Nathaniel

After the warriors' meeting.

"Nate, what was that? Who is she?"

Thaddeus keeps pace beside me, his voice low but pointed. Emilia walks on my other side, arms folded tight. She's silent, but I can feel her anger rolling off her like steam. She spent the entire meeting trying to get my attention.

I ignored her. I never do that. But I couldn't focus on anything else. Not with her in the room.

The Danari.

A myth standing in flesh.

I've read about them. In old scrolls, faded ink, scattered observations. No photographs. No real names. The ancient scholars called them silent storms. Commoners call them Danari—creatures born to undo kings without touching a blade. Most believe they're extinct. Just ghost stories passed down in war songs.

I've searched for them for years. After I heard of their abilities.There's no way a Danari survived this long, especially in Delsyvic-Gavna. A cesspit of crime and corruption, known across realms as the Lawless Land.

It's impossible. My father would have known. His twisted obsession with rarity... There's just no way a one of a kind creatures is born and no one knew about it till now.

Unless it's false. I know it's lies.

But she sat there like she belonged in another world entirely. Cloaked in calm the way some wear blood. She didn't need to dominate the room. Everyone felt it. The disturbance in the air. The unnatural stillness. The way her glass-covered gaze scraped skin from bone.

The perfect imposter.

Even now, walking these halls, her image lingers behind my eyes.

Why her?

Why does she shake something loose in me I've spent years trying to bury?

"Still nothing to say?" Thaddeus presses. He's too close. Too loud.

I stop. He nearly walks into me.

"She's not just some council pet," I say. "She's dangerous."

She's something else..

"And that bothers you?" Emilia speaks, her voice laced with ice. "You've always liked dangerous women."

I look at her. Really look. She's wearing that perfect mask of control, lips sharp with disdain.

"She's suspicious. Something's going on. Something they're not telling us." I say flatly.

And that's what rattles me the most.

"I am not proud of what you've become, son. You're becoming a mirror you're not ready to face. What's coming_

He didn't finish.

His face had been blank. A tired, unreadable canvas. But I remember his eyes. Cold. Final. Like he was already burying me.

The words never stuck. Not until today.

Now they spin in my head like a curse.

And her face..

Her eyes keep haunting me. I wonder what they look like behind those shades. The shape of her pale nose. Her lips, red like crushed rubies.

They're burned into me.

I don't know what she sees when she looks at me, but I feel exposed. Peeled open.

She smiled.

But it wasn't kind. Not cruel either. It was nothing. Everything. A battlefield of meanings I couldn't prepare for.

I am Dreymond-born. Carved from a bloodline that breaks mountains and bends cities. No one questions us.

But under her gaze, I questioned everything.

Her presence hasn't left. Hours later, it's still clawing at me like a phantom. Her eyes were predatory, dissecting. Like she already knows.

Knows what I hide.

That can't be possible.

Even my father doesn't know.

I've buried it too deep.

I'm not the son he wanted. Not the heir he needed. I'm a cracked blade pretending to be whole.

A mistake.

A bastard.

A woman.

They can't know. They must never know.

But it's only a matter of time before someone notices.

My wolf is unstable. Feral. Born wrong. Born ravenous.

The fight for control started the day I was born. Some nights I wake with claw marks across my ribs, blood under my nails. I've torn through my own mouth trying to stay human.

But today… today he stirred.

The wolf.

The moment she walked in, he growled.

Not at her.

For her.

He wants her between his teeth for the confusion she caused. He doesn't know what she is, only that she glows like a challenge. A threat. It's driving him mad. He's bleeding through,my scent, my voice.

And she noticed.

She didn't flinch. Her lips curved like she knew.

What has she done to me?

Why does she crack open everything I've buried?

I almost slam my fist into the wall but stop myself.

She's just a woman.

A beautiful, unreadable woman.

No.

A whore from a kingdom so cursed even its soil bleeds secrets.

I clench my jaw, but it doesn't help. The image of her–calm, composed, daring me to fall apart—won't leave.

Why her?

Why now?

"Nate!"

Thaddeus is still beside me.

"You good?" he asks, more hesitant now. "You don't look great."

"I'm fine. Where's Emilia?"

"She left a while ago. You sure you're okay? You're sweating through your shirt."

"Hm."

"Maybe we should go to the healer__"

"Leave me."

He doesn't argue. Just backs off.

Good.

I need space.

I need to think.

But my thoughts are a knotted mess.

She's a weapon. The council is using her to keep us guessing. Maybe worse.

But the way she looked at me…

It wasn't just calculation.

It was curiosity. Like she could see the thing inside me. Like she already knew what I am.

What I fight every day.

And still—

She didn't pity me.

She looked like she wanted to watch me break.

Almost like it would amuse her.

I pace the hallway, unable to sit still. The memories crawl up like smoke.

The first time my wolf broke through, I was thirteen. My tutor found me in the gardens, curled around a half-devoured deer. I had no memory of how I got there. Just the copper taste of blood and a searing ache in my bones.

Father had the entire staff sworn to silence. The healer sedated me for a week.

When I woke, he told me it was a fluke. An accident. But the way he looked at me said otherwise.

I've carried that shame for years. Carried the scent of rot in my soul.

Until now, no one has ever looked at me the way she did.

Not with fear.

Not with hatred.

With knowing.

She looked at me like she'd seen worse. Like I was familiar.

Like I wasn't alone.

The thought unsettles me more than anything.

I sit in the training room hours later, hands still trembling. I don't know if I came here to train or hide.

I watch the moonlight drip through the cracked stone windows.

I wonder what she's doing now.

Is she speaking to the council?

Plotting?

Sleeping?

Does she dream?

Does someone like her even need to?

I feel the wolf stir again. It's not rage this time. It's hunger. Want.

Something primal.

He's never reacted like this to anyone.

Why her?

I stand, draw my blade, and strike at the dummy.

Again. And again. And again.

The wood splits. Straw spills. My chest heaves.

Still not enough.

Nothing will be until I understand what she is.

And what she's doing to me.

The storm is building. I feel it. And she's its eye.

I've survived war, exile, and betrayal. But I'm not sure I'll survive her.

Because if she breaks me—

She won't even have to lift a blade.