By the time we reached the crest of the main road, the entire compound was already moving like a living thing; coordinated and silent.

No one shouted orders because no one needed to. They were all hearing Kael.

The mind link was wide open. I could feel it too, though not directly. I didn’t hear the call in my head, didn’t feel the hum of command weaving through my bones like most of the pack did. Or like I used to.

Instead, I saw in the way warriors changed direction mid-step. In how weapons were drawn, and squads formed in perfect sync without a word exchanged.

It was pack instinct shaped by Alpha will, a collective mind channelled through one voice, and for some uncanny reason, I was no longer part of it.

The realization came quietly, like a thread tugging loose from something I hadn’t realized was fraying. Still, I moved with Lyra and Marrick. Even if no one was telling me where to go, I would follow them and worry about that later.

The outer wards had ignited. Blue flame crackling along the stone perimeter of the compound like veins pulsing with alarm. They were old, older than most of our walls, and packs, and powered by the first wolves who ever walked this land.

Wolves who could use magic. I don’t know how. No one outside the Alpha bloodlines does. But the half-whispered stories speak of early wolves born of the Gamma line who could cast spells as witches did. Who could bend the earth, the sky, the body.

Those records had long since been locked away. Sealed in vaults under stone and silence. Only the Alphas still had access, and even they rarely spoke of it.

But as the flames rose higher, fierce and blue, I wondered just how much had been forgotten?

They only lit when danger crossed the border, except they hadn’t lit when Fabian and his coven came.

That night in the woods, the wards stayed dark. Which meant either they hadn’t sensed him, or he and his coven were powerful enough to quell them entirely. I mean, they figured out a way around silencing the alpha link.

Neither option sat well in my chest, especially not now.

The wards were screaming tonight, and I could tell this wasn’t Fabian’s coven. I didn’t sense him out there, but I felt the magic past the pack gates.

As we reached the final rise that overlooked the main gates, I saw them lined up along the border.

From the ridge, the witches looked like phantoms, way too still. But even through the thinning veil of mist and smoke, their silhouettes cut clean through the gloom.

Each of them wore layered cloaks fashioned from what looked like shadow and rune-thread with stitched enchantments woven into every seam. The runes sparkled violet, pulsing in rhythm with the magic surrounding them.

Their cloaks didn’t ripple like real fabric. They moved unnaturally, as if caught between two planes, neither fully here, nor entirely elsewhere. Under the cloaks, their armour was silver-black, form-fitted and spell-forged, designed more for channelling energy than for brute protection.

No wolf wore armour like that.

Wolves dressed for war. Functional and fast. Every strap and plate was forged with the possibility of a mid-battle shift.

A witch’s armour was different.

It was ceremonial. Crafted and layered in defensive hexes, not to shield but to warn. Their armour wasn’t for protection, but deterrence. Every material, rune, and plated seam served one purpose: to ensure that if a wolf got close enough to strike, they could withstand it.

Wolves, on the other hand, wore armour for endurance—to weather the storm of spells long enough to close the distance. Because once that gap was gone, the fight belonged to us.

In terms of sheer power and strength, wolves held the upper hand. Always had. It’s why witches relied on long-range spells, enchantments, and traps. To cripple, weaken, and stop us from closing the distance.

The Goddess had seen to that balance. She’d blessed the Alphas, Betas, and Gammas with abilities that could withstand magic. Abilities designed to pierce through witchcraft and tear through spell-woven defences.

The witches banners, six in total, had been driven into the earth along the ridge. They all had sigils stitched in silver, gold, blood-red thread. One of them had the Syriin’s thorned crown. Another, the weeping sun of the Vael—thra. I recognized the rest from the old war histories we were forced to memorize at Nightclaw academy.

The Six Conference of Covens. The ruling bodies of witchkind, together on our land and at our doorstep.

And at the head of each coven stood their High Priestess.

They didn’t look like the ones they led. Where the others resembled shadows given form, these women looked immortal and terrifying in their beauty.

They were tall. Ageless in that eerie, unsettling way where you couldn’t tell if they were twenty or two hundred. Their skin ranged from ivory ash to onyx, each marked from jaw to temple in vibrant patterns” except one.

Their hair was braided tightly, woven with bone, silver rings, and the faint lustre of what looked like old spellwork, threadbare and still breathing power.

I briefly wondered why I didn’t keep my own hair braided—might’ve saved me the hassle of detangling it every other morning. It wasn’t long, just thick, falling past my shoulders in dark waves that now clung to my damp cloak. I reached up, half-ready to twist a strand around my finger out of habit then stopped myself.

Focus.

Back to the monsters in front of us.

One priestess had mirrored lenses instead of eyes, reflecting the night in warped silence. Another wore a robe spun from living thread, the strands shifting like serpents across her frame, never still. The third had her bare feet in the mud, yet the earth didn’t cling to her; her skin remained immaculate, like it refused to dirty her.

