The silence between Aria and her father stretched as they made their way through the ruins of the old district. Every footstep echoed with ghosts—wolves long buried, bloodlines erased.
She didn’t trust him.
Not yet.
She remembered being ten years old, hiding under the stone table in the council chamber, hearing screams above. Her father’s scent vanishing beneath the fire. No explanation. No rescue. Just ash and silence. That memory still burned.
But she needed him.
And she needed answers.
“You’ve been watching me,” she said, not looking at him.
“Since the night they wiped out House Vex,” Aries replied. “I went underground. Took on new names. Shadowed every movement of Project Crownbite.”
“Why didn’t you fight?”
“I was biding time. Gathering proof. Waiting for the bloodline to matu
