“LET HIM FALL!” — The Young Omega Wrapped Her Grandmother’s Scarf Around the Alpha King’s Dying Wolf and Crawled Over the Cracking Ice

By midnight, the grand celebration in the banquet hall had quieted down, leaving the inner corridors of the citadel wrapped in a deep, hushed stillness. Torches flickered in iron sconces along the stone walls, casting long, dancing shadows across the tapestries that depicted the ancient battles of the Frostpine ancestors.

Elena sat at a massive oak desk in the royal archives, the flickering light of a single tallow candle illuminating the leather-bound scrolls spread out before her.

Despite her new title and the heavy silver collar resting against her collarbone, her mind was restless. The fragments of history she had read tonight pointed to a dark secret—one that went far beyond Lord Vance and the corrupted council.

“You shouldn’t be down here straining your eyes in the dark,” a deep voice murmured from the doorway.

Elena didn't need to look up to recognize Oral’s stride. The war-chief stepped into the small study, carrying a steaming silver mug of spiced pine tea. He set it quietly on the corner of the desk before pulling up a heavy wooden chair beside her.

“I can’t sleep,” Elena admitted, rubbing her temples. “Every time I close my eyes, I’m back at the ravine. I feel the ice cracking beneath my ribs. I feel the weight of the wolf pulling me down into the dark.”

Oral reached out, gently covering her hand with his large, warm palm. The calloused skin of his fingers grounded her instantly, pushing back the phantom chill of the abyss. “You survived the ravine because you are stronger than you know, Elena. But the shadows you’re looking for in these scrolls aren’t going to give you peace.”

“Vance was just a symptom,” Elena said, her dark eyes looking up into his golden ones. “The southern clans didn't just stumble upon our homesteads twenty years ago. Someone inside the royal family opened the northern gates. Someone gave them the maps.”

Oral’s expression tightened. A shadow crossed his rugged features, the playful warmth in his eyes vanishing behind a wall of ancient grief. “My father’s older brother, Valerius. He disappeared during the southern skirmishes. The official records say he died fighting the raiders.”

“The records lie,” Elena whispered, tapping a finger against a yellowed parchment dated twenty-two years ago. “Look at the seal on this supply manifest. It’s not Vance’s seal. It’s the personal crest of the royal bloodline—the double-headed wolf of the exiled branch.”

Before Oral could answer, a sudden, violent crash echoed from the hallway outside the archives.

CRASH.

The sound of shattering glass and splintering wood pierced the quiet night.

Oral was on his feet in a fraction of a second, his body shifting with lethal speed as he pulled Elena behind him and drew a heavy silver hunting dagger from his belt.

“Stay behind me,” he growled, his golden eyes flashing in the dim light.

The heavy oak door of the archives slowly creaked open.

Standing in the doorway was a figure shrouded in a heavy, hooded black cloak. In their hand, they held a glowing crystal orb that pulsed with a sickly, greenish-black light—the exact same bioluminescent poison that had been used to cripple Oral in the forest.

“Well, well,” a raspy, unfamiliar voice hissed from beneath the hood. “It seems the little stable girl has learned how to read more than just stable ledgers.”

“Identify yourself,” Oral roared, lunging forward with terrifying speed across the room.

The hooded figure laughed—a dry, chilling sound—and smashed the crystal orb against the stone floor.

A blinding flash of emerald smoke exploded across the corridor, filling the air with a thick, choking fog that smelled of sulfur and rotting pine. Elena coughed, her hands flying to her mouth, while Oral swung his blade through the smoke, striking only empty air.

When the green mist finally cleared, the intruder was gone.

Left behind on the stone floor, scorched into the black basalt where the crystal had broken, was a smoking, branded symbol: a double-headed wolf with a dagger through its heart.