The palace never truly slept.
Even in the small hours, when most corridors lay dark and silent, there were always footsteps. Soft-soled servants carrying trays, guards changing shift, ssengers slipping between wings with sealed letters. Tonight the footsteps carried a different rhythm: hurried, uneven, the sound of n trying not to be heard.
Commander Draven moved through the lower service passages like a shadow that had learned to carry a sword. His silver hair caught the occasional torch flare, turning it to cold moonlight. He carried no lantern; he had long ago morized every turn and dead-end in this part of the palace. Tonight he needed darkness.
He stopped outside the laundry storeroom.
The door was ajar.
Inside, a single candle burned on an overturned crate. Its fla trembled as though afraid of what it illuminated.
A body lay face-down on the flagstones.
Young. Male. Kitchen porter. Draven recognized the coarse linen tunic, the burn scars on the forearms from years of turning spits. The boy’s throat had been torn out. Not cut. Torn. The wound was ragged, arterial spray painting the nearest wall in a wide arc. Claw marks raked across the shoulders, deep, parallel, unmistakable.
Wolf.
Draven crouched beside the corpse.
He did not touch the body. He simply looked.
The boy’s right hand was still clenched around sothing small and dark. Draven pried the fingers open with the tip of his dagger.
A scrap of parchnt.
Words, written in haste:
*They know. *
Beneath it, a sar of blood—still wet.
Draven folded the note into his sleeve.
He rose.
Outside the storeroom, two of his own n waited. Silent, with hard faces.
"Seal this corridor," he said quietly. "No one in or out until I return. Tell no one. Not even the stewards."
The taller guard nodded. "And the body, Commander?"
"Leave it exactly as it is. I want the killer to think no one has found him yet."
Draven walked away before they could ask more questions.
He did not go up to the royal wing.
He went deeper, down the narrow stair that led to the old archives, the place where palace records were kept when no one wanted them seen.
The archivist was waiting.
An elderly man nad Tobin. Bent, ink-stained, eyes sharp behind thick spectacles. He had served three kings and buried two. He trusted no one.
Except Draven.
"You’re late," Tobin said.
"I found another one."
Tobin’s mouth tightened.
Draven laid the blood-sared note on the table between them.
Tobin read it without touching the parchnt.
"Then they’re getting sloppy," he murmured. "Or desperate."
Draven leaned against the table.
"Show the list again."
Tobin opened a narrow ledger. Its cover was worn black from years of handling. He turned to the page marked with a thin red ribbon.
Twelve nas.
Twelve servants.
All dead in the last four months.
All throats torn out.
All discovered in places they were not supposed to be. Pantries near the royal kitchens, corridors outside the heirs’ wing, storerooms beneath the council chamber.
And every single one of them had worked inside the royal family’s private quarters in the week before their deaths.
Draven traced the last na with a gloved finger.
"Elliot," he said. "Kitchen porter. Last seen carrying trays to the eastern tower two nights ago."
Tobin nodded. "He was supposed to bring supper to the girl, Seren. Never arrived. They found him this morning in the laundry storeroom instead."
Draven’s eyes narrowed.
"Not random," he said quietly.
Tobin closed the ledger.
"Targeted," he agreed. "Soone is eliminating anyone who might have seen or heard sothing they shouldn’t. Loose ends. Witnesses. People who were in the wrong place at the wrong ti, or the right place at the right ti."
Draven straightened.
"And the thod is always the sa. Wolf form. Throat torn. No witnesses. No tracks that lead anywhere useful."
Tobin’s voice dropped lower.
"Soone wants the court to believe it’s one of the princes. Or one of their wolves. The heirs are already under suspicion...three alphas sharing a human mate? The old packs are looking for any excuse to call it degeneracy. A string of brutal murders inside the palace walls gives them that excuse."
Draven’s hand rested on the hilt of his sword.
"Or soone wants the heirs distracted. Paranoid. Turning on each other while the real threat moves."
Tobin t his gaze.
"You think it’s Elowen."
"I think it could be anyone with access to the inner corridors and a wolf who can shift silently." Draven’s voice was flat. "Elowen has both. So do half a dozen border lords who’ve been seen in the palace this month. So do the Eastern guards who arrived with Lady Sera."
Tobin exhaled through his nose.
"Then you have a problem, Commander. Because the next body will not be a porter or a maid. The next body will be soone close enough to the heirs that the accusation sticks."
Draven said nothing.