They stood in complete stillness, as if they had always existed in that exact place and would remain long after we were dust.

Their gazes swept over the warriors lining the ramparts, fixed on the gate, and then their power hit me. It poured off of them in waves, thickening the air until I could feel it almost choking me. It called to me, and something within me answered, pulsing behind my ribs.

Hungry, curious and awake.

I clenched my fists at my sides, trying to anchor myself. Whatever it took to keep my powers from reacting; the sting of wind against my cheek, the distant clang of steel on steel. Anything.

But their power kept reaching, like a current dragging me into deeper water, quiet but relentless. My fingertips began to burn, not with heat, but with a dull pulse that crawled just under my skin. My power was responding to the witches.

I saw the exact moment one of the High Priestesses noticed. Her head tilted slightly, unnaturally slow. The runes across her cheek glowed as her eyes, pure endless black, locked onto mine.

She stopped breathing, and then stepped back. Just once, but it was enough for anyone to notice. A single step with that look of fear in her eyes.

My pulse thundered in my ears. Why? What had she seen in me that made her recoil like that?

Beside me, Kael shifted. Barely. But I felt it. The way his attention snapped toward me, just as the priestess recoiled. It wasn’t particularly surprising. He had a way of picking up on things that others missed.

His jaw tightened, but he didn’t speak or look at me for longer than needed. I knew the questions and reckoning would come later.

Kael turned back to the ridge, his coat whipping in the wind as he moved to the front of the battlement. Hands behind his back. Chin high. Command bleeding from every line of his body, he said.

“Lower the gate.”

At Kael’s command, the warriors obeyed without hesitation. The gates groaned open, metal grinding against stone, as the defensive wall of Nightclaw split apart with slow force.

Kael turned to Damien and Marrick. “With me.” Then his gaze landed on me, and stayed there. “You’re coming, too.”

He didn’t wait to see if I’d follow. He just turned and started walking. And so did I. I glanced at Lyra and gave her a nod. She didn’t call after me. In a strange, inevitable way, this felt right.

Only the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma stepped forward in moments like these. And I, whether I was ready or not, had just been acknowledged as the first female Beta of the Baudelaire line.

We descended the stone steps together, the echo of our boots striking stone ringing out like war drums of our own. The gates continued their slow parting behind us, opening the compound.

Even outnumbered, and surrounded by six covens and six High Priestesses, we moved like we had nothing to fear. Because wolves didn’t show fear, not even when it might be justified.

I glanced back once, up at the ramparts, the guards, the blue ward flames still burning across the perimeter walls. No reinforcements had come. Not yet. But that wasn’t a failure.

We didn’t fear the witches, even if we were outnumbered, and we were. The other five Alphas were expected by daybreak to conduct the real inquisition about the witches recent attacks. We were the front line. Nightclaw always was.

The gates yawned wide behind us, like iron jaws stretching open for the first bite of a big prey.

Kael walked forward, his coat slicing through the wind. Marrick flanked him on the left, Damien on the right. And I followed, just behind them, not inside their formation, but close enough to belong.

The air outside the compound was colder. Magic thickened it until it clung to the skin, coating the lungs like smoke.

The witches still didn’t move. They stood as though time had no claim over them, as if the centuries between wars had simply been a blink. Their covens formed a perfect arc across the clearing, several rows deep, flanking their High Priestesses with a discipline that felt more like ritual than military order.

Their robes were thick with enchantment, a warding spell. I could feel it pressing stronger against us as we approached, the hum of it rising under my skin like a sound only I could hear.

It was a droning ringing, not loud, but insistent, like a bell chiming inside my skull. I glanced sideways. Kael. Marrick. Damien. None of them reacted, not even a flicker.

So it was just me. Of course it was.

The six High Priestesses stepped forward in unison now, their movements unnervingly fluid. Six distinct bodies bound by one invisible rhythm. The first wore robes of bone-white and blood-red. Markings were carved into the skin of her throat like a collar, looping in fine script. Her hair was twisted into a crown of rusted iron thorns, every strand bound in bloodwire.

The second was a walking enigma. Her entire body veiled in translucent silk that shimmered like water under moonlight. Her face was hidden behind a mirrored mask, reflecting the surrounding in fragments.

The third—taller than the others by nearly a head—had eyes like molten gold and skin the deep, smooth black of polished obsidian. She didn’t walk. She glided, as if the earth didn’t dare touch her.

The others, equally strange and silent, stood just behind them like warriors out of some forgotten myth.

But it was the one at the centre who drew all attention. The witch with violet eyes.

She alone wore white, a silken robe cinched at the waist with silver thread. Her form was angular, ans statuesque. No war paint, mask or symbols. Her skin was bare, untouched, and when she finally spoke, her voice came soft and slow like snow falling through ash.

“We come under truce.”

Marrick scoffed. “To cross the Enchanted River is itself a declaration of war.”

