Chapter 62 The Broken Throne
The aftermath of the Envoy’s arrival left the Pack in a state of religious terror.
To the Reclaimed, the twins were no longer just the Alpha’s sons; they were gods.
To the rest of the world, they were the reason the stars were staring back.
We gathered in the ruins of my mother’s office—the only room that felt private.
Lilith sat in the corner, her eyes fixed on the droplets of mercury I had collected in a glass jar.
She looked terrified, but for the first time, she looked human.
“They won’t stop with one Envoy,” Lilith whispered.
“The Architects are a collective. They’ve spent eons seeding worlds like this.
When a harvest fails, they don’t walk away.
They ‘sanitize’ the field.”
“Sanitize?” Killian asked, his arm wrapped around my shoulder as he leaned against the desk.
“They wipe the planet,” Lilith said.
“They remove every trace of the biological vessels so they can start again in a few million years. We have months, maybe weeks, before the Hive ship arrives.”
I looked at my hands.
They were steady, but the silver fire felt different now—sharper, more focused.
I looked at the twins, who were playing with a set of wooden blocks on the floor as if the end of the world hadn’t just stood in their courtyard.
“Then we don’t wait for them to come to us,” I said.
“Elara, what are you saying?” Killian asked, his grip tightening on my shoulder.
“The Architects use the Nodes,” I explained, remembering the map my mother had shown me.
“They don’t fly through space; they move through the Ley Lines of the planet.
If we can seize the remaining nodes, then the ones Malakai and the Aegis didn’t find, we can create a planetary shield.
We can lock the gate from the inside.”
“But the Nodes are scattered,” Silas said, appearing in the doorway.
His face was a mess of bandages, but his milky-white eyes were sharp.
“One is in the desert of the Red Wasteland. One is beneath the ruins of the Northern Spire. And the final one... the Prime Node... is in the heart of the human capital.”
I stood up, the frost beginning to coat the desk.
“Then the Pack is going on a road trip. Kael, get the transports ready. Silas, you’re our navigator.
Aris, I need you to find a way to shield the twins from the Hive’s frequency.
”
I looked at Killian. The man who had rejected me, the man who had fought for me, and the man who was now the only anchor I had left.
“Are you with me, Alpha?”
Killian didn’t hesitate.
He leaned down and kissed me, a kiss that tasted of ash and survival.
“To the end of the world, Elara. And whatever comes after.”