The letter arrived without warning.
Folded in vellum. Unmarked. Tucked between the pages of an old herbal tome Zara borrowed from the council archives.
It would’ve gone unnoticed.
But Aria, ever restless since the trial, had begun pacing the tower and flipping through random books to ease her nerves.
She wasn’t looking for answers.
She found them anyway.
The page fluttered open as if beckoned.
The letter fell out.
The handwriting struck her first—elegant but tight, like someone trying to hide a tremor. She scanned the lines once, then again, her pulse accelerating with every sentence.
Zara entered moments later with a tray of tea, paused when she saw Aria frozen by the window.
“What’s wrong?”
Aria didn’t answer immediately. She read the final line a third time, her lips parting in disbelief.
She handed Zara the letter.
Zara read aloud:
“To whomever finds this:
If I die before I can speak it aloud, let this letter serve as truth. Evelyn is not who she claims. She came to SilverCrest not as Kael’s grieving first love, but as Greenwood’s emissary. Her presence here was arranged—bargained—in blood.
In exchange for the death of Luna Vale.”
Zara’s voice faltered.
She looked up.
Aria didn’t move.
There was no expression on her face—just the deadly stillness of someone calculating too fast to speak.
“That’s your mother,” Zara whispered. “They had her killed.”
Aria’s mind felt like a trap snapping shut. “It explains everything. Why Evelyn was so easily accepted. Why the council supported her so quickly after I was cast aside.”
“They used the first love excuse as cover,” Zara said. “But it was political.”
“A coup,” Aria said coldly.
And then: “Does Kael know?”
Zara hesitated. “If he did… he wouldn’t have let her stay. Not even for pride.”
Aria paced the room once, then again.
“She came here with blood on her hands. She seduced the Alpha. Took my place. Tried to have my child killed. All under the guise of fate.”
Zara’s grip on the paper tightened. “What do we do?”
“We expose her,” Aria said. “Not just to the council. To the wolves. Let them see who their would-be Luna really is.”
“But this letter—it’s unsigned. No seal. They’ll say it’s a forgery.”
Aria’s lips curled.
“Then we find who wrote it.”
By midday, Aria had summoned the pack’s recordkeeper, a reclusive man named Bram who preferred dusty tomes to people. He squinted at the letter beneath a magnifier.
“This ink,” he murmured, “only used by scribes in the high tower. The hand… yes, yes—matches Lady Renna, the elder’s niece. She vanished last spring.”
“Vanished?” Aria asked.
“Presumed dead,” Bram said with a shrug. “But there was no body.”
Aria and Zara exchanged a look.
Greenwood again.
“What do you want me to do?” Bram asked.
“Copy it,” Aria said. “Seal it with the truth rune. Then prepare it for display.”
“Display?”
“I’m calling a gathering.”
That night, under the full moon, Aria stood in the heart of SilverCrest’s square. Not in the council hall. Not in private chambers. Out in the open, where wolves—young and old, ranked and rogue—gathered to listen.
She raised the parchment high.
“This is the truth Evelyn buried,” she said, voice ringing clear. “A pact sealed in blood. An Alpha’s mate slaughtered. A mother stolen from her daughter. And all so one woman could wear a crown she never earned.”
The crowd stirred.
Murmurs spread like sparks in dry grass.
Zara handed out copies.
The rune glowed softly on each.
Truth.
Undeniable.
Kael arrived halfway through.
He didn’t speak.
He didn’t try to stop her.
He just stood at the edge, eyes locked on the paper in his hands, color draining from his face.
Later, Aria would find him alone in the training yard, the letter still clutched in his hand.
“She lied to me,” he said hoarsely.
“She killed my mother.”
“I didn’t know.”
“I believe you,” Aria said.
But her voice wasn’t warm.
It was final.
“This changes everything,” Kael said.
“No,” Aria corrected gently. “It only confirms what I already knew.”
That night, Evelyn’s quarters were ransacked.
By morning, she was gone.
Fled.
Coward.
But not invisible.
Because SilverCrest no longer whispered her name in reverence.
They spit it like poison.
