Chapter 14 - Storm Over the Eastern Peaks
The winds atop the Eastern Peaks howled like tormented spirits, driving blinding sheets of snow across the jagged obsidian cliffs.
A dozen elite royal guards, led by King Cassian and Queen Eloin, moved in absolute silence through the freezing blizzard. They had tracked Counselor Vane across the frozen tundra straight to the gates of the Temple of Ash—a massive, ruined structure built from black stone that seemed to swallow the very light of the torches.
"The entrance is warded," Cassian murmured, stopping the pack members just beneath the shadow of a colossal archway. He turned to Eloin. "The runes on those doors react only to royal blood."
Eloin stepped forward through the howling wind. She pulled off her heavy fur gloves and pressed her bare palms directly against the freezing, frost-covered stone of the temple doors.
She closed her eyes, letting her consciousness flow into the ancient carvings. The pendant was gone, but the power was no longer external; it lived inside her bones, thrumming in time with her heartbeat.
Open, she commanded mentally.
With a deep, resonant groan that shook the snow from the cliffs, the massive stone doors swung inward, revealing a vast, torch-lit cavern inside the mountain.
Standing in the center of the subterranean chamber was Counselor Vane, surrounded by a circle of cloaked cultists chanting in a tongue older than human history. Above them hovered a glowing, unstable rift of violet energy—a miniature replica of the Void portal.
"You're too late, King! Too late, little half-blood!" Vane shrieked, his face twisted in fanatical madness as he raised a jagged dagger toward the rift. "The Eclipse dynasty ends today, and the age of the shadow gods begins!"
"Traitor!" Eloin’s voice echoed off the cavern walls with the force of a thunderclap.
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She drew the Aegis Blade, its blue flames instantly cutting through the oppressive darkness of the chamber.
Cassian let out a deafening, terrifying alpha roar that shook the very stalactites from the cavern ceiling. Instantly, the royal guards transformed into massive wolves, charging down the stone steps into the midst of the cultists in a blur of fur, steel, and fury.
