No one had set foot in the underground archive beneath Silver Crest for nearly twenty years.
Dust smothered the old stone halls and the lanterns barely held back the dark. Down in the lower chambers, massive iron doors stood like silent sentinels, each one marked with the ancient symbols of Alpha bloodlines—some so old, people barely remembered what they meant.
Only elders could go in here.
Tonight, even they didn’t look certain.
Liana stuck close to Kael as they walked through those underground corridors. Armed guards blocked every entrance above. The earlier attack had the whole territory locked down—nobody came in or out unless Kael said so.
Didn’t matter, though.
The mark on her wrist kept pulsing. Steady. Alive. Watching her. Reacting.
Kael noticed every wince, every flicker of
