Elara’s POV

The storage closet smelled like old ink and forgotten things.

I shifted on the narrow chair. Its wooden slats dug into my spine. A broken printing crystal rolled off a shelf and clinked against the stone floor. I didn’t bother picking it up.

Then I saw the wall.

Not all of it—just a section to my left, between two crooked shelving units. The surface looked different there. Smoother. Faintly luminous, like moonlight trapped under ice. I leaned closer. My breath fogged against it, and the fog dissolved instantly, absorbed into the surface.

One-way enchanted glass.

I’d read about these during my time in the archives. Warding glass. Installed in sensitive palace chambers so security officers could observe without being seen. From this side, it was perfectly transparent. From the other side, it would look like nothing more than a plain stone wall.

And on the other side was my old office.

My desk. My chair. My filing cabinets with the brass handles I’d polished myself. The window where afternoon light used to pour in while I sorted through treaty documents and military correspondence.

Sylvia Vance sat behind that desk now.

She’d changed the arrangement. The filing crystals were organized by color instead of classification priority—pretty, but inefficient. A vase of burgundy roses sat where my reference stack used to be. Decorative. Impractical.

She looked impeccable. Her burgundy court gown was tailored to perfection, cinched at the waist with a silver clasp shaped like a crescent moon. Her dark hair was swept into an elegant chignon without a single strand out of place. Her posture was flawless. Spine straight. Shoulders back. Chin at the precise angle that conveyed both deference and confidence.

I looked down at myself.

My cardigan had already wrinkled from sitting on this awful chair. There was a pale stain near the collar where baby Lyra had spit up during her last feeding. I’d thought I could hide it. I couldn’t.

I could feel the hollows under my eyes. The sharp jut of my collarbones. My hair hung in a loose ponytail that I’d tied in a rush because Lyra had started crying again right as I was leaving.

Mortal nanny.

Sylvia’s voice from a recent day echoed through my skull. I pressed my palms flat against my thighs and told myself to breathe.

Then the office door opened, and Kaelen walked in.

My heart clenched so hard I thought it might stop.

He was wearing the charcoal court tunic. The one I’d bought him for a past birthday. I remembered choosing it—running my fingers over the fabric in the tailor’s shop, imagining how the dark color would contrast against his skin. The silver thread along the collar had been my suggestion. A subtle detail. Something only someone who knew him well would notice.

He looked devastating in it.

His dark hair was pushed back from his face. His jaw was set with that focused, commanding tension he carried during working hours. And his eyes—those deep gold eyes that turned almost silver in certain light—were exactly that shade now. Bright. Sharp. Imperial.

He said something to Sylvia. I couldn’t hear the words through the glass. But I saw his lips move. Saw him gesture toward a document on the desk.

Sylvia rose immediately. She greeted him and came around the desk—my desk—standing beside him. Close. Close enough that her shoulder nearly brushed his arm. She pointed at something on the parchment. He leaned in to look, saying something low.

She laughed at his words.

Watching them, I felt incredibly small and pathetic.

He almost smiled. Not a full smile. Just the slight softening at the corner of his mouth that I knew so intimately. The one that meant he was amused but trying not to show it.

I used to make him do that. During late nights in this very office, when I’d catch some absurd error in a diplomatic letter and read it aloud in a mocking voice. He’d press his lips together and pretend to be stern, and I’d keep going until that corner of his mouth betrayed him.

Sylvia made it look effortless.

She spoke again. Animated. Confident. Her hands moved gracefully as she explained whatever point she was making. Kaelen watched her with full attention, nodding occasionally.

They looked like they fit. The powerful emperor and his elegant, capable advisor. Two wolves operating in perfect synchronization. She matched his energy—poised, controlled, professional.

Some time ago, a maintenance worker had locked the door from the outside, and I was forced to watch them act like a perfect pair.

I pressed my forehead against the enchanted glass. It was cool. Indifferent.

Behind me, the storage closet stretched out in its cramped, dusty misery. Broken crystals. Forgotten scrolls. And me. Sitting among the discarded things where Sylvia Vance had placed me.

This used to be mine.

That desk. That chair. That position at his side. I used to be the one he turned to when a treaty clause didn’t make sense. I used to be the one who caught the subtleties he missed, who organized his chaos into clean, manageable systems. We’d been a team. Not just mates—partners. Equals.

Now I couldn’t even get past the reception desk without being shoved into a closet.

Losing my inner wolf, Moonlight, left me with a feeling of utter emptiness. The hollow cavity in my chest where warmth and instinct and power had once hummed constantly was just... silent. Like a house with all the lights turned off. The rooms were still there. But no one was home.

If I still had Moonlight, I would have sensed Kaelen’s presence through the bond the moment he entered the building. I would have felt his heartbeat sync with mine. I would have walked into that office with an aura that demanded respect, and no one—no one—would have dared put me in a storage closet.

But Moonlight was gone. Lost when Lyra was born. Burned out of me like a candle flame pinched between wet fingers.

And without her, I was exactly what Sylvia saw.

A mortal woman with tired eyes and a stained cardigan.

Kaelen picked up another document. Sylvia handed him a quill. Their fingers didn’t touch, but they moved in the same rhythm—reach, pass, receive—like they’d been working together for a long time.

That used to be us.

I watched him sign something with his left hand. He always signed with his left. I used to tease him about his handwriting. He used to pretend offense and then pull me onto his lap and make me write his correspondence for him while he pressed his mouth against my neck.

My eyes burned.

Stop it. Stop watching. Turn around. Sit down. Look at the wall.

I couldn’t.

He straightened. Said something final. Sylvia nodded, collected the documents, and stepped back to allow him to pass. He moved toward the door without looking back.

Then he was gone.

The office fell quiet. Sylvia returned to the desk. My desk. She arranged the signed documents into a neat pile, placed her quill in its holder, and began writing in a leather-bound ledger.

Time ticked by slowly after Kaelen left—a few minutes, a dozen minutes, and more—until Sylvia finally realized I was missing. The dust settled around me. I sat on the narrow chair with my hands folded in my lap like a child waiting outside a headmaster’s office.

The glass showed me everything. Sylvia working. Sylvia pausing to adjust a crystal display. Sylvia brushing an invisible speck from her burgundy sleeve.

Then she stopped.

Her quill hovered above the parchment. She looked up. Looked toward the corridor. A slight frown creased her brow.

She set the quill down and stood quickly. I heard the click of heels on stone—muffled through the glass but unmistakable—growing louder as she approached the closet door.

The lock turned.

Light flooded in.

Sylvia stood in the doorway. Her composed expression cracked the moment she saw me. Her eyes widened. Her hand flew to her mouth.

"Elara—oh." She drew a sharp breath in genuine horror. "I am so sorry. His Majesty Nightfire and I were reviewing a complex alliance treaty and I completely forgot. You’ve been locked in here for such a long time!"

I stood. My legs were stiff. My dignity was somewhere on the floor between the broken crystals.

"It’s fine." My voice came out steady. Almost cheerful. The mask slid on with practiced ease. "Don’t worry about it. These things happen."

"I should have come sooner. I sincerely apologize."

"Really. It’s nothing."

Sylvia studied my face. Whatever she was looking for, my smile must have been convincing enough. She smoothed her expression back into professional composure.

"His Majesty Nightfire had to leave for another engagement," she said. "But if you need to reach him, you could try your message crystal. He should still be—" 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

My message crystal rang out then, the sound jarring in the tense silence. Both Sylvia and I looked down at it, and I saw Kaelen’s mark flashing on the surface.