The violet-eyed priestess turned her gaze to him slowly, her expression like someone observing an animal behind reinforced glass.

“We crossed because the Divide was broken,” she said.

Kael’s voice, when it followed, was colder than I’d ever heard it. “By whom?”

It was the priestess in the mirrored mask who stepped forward then, the silk of her veil stirring though there was no breeze. Her voice was muffled, distorted by the glass.

“By one of yours. A wolf entered sacred witch lands. The pact was violated.”

I felt everyone around me still, and then slowly, every gaze turned to me. I nearly rolled my eyes. As if I’d strolled across the damn river for a morning bath. As if one of their own hadn’t dragged me across.

I said nothing. Just held my ground and glared at the violet-eyed priestess. Gods, she was beautiful in a way that made me feel inadequate. And standing in front of her, I felt like every imperfection I wore was being catalogued.

Kael didn’t look at me. Not yet. His gaze was fixed forward, jaw tight. “Oh? Was it not your witches who crossed the river to kidnap one of ours?” he asked. “If we’re pointing fingers, perhaps we should start at the beginning.”

The golden-eyed priestess tilted her head. “None of our own can cross without us. No such thing could happen without our knowledge.”

Kael took a step forward. “Your ignorance is not immunity.” He growled. “I could have sent warriors across in retaliation the moment your kind broke the truce. I didn’t. So ask yourselves—why are you really here?”

My power stirred again, quiet, warning. Their magic pushed against me like heat rising, like waves brushing the edge of a cliff, testing the rock, trying to find the cracks. Their postures shifted again. A flick of the eyes. A tightening of the mouth. Subtle things. But I saw it.

They feared me. I saw it now, clear as the moon slicing through storm clouds. The way the white-robed priestess looked at me, it was the same expression Fabian had when I’d unleashed the sound vortex. Horror.

I clenched my fists at my sides, nails digging into my palms. Lyra was the only one who knew about that night so far, and I intended to keep it that way.

Because whatever I was, whatever was waking up inside me, the last place I wanted it exposed was in front of a coven of hostile witches who already saw me as a breach in the truce, and a threat.

The white-robed one looked at Kael again, but this time her gaze shifted to me. “You brought her out.”

“My beta has as much right to witness this as anyone here.” Kael shrugged.

“And what is she, exactly?” Her question was deceptively soft.

Kael said nothing. But he glanced over his shoulder at me, a quiet nudge, the kind only an Alpha could give without opening his mouth.

Take the question.

Her choice of words still sat under my skin like a splinter. Not who. What. As if I were a spell gone wrong.

I glared at her, one brow arching as I pulled every ounce of steel into my voice. “What am I?”

She tilted her head again, that same slow, unsettling motion. “Yes.”

I gave her a slow, deadpan smile. One that didn’t reach my eyes.

“Is that why you brought the entire Conference of the Six to our doorstep? To solve your little mystery?” I paused. “You must be running out of interesting scrolls if the most pressing concern in witchkind is a Baudelaire Beta with a pulse.”

I tilted my chin up, just enough to be provocative.

“Feels a bit excessive, doesn’t it? All this for one girl. Or’’I flicked my fingers vaguely’’should I say, one what?”

Several of the witches behind her shifted, just enough to break their irritating stillness. I didn’t need to see their faces to know they didn’t like being mocked.

Too bad.

“That is not what I mean.” Her voice cut sharper now. “You know it.”

And, unfortunately, she was right. I did know. I just didn’t like that she did too.

The priestess took a step closer. Her robes barely rustled. The silver threads along her sleeves caught the moonlight, casting tiny reflections like starlight against stone.

“You crossed the Divide,” she said, her voice lower now, coaxing like a snake sizing its prey. “You survived the River. You moved through a space where wolves perish and witches lose their minds.” Her head tilted just slightly. “And yet here you stand. Unscathed.”

So they knew.

Of course they did. News like that always finds the people most likely to weaponize it. I didn’t answer. What was there to say, really?

That I didn’t die when I was supposed to? That I was just lucky? That I hadn’t asked for any of this?

Yeah, that would go over well. So I stayed quiet. And as expected, my silence said more than I ever could have.

The priestess folded her hands neatly in front of her, like this was a very civilized exchange and not an interrogation between warring factions.

“And now you stand here,” she continued, “answering our magic with your own.”

A gust of wind swept through the clearing, whipping strands of damp hair across my face. I didn’t bother brushing them away.

And I felt it again. My magic stirring, pushing back toward hers as hers tried to press against me. Was she testing me?

The priestess’s lips didn’t smile, but they twitched. The kind of expression someone makes when they finally find a crack in the wall they’ve been knocking against for hours.

“The Divide no longer separates what is ours from what is yours,” she whispered, like it was a secret only I was supposed to hear. Which was a stupid thing to do in the company of wolves.

And I was supposed to pretend that didn’t sound like a threat?