipping a few pages in the ledger. "No. I remember it from trade talks a few years ago. But the Alpha tied to it, Harren, he's a figurehead. Owns land, not operations. This..." He held up the manifest. "This isn't his handwriting. These documents came from someone above him."
I leaned in. "Who?"
Dax's eyes flicked up to mine. "I don't know but this isn't some rogue faction we're chasing."
I nodded, heart sinking. "We're chasing a power shift."
The quiet was suffocating as the weight of reality sunk into our bones. It wasn't long before I couldn't take it anymore had to leave the little library.
The night air bit at my skin, cold and sharp like the thoughts clawing at the edges of my mind.
I leaned against the railing, arms folded tight across my chest, the soft hush of the trees below filling the silence between us.
Dax stood a few feet away, close enough to feel, not close enough to touch.
"I can feel it coming," I said, eyes locked on the horizon. "The shift. The fracture."
He didn't interrupt.
"I thought I could avoid it. That I could play nice and quiet and survive long enough to make a difference. But there's no space for peace when rot's already in the foundation."
I exhaled, long and slow.
"If there's corruption in the Council, it doesn't just affect me. Or the North. It affects everyone. I have to help expose it. I can't look away."
We stayed like that for a long moment. The silence was thick, but it wasn't empty.
"I don't know how this ends," I admitted. "But I know I'm not walking away."
"I don't want you to," he said quietly. "I just want you to survive it."
A shorter chapter after a long disappearance.
Iam very sorry I was delayed so long in updating, I pregnancy has been kicking my ass! But I'm back and determined to get this finished so I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I promise the next one will be longer.
And a huge thank you for sticking with this story, I really appreciate it.