Chapter 123

Elena had barely taken two steps before Marten’s voice cracked like a whip behind her, sharp enough to make the soldiers around her stiffen.

“So you marry Kennard, and now you really think you’re some kind of grand duchess’s wife?” he sneered.

When Elena turned, Marten was already looking over his shoulder at her, one brow arched high in arrogant disbelief. His expression was one of open distaste—annoyance carved into every line of his face. He released a long, theatrical sigh, then jerked his chin toward the soldier at her side.

Only then did the man step forward to release the iron chains binding her wrists.

Her arms came free—technically, physically—but the sensation of being bound remained. Her body still remembered the weight of the shackles. When she tried to rotate her wrists, to test the movement of her arms, she felt nothing but heaviness, a strange numbness from shoulder to forearm that made her fingers tremble without strength.

Her wrists were raw. Skin scraped off. Angry red swelling. Purpling bruises spreading beneath the thin layer of torn flesh. The long sleeves of her dress had dried stiff with caked blood, dark and brittle against pale fabric.

“Move,” Marten ordered, clicking his tongue as he glanced down at her hands. His brows pinched, the sight clearly irritating him.

“We haven’t secured her hands yet,” the soldier protested nervously, hurriedly trying to bring Elena’s wrists together again to wrap the chains back around them. “My lord, her hands still need to be—”

“Oh, for gods’ sake,” Marten snapped. “Her ankles are chained, aren’t they? She’s not outrunning anyone. Leave her hands.”

“But—”

“What? Are you afraid she’ll escape? That if she runs, you won’t be able to catch one unarmed woman?” His voice rose, icy and mocking. “Is that the level of competence I paid for? Have I been wasting my money on useless curs?”

Faces tightened across the troop, a ripple of offense moving through them all.

“You’ll regret talking that way,” Dirk muttered darkly. He looked seconds away from grabbing Marten by the throat.

“Regret?” Marten let out a short, humorless laugh as he turned toward him fully. “You’ve been working under the Emperor too long if you think you’re something more than what I bought.”

His gaze swept lazily across the other soldiers—evaluating, belittling. “If I cut your funding today, you’d be back on the streets tomorrow. Unless, of course, any of you actually saved the coin I gave you. How many do you think that applies to?”

A choked sound escaped one of the men closest to him. Not quite a groan—his throat collapsed too quickly for that.

Elena recoiled, horror widening her eyes.

Marten’s hand—now morphed, half-wolf, its skin swallowed under dark bristling fur tinged with red—was wrapped around the soldier’s neck. Black claws, long as daggers, sank into the man’s flesh as easily as slipping a knife into softened wax. Blood welled around the punctures, running in thin rivulets down the man’s collar and soaking into his uniform.

“What are you doing?” Dirk shouted, ripping his sword from its sheath.

Marten narrowed his eyes at him, the wolfish pupils shifting.

“Don’t forget,” he said softly, almost conversationally, “that it was I who purchased you. Not Duke Blade. Not the Emperor. Me.”

He flexed his fingers ever so slightly.

The soldier’s neck gave a brittle, sickening crack.

His eyes rolled white, and he collapsed bonelessly to the floor.

The others froze, stunned into silence by how quickly, how effortlessly, the man had died. Rage flickered in their expressions, quickly smothered by fear.

“If you want to demand compensation for his life,” Marten said, brushing past the corpse as if it were no more than spilled grain, “come at me now. But know this—there won’t be a second warning.”

He walked on, offering his exposed back as he moved ahead, as if inviting them to try.

None did. They exchanged glances—resentful, murderous, but hesitant. Dirk clenched his jaw, sheathing his sword with a terse, frustrated exhale. The rest followed his lead, bodies loosening from their tense coil.

The moment Dirk stepped after Marten, the troop fell into motion again.

“Walk,” one soldier barked, yanking Elena forward by the arm so hard her body lurched. He was clearly venting anger on the nearest available target.

Elena didn’t spare him a glance. She only lifted her freed hands to gather the hem of her dress, pulling the heavy, blood-stiffened fabric up to keep herself from tripping. Even that small act made walking easier.

But the air remained tight. Sour with tension. It clung to them, heavy enough to feel against the skin.

Elena swallowed hard. Kennard radiated killing intent in one way; Marten wielded it entirely differently—but just as dangerously.

She didn’t know how long they walked.

Long enough that her ankles went numb where the shackles scraped and ground with each step. Long enough that the valley sounds faded completely—no river, no waterfall—only the thick suffocating rustle of old forest.

When Marten finally stopped, Elena nearly stumbled into the back of the soldier in front of her.

