Chapter 4 - The Shadow in the Court
The arrival at Blackwood Fortress was a spectacle unlike anything the northern capital had seen in a decade.
When King Rowan rode through the iron-banded gates with the great wolf bounding beside him, healthy and strong once more, cheers erupted from the ramparts and spilled across the lower courtyards. But what drew the whispered awe of every courtier, noble, and servant lining the stone terraces was not the king, nor the legendary beast—it was the quiet, ash-blond Omega walking calmly at Rowan’s stirrup, accompanied by a small white wolf cub that snarled playfully at any court hound that dared approach.
Rowan had insisted that Eliza ride in the velvet-lined royal carriage for the final leg of the journey; she had politely, firmly refused, choosing to walk the cobblestones on her own two feet.
"You are testing my patience, Eliza," Rowan had muttered with a faint, amused twitch of his lips when she turned him down.
"A king should be used to people refusing him," she had replied with a quiet smile.
That evening, a grand feast was held in the Great Hall. Huge fires roared in the massive stone hearths, casting a golden glow over tapestries depicting centuries of Blackwood history. Lords and ladies in silks and furs crowded around the high table, eager to catch a glimpse of the legendary healer who had broken the curse of the Sea of Bones.
Yet, amid the clinking of goblets and the low murmur of court gossip, a darker current moved through the shadows.
Seated near the dais, half-hidden by the carved stone pillars, sat Lord Malakor Vane. The head of the southern mercantile houses, Malakor possessed eyes as cold as river slate and a smile that never reached his eyes. For years, Vane had sought to expand his shipping monopolies across the northern passes—a move Rowan had consistently blocked, relying on the council of his loyal commanders and the silent wisdom of his great wolf.
With Valen at death’s door, Vane had already begun positioning his allies on the royal council, anticipating a weak regency or a fractured throne.
Now, watching from the shadows as King Rowan leaned across the high table to speak directly and earnestly with the unknown Omega from Frost Hollow, Malakor’s fingers tightened around his silver goblet until his knuckles turned white.
"A girl from a mountain village," Vane murmured to his chief advisor, a slick-tongued alchemist named Phineas. "A nobody with mud on her boots. And the king looks at her as if she holds the sun in her hands."
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"She brought something out of the Sea of Bones, my lord," Phineas whispered back, his eyes fixed on Eliza’s leather satchel, which she had placed carefully beside her chair. "Something ancient. The root is gone, aye—we checked the royal apothecary logs. But the power that guided her across the dead water... that is not something that vanishes with a single flower."
Malakor took a slow sip of his wine, his cold gaze narrowing. "If the king is bound to this wolf, and the wolf is bound to this girl... then the crown’s foundation is no longer iron and steel. It is flesh and blood. And flesh, my dear Phineas... can always be bled."
