"You’ve spent six years judging a dead man for choosing his daughter over a throne, while I have spent my life trying to deserve that." Serena’s voice was even. "I walked through your borders, past your warriors, and into this room. I announced myself and asked for an audience. Do not ask me to apologize for a man who died protecting me. I won’t."

Behind her, eight people stood in silence wearing different expressions. Dex’s eyes hadn’t left her back. His chest rose once, held, and didn’t fall. Fin’s chin had lifted. Hale’s steady hand on Avalon. Elara’s trembling exhale. Gav’s silence. Hyran’s rigid posture. Even Maelor, who had something to say about everything, had nothing.

The queen broke the silence. "If I demanded you renounce Drakenfell, and kneel only to Aevamorra Vyracarum, would your wolves allow it?"

"My loyalty is not a chain to be broken on command," Serena answered. "It is earned, as Drakenfell earned mine."

The queen gave no reaction. Her expression still held its Bellatrix-level ice. "You are no Crown Princess. You carry yourself too much like a queen to not be one. There is more you are not saying."

Serena held her gaze. "There is always more I’m not saying, Your Majesty."

The queen turned without a word, walked back to her throne, and sat. She let the silence resettle before she spoke. "Tell me what purpose brings you to Aevamorra Vyracarum."

Serena inclined her head. "I have come to alter the fate of those I am sworn to protect, so history does not repeat."

"And what is it you seek?"

"Passage to the Temple of Vyramar."

A refined, cutting laugh slipped from the queen, elegant yet sharp as fractured glass. "That is a death sentence. Surely you don’t presume to enter that place."

Behind her, Gav wanted, very badly, to ask what the Temple of Vyramar was. He also understood, with every instinct he possessed, that now was not the time.

Serena offered her a small, sorrow-laced smile. Composed. Unwavering. Devoid of bravado.

"If death is the cost, Your Majesty, then it is a cost I am prepared to bear."

Fin’s entire body went rigid. Dex’s jaw clenched so hard the tendon in his neck stood out. Neither moved. Neither spoke. Both of them were alphas of foreign courts, and they knew the cost of breaking composure here would fall on her.

But the fury pouring through both matebonds hit Serena like a wall. Two furious alphas.

She didn’t flinch. She held the queen’s gaze and let both matebonds burn against her ribs without acknowledging either.

The queen’s eyes moved to the king for half a second, then returned to Serena with renewed focus.

"If I were to say, ’The Gate remains closed to the unproven’?"

"Then I would answer, let it judge me, for I do not come untested," Serena replied, voice steady.

The queen’s gaze slid toward her king, expression unchanged, but the shift in the air made it clear they were mindlinking.

Gav watched the interaction and recognized the look immediately. That was a mindlink argument. He’d seen Bellatrix and Tiberon do that enough times.

A moment later, the king spoke.

"It would appear my queen is fond of you. Consider yourself fortunate. She is seldom impressed."

The queen’s expression suggested that "fond" was a word her husband had chosen, and she would be having a conversation with him about it later.

His voice was smooth, deep, carrying the weight of old authority.

"We will grant you passage under a blood oath that the location of our city remains unspoken beyond this chamber."

Serena inclined her head.

The king rose from his throne. His presence filled the room like a shift in gravity.

He lifted one hand. "Just her."

Two alphas moved at the same time. Identical timing. Identical energy. The king watched it happen with the expression of a man who had expected exactly this. But he was expecting one, not both.

Serena kept her expression calm despite the spike of adrenaline. She stepped forward, falling into step behind the king.

Dex followed immediately.

Fin was one stride behind him.

The king didn’t bother to hide his amusement as he turned toward a long crystal corridor. "It would seem your companions lack confidence in my hospitality."

Dex answered before Serena could, his voice smooth, carrying the easy authority of a man born to thrones. "My duty is to her safety, Your Majesty. Trust is earned, not assumed."

The king paused mid-stride and looked at him with a new appraisal. "You must be the Crown Prince of Drakenfell, then, I presume."

He glanced back at Fin. "And you?"

"I’m Alpha Shadowclaw, King of North Skardos. Where she walks I walk too." That was all he offered.

The king regarded him for a long moment. Then his attention shifted back to Dex.

"One queen, two kings. How unusual."

Neither Fin nor Dex acknowledged it. But Serena could feel their irritation at that through their matebonds loud and clear.

The king gave a low hum that could have been approval or amusement, and continued forward.

They entered a vast chamber carved entirely of ice, walls glittering with ancient sigils, the air bright with suspended shards of crystal light.

A mage stepped forward and spoke in a formal dialect of Morbian Vellum.

Then the king withdrew a ceremonial dagger of translucent crystal. With practiced precision, he sliced his palm. Blood ran down his hand, falling into the basin’s blue-white flame.

He offered the dagger to Serena.

She took it without hesitation and cut her palm. Gold blood welled instantly. She didn’t react or break eye contact with the king.

The king waited for a moment, watching her, but received nothing but poise.

A flame roared, changing into silver so bright the walls refracted light. The silver traveled straight into Serena.

The king let out a slow exhale, equal parts impressed and wary.

"It would seem," he said, "that I have been proven incorrect yet again today."

He watched the silver flame settle, the last ripples of ancestral power fading into the ice-lit chamber. His gaze rested on Serena, slow, deliberate, weighing her the way one weighs a prophecy spoken aloud.

He stepped closer, voice dropping into something quieter and far more pointed.

"Tell me, why is a queen as beautiful as yourself unafraid of her own death?"

Dex’s hand curled into a fist at his side. Fin didn’t move, but every line of his body had gone taut.

Serena’s lips curved in a gentle, almost resigned smile.

"One doesn’t fear what she has already accepted."

The king’s expression shifted. The smallest flicker of understanding cutting through his stoicism.

"It would appear my ancestors have accepted your request. You are granted passage to the Temple of Vyramar."