The trees here were ancient—centuries upon centuries old—branches twisted and interwoven overhead so densely that sunlight could not penetrate. The air felt like stepping into the throat of a vast cavern: cold, damp, lightless.

Elena shivered. The cold crept beneath her skin like a warning.

Even without looking carefully, she could feel gooseflesh rising across her arms. The soldiers flanking her had faint gleams in their eyes—wolf-sight responding to the dark. She wondered if hers did too. Maybe. She couldn’t tell. She only knew she was grateful she could still see in the absence of light.

Because if her pace slowed here, if she lost her footing, if she gave them any excuse…

She didn’t know what Marten would do. Or what the soldiers, wound tight with fear and resentment, might do on impulse.

Then the forest ended.

Elena stared.

A wall—if it could be called that—rose from the earth like the side of a buried fortress, covered in thick mats of vines and moss. A rusted iron door leaned askew, as though someone had jammed it into a natural rock face long ago.

There were no torches. No lanterns. Nothing to ease the oppressive, occult atmosphere.

When the soldiers pulled the door open, the shriek of metal scraping stone sliced through the silent forest. Elena flinched, her pulse skipping.

Inside was worse.

The air was heavy with damp rot, thick enough to sting her eyes. Mold and stagnant water and earth sealed too long from the sun. Each breath prickled in her lungs.

Somewhere in the darkness, water dripped—steady, rhythmic.

The passage was narrow enough that a grown man would have to turn sideways to walk through. Elena followed the soldiers up the cramped staircase carved directly from the rock. Jagged. Uneven. Soaked with moisture. Her boots squelched with each step. Water seeped through the soles and spread coldly across her skin.

She clutched her dress higher, but the fabric was already sodden and dragging.

Worse were the chains at her ankles, scraping against the steps with every movement—sharp, metallic grating that echoed up the shaft.

But that wasn’t the true danger.

One wrong step would send her tumbling.

She forced her hand against the wall, wincing when her palm met a slick bed of moss. Dampness seeped instantly into her skin, and for a brief moment she felt as if small insects were crawling across her arm. Her stomach twisted, but she didn’t let go. The wall was the only thing keeping her upright.

Her breath grew ragged. The climb went on and on. Endless.

By the time they reached the top, her legs trembled so badly she could hardly stand. Her vision wavered at the edges.

But she froze anyway.

There was no corridor. No exit. Just a wall.

A dead end.

Panic fluttered in her chest before she could stop it, but the soldiers acted with practiced calm. The one at the front raised his fist and rapped on the stone.

The sound echoed, each beat flattening against the narrow chamber.

Silence followed—so long, so suffocating that Elena felt sweat bead cold along her spine.

Then—a grinding shift.

The wall split, stone edges groaning as they pivoted outward. What had seemed immovable peeled back like a door, revealing a space beyond.

Elena didn’t blink. She couldn’t. She stared as if the truth of the world was rewriting itself before her eyes.

“Inside,” Marten ordered. He was already through.

She followed, pushed onward by impatient hands. Behind them, the stone door closed with a heavy, consuming thud.

The man who had opened it stood by the entrance, uniform identical to the soldiers who had brought her.

Only after they rounded a corner did she realize they had emerged from beneath a raised platform.

The room spread before her in a wash of grandeur so overwhelming it stunned her into stillness.

The ceiling soared—so high she had to crane her neck to see the fresco of celestial beings sweeping across it. A massive chandelier hung at the center, dripping with crystals that looked heavy enough to shatter the marble floor if they ever broke free.

And everything—everything—was carved, inlaid, etched, or overlaid with gold.

The pillars. The walls. The embroidered banners. Even the lighting fixtures, shaped like blooming flowers of glass, cast bright, immaculate light.

It dwarfed Montefiano. Dwarfed the Terra Demorte Palace. Dwarfed anything she had ever imagined existed.

Magnificent, yes—but cold. Unmistakably cold. A temple of splendor without warmth.

Elena’s jaw slackened. Her breath caught.

And then she saw the throne.

Gold and red velvet, perched high upon the raised dais.

The moment she saw the man seated there—no, she had sensed him before seeing him—her entire body went cold.

A voice drifted from behind her, smooth and amused.

“So difficult just to get a glimpse of your face.”

She jolted, stumbling half a step before she turned.

He sat like he had been carved into the throne itself, posture effortless, expression unreadable. For a bizarre moment, his presence felt… muted. His pheromones barely detectable, like a scent on the verge of vanishing.

And yet—even that faint trace was unmistakable.

Even without being told—without anyone saying his name—Elena knew exactly who he was.