He was already moving toward the door.
"Double the watch on the eastern tower," he said over his shoulder. "Triple it on the princes themselves. And Tobin..."
The old archivist looked up.
"Burn that ledger," Draven said quietly. "Tonight. No copies. No record. If anyone asks, those twelve servants died of fever. Nothing more."
Tobin nodded once.
Draven left the archives.
He did not go to the royal wing.
He went to the guard barracks instead.
By the ti he reached the eastern tower, the sky outside had begun to lighten...grey bleeding into pale rose. The corridor outside Seren’s chamber was lined with Kael’s n. Now six, instead of four. Stern-looking, with hands resting on sword hilts.
Kael himself stood at the door.
He took one look at Draven’s face and stepped aside.
Inside, the room was quiet.
Seren sat at the writing desk, a fresh sheet of parchnt in front of her, quill unmoving. Aeron stood at the window, coat unbuttoned, staring at the rising light. Theron leaned against the bedpost, arms crossed, expression unreadable.
They all turned when Draven entered.
He closed the door behind him.
"Another body," he said without preamble. "Kitchen porter. Throat torn out. Found in the laundry storeroom an hour ago."
Aeron’s eyes went gold.
Kael pushed away from the wall.
Theron’s smile disappeared.
Seren’s quill rolled off the desk and clattered to the floor.
Draven continued.
"It is not random. Every victim had access to the royal chambers in the days before they died. Every one of them was eliminated the sa way—wolf form, throat torn, no witnesses. Soone is systematically removing anyone who might have seen or heard sothing they shouldn’t."
He looked at each of them in turn.
"This is not a murderer loose in the palace," he said quietly. "This is a conspiracy. Soone is trying to destabilize the kingdom while the succession hangs in the balance. They want the court fractured. They want the heirs looking over their shoulders instead of looking at the borders. They want the packs to believe the triumvirate is too weak, or too corrupt to rule."
Seren’s voice was steady when she spoke.
"Then they’re succeeding."
Draven t her gaze.
"Not yet."
Aeron stepped forward.
"Who has access to the inner corridors?" he asked.
"Too many," Draven said. "Elowen’s personal guard. Sera’s Eastern retinue. The senior stewards. Certain councillors who still have old keys. And anyone who has been given permission to move freely. Which, at the mont, includes half a dozen houses trying to curry favour."
Kael’s growl was low.
"We lock it down," he said. "No one moves without our say. No trays, no ssages, no servants in the private wing unless we know their nas and their grandmothers’ nas."
Theron’s voice was calm. Too calm.
"That will only delay them. Whoever this is, they’re already inside. They know the passages. They know the routines. They know where to strike so the bla falls on us."
Seren looked between them.
"Then we find them first," she said quietly.
Three sets of eyes turned to her.
She t each gaze in turn.
"I’m not asking to be the bait," she said. "I’m asking to help. I’ve spent my life watching people think I’m invisible. I still see things others miss. Let watch. Let listen. Let be the eyes you can’t afford to have everywhere."
Aeron studied her for a long mont.
Then he nodded, once.
Draven exhaled.
"Then we move carefully," he said. "Tonight there is a small salon in the rose gallery. Six ladies—two loyal, two leaning toward Elowen, two undecided. Seren will attend. She will speak little. She will observe everything. And if anyone tries to use that gathering to plant another body, we will be waiting."
Kael cracked his knuckles.
Theron’s smile returned—small, lethal.
Aeron looked at Seren.
"You do not leave our sight," he said.
She nodded.
"I won’t."
Draven turned toward the door.
"I’ll have the salon watched," he said. "Every servant. Every guest. Every shadow."
He paused with his hand on the latch.
"And if another body turns up tonight," he added quietly, "we stop pretending this is coincidence. We start hunting."
The door closed behind him.
Silence settled over the chamber.
Seren looked at the three alphas.
They looked back at her.
And in that mont, the bond pulsed. Not with fear, not with anger, but with sothing colder.
Purpose.
Because the next death would not be random.
It would be a ssage.
And they intended to read it before anyone else could.
Outside the tower, in the corridor where no one should have been listening, a single figure stepped back into shadow.
Elowen.
She had heard enough.
Her fingers curled around the small glass vial in her sleeve.
Tonight’s salon would be crowded.
And crowded rooms were perfect for accidents.
She smiled, slow, certain.
Then she slipped away toward the rose gallery.
Where the first guests were already arriving.
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