The War Room doors shut behind them with a heavy thud, muffling the voices of the Warmasters inside. The corridor beyond was murky, lit only by the blue flame-runes flickering in their glass sconces. Outside, the storm had begun to ease, but the stone walls still vibrated with the aftershocks of wind rolling across the tundra.

Reyna walked ahead, her boots striking the Blackstone with controlled, even steps. She needed the movement and rhythm to connect with herself. The air felt too tight in her lungs, her senses too perceptive. Every breath carried the scent of snow, old stone… and the warmer, deeper scent that trailed behind Roth Maynord.

She despised that she noticed it.

His footsteps were heavier than hers, but never rushing. He didn’t try to walk beside her, but he didn’t fall behind either. A reasonable distance that was close enough to catch her words, and far enough to respect the territory he walked through.

Reyna caught the stiffening of his shoulders, the way his cloak shifted as he adjusted it against the chill. But his voice, when it finally broke the silence, held strong.

“You challenged me publicly.”

“That was the point,” Reyna said without turning. “You entered my territory without explanation, and asked Frostcall for an alliance with half a truth. Someone had to make you speak the full one.”

Roth’s tone didn’t change. “And you believe you got the full truth in there?”

Reyna halted abruptly.

He stopped two paces behind her.

The flame-runes flared erratically, casting a cold, uneven light that danced in shades of blue along the hallway walls. Her breath misted in the air as she turned to face him, her arms folding tightly across her chest.

“No,” she said. “I think you gave Frostcall the truth you were willing to admit. Not the one you came here to deliver.”

Roth’s eyes held hers with a force that almost felt like defiance. “Then ask what you want to know.”

Reyna stepped closer, until only a few feet separated them. Her shadow crossed his boots, and his flickered across hers.

“Why,” she asked, “did you come to Frostcall first?”

Roth shifted slightly, cloak brushing against the wall. “Frostcall is the only territory I trust to hear what I have to say before taking up a blade.”

“That’s not an answer.”

His jaw tightened in restraint.

“You want the unvarnished truth?” he asked.

“That’s what I asked for.”

Roth drew in a slow breath, visible in the cold. “Greenpeak is falling apart. Suncrest is collapsing. And the Maynords…” His voice lowered. “We’re outnumbered, and outplayed. Decker’s son intends to seize Aupheadia through chaos. If he succeeds, Greenpeak and Frostcall will fall next. I came here because you are the only territory with a First Fleet who understands that war doesn’t wait for comfort.”

At least her Fangs were getting the recognition they’d worked their arses off for.

Reyna forced her shoulders to remain squared. “You could have said that in the War Room.”

“And risk the wrong wolf hearing fear in it?” Roth countered. “No. Some truths ignite outrage if spoken in the wrong room.”

Her heart kicked once, hard. He was right, and he trusted her more than the room full of notorious Warmasters.

Her Azure sense pulsed, brushing lightly against the surface of his intent. She felt tension held tight as a bowstring, and exhaustion buried under discipline. Ambition, yes, but not greed, and a quiet, painful undercurrent of desperation.

She severed the resonance quickly, before it could pull deeper.

Roth exhaled heavily, as if he’d felt it again. His hand flattened briefly against his cloak, right over his sternum.

But he didn’t comment on it.

Reyna stepped back half a pace, regaining her personal distance. “You still haven’t answered the real question.”

Roth’s brow lifted. “Which is?”

“What do you want from me?” she said. “Not Frostcall. Me.”

Silence expanded between them.

Roth studied her in a way that wasn’t invasive. He looked at her as if she were a problem he’d been turning over for weeks, even though they’d just met.

“I want your mind,” he said.

Reyna’s eyes narrowed, but he raised a hand slightly, forestalling the retort.

“Your strategy,” Roth clarified. “Your instincts, and ability to read a battlefield before it forms. The way you command wolves who would die for you.”

Reyna’s throat tightened, but she kept her expression flat. “That’s a flattering answer. And still incomplete.”

Roth considered her for a long moment. When he finally spoke, his voice quieted in an honest way she rarely heard from Alphas.

“You are the only wolf in Aupheadia who can challenge me without losing herself.” A beat. “And the only one I cannot afford to ignore.”

Her pulse betrayed her, one heavy, traitorous beat she prayed he didn’t hear.

The solstice energy wound subtly through the corridor, a shimmering pressure she’d felt building ever since the storm started. It made her senses too sharp, and her awareness overly strong. She hated that she didn’t know whether the pull toward him was instinct, Luna nature, or simply circumstance.

Her voice, when she spoke, was under control. “If you want my mind, you don’t get it for free.”

Roth didn’t look surprised. “Then name your terms.”

Reyna straightened, spine aligned like a soldier before battle.

“No Maynord alive or dead reveals what I am,” she said. “Not to Council, any Fleet, not even to the gods themselves.”

Roth’s posture changed, as if he’d anticipated her saying this.

“Agreed.”

“Frostcall writes the terms of this alliance.”

“Agreed.”

“And if Suncrest falls,” Reyna said, voice dropping, “you do not step across my territory to claim the rest of the kingdom.”

This time, Roth didn’t answer immediately.

His breath fogged once before he spoke. “That depends.”

Her eyes hardened. “On what?”

“On whether you choose to stand beside me.”

Reyna stepped back. “Then understand this now. I am not a pawn. I am the line you do not cross.”

Roth’s answer was quiet. “I couldn’t, even if I tried.”

The solstice wind outside howled once, a long, scratching note echoing through the stone.

Reyna stepped back. “Then our alliance begins with honesty, and ends when you break it.”

Roth nodded once. “Understood.”

They stood there in the cold corridor, two wolves bound by nothing yet entangled by everything.

Finally, Roth spoke.

“We begin planning at dawn,” he said.

Reyna turned toward the stairwell. “Don’t be late.”

As Reyna turned toward the stairwell, she felt the uncertainty that came after choosing a side.

And for the first time since Roth Maynord entered Egranox, Reyna understood one thing with brutal clarity:

Whatever waited beyond Frostcall, there was no path forward that didn’t go through her.