"Brother, please," Lunara stammered, panic rising in her chest. "I said nothing of our specific plans to Magnus or Leiko! I only... I only mentioned the possibility of a future integration."

As the last words left her lips, the princess went rigid. The weight of her own admission hit her like a physical blow.

Wulv’s brow furrowed, his expression one of grim confirmation. "I am well aware of your grievances regarding my silence. You claim I never include you in important discussions or decisions," he said, his voice laced with bitter disappointment. "I made an effort to change that. I reached out to work on our dynamic, and in response, you have simply proven how right I was to keep you in the dark from the very beginning."

"Here you stand before me, claiming to resolve an issue for the sake of our people’s safety," Wulv said, his voice rising with every word. "Yet you are the same person who has created a situation where their very lives are endangered, dragging them headfirst into the endless conflicts of humans."

Wulv suddenly slammed his palm against the desk. The crack echoed through the silent office, causing Lunara to flinch.

"A sixth-tier Paragon from the Silver Kingdom currently rests within this palace’s guest quarters," he growled. "And the letter you hold in your hand, the one they traveled across the expanse to deliver is a formal proposal seeking your hand in marriage."

He leaned in closer, his eyes burning. "Do you understand the precarious situation you have dragged us into? Do you realize the leverage you have given them?"

Wulv spoke in a low, suppressed hiss, fighting the urge to scream, but the sheer fury etched into his features was more terrifying than any shout.

Lunara had completely shut down. The fire she’d arrived with was extinguished, replaced by a cold, hollow dread. Tears began to track silently down her cheeks, falling onto the floor as her arms went limp at her sides. The letter dangled from her fingertips, fluttering slightly in the drafty room. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Deep down, she had known this was inevitable. The moment she had whispered those words to Leiko and Magnus, their reactions had been telling enough, a flicker of calculation she had chosen to ignore. At the time, she believed she was ready for whatever consequences followed, but she hadn’t anticipated the crushing weight of her brother’s disappointment.

Hearing that she had shattered his trust, the very thing she had been desperate to earn hurt more than any reprimand.

"I only wanted to help you," she muttered under her breath, her voice trembling.

"What?" Wulv snapped, his voice booming in the confined space, fueled by a sharp anger.

"I said I wanted to be of help to you!" Lunara screamed back, her face streaked with tears as she finally looked him in the eye.

Wulv froze, the sheer raw emotion in her voice catching him off guard.

"You spoke about your concerns with the integration and how challenging it was going to be for you," she sobbed, her composure finally breaking entirely. "That was the first time I ever saw you find something challenging, Brother. The first time you looked...alive in my eyes. I just wanted to help you carry that weight."

"I thought since I have such a deep connection with the top two human kingdoms on this continent, that I could finally be of use to you," she choked out. "I believed that with both kingdoms backing us, our people’s integration would be far easier to manage, that we could control the transition together."

A heavy, suffocating silence stretched between them. Wulv took a slow, measured breath, gathering his composure until his expression returned to a mask of indifference.

"I remember telling you something very specific when you first sought to pursue these friendships with the two princes," Wulv stated, his tone dropping back into it’s calm state "I told you that your relationship with them begins and ends with you. It was never to involve our crown or our people."

He leaned back, his eyes narrowing. "I told you that their politics should remain theirs, and ours should remain ours. So, tell me how did you reach the delusional conclusion that I needed their help for this integration?" Wulv asked, a look of genuine, cold bewilderment crossing his face.

Lunara caught his gaze, wiping the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand, her voice turning sharp with a sudden, desperate clarity. "Because I know the real reason you are pushing for our people to move out and expand. I know why we can’t stay here anymore."

Wulv raised a brow, his silence inviting her to continue.

"I thought long and hard about it," Lunara said, her voice shaking but gaining strength. "I found no logical reason for our people to leave their comfort and safety when we have everything we need here and more. That led me to realize this expansion was a deliberate move to force our people to grow, to thin out the stagnant voices of power in the court and minimize the influence of the Paragons by scattering them."

Wulv slowly stood from his seat, his presence looming large behind the desk. "You understood all of that," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper, "yet you still took the path you took?"

"Yes!" Lunara screamed back at him. "Because unlike you, I cannot simply sit still and watch! Even if your plan is for the best in the long term, people will die, Wulv. Lives that we could have protected will be lost in that forced growth of yours!"

She stepped forward, the letter still crumpled in her hand. "There are better ways! Magnus, Leiko, and I, even with all the resources and comfort we were born into, we managed to created an environment of competition. We pushed for each other’s growth without needing to burn everything down first. I thought I could give our people that same chance through them."

"I believe our people could do the same with the humans as I have done with both princes," she argued, her voice desperate for him to see her logic. "The Silver Kingdom’s proposal works even better than I imagined. From the human side, with my position as Queen, I could ensure the safety of our people. I could be the bridge that prevents the very bloodshed you’ve accepted as a necessity!"

"Get out!! Get out!!"

Wulv finally snapped. The roar of his voice shook the very foundations of the room, his control shattering under the weight of his fury. With a violent wave of his hand, a surge of raw power caught Lunara, lifting her clean off her feet.

The heavy office doors slammed open of their own accord. Lunara was hurled backward through the threshold, the wind knocked out of her as she flew into the empty hall. Before she could even scramble to her feet, the doors swung shut with a deafening bang, the lock clicking into place with finality.

Wulv sank back into his high-backed chair, his hand moving to rub the deep lines forming on his brow. He felt a rare, gnawing exhaustion. He couldn’t fathom where things had gone so sideways with his sister, or how such profound naivety could take root in someone of her lineage.

Every action he took to force her maturity, every trial designed to strip away her illusions seemed to slide off her like water. She clung to these fairytale notions of how the world functioned, utterly blind to the harsh reality beneath the surface.

A figure manifested from the thin air behind him like a drifting mist. A slender arm, covered in fine, glowing blue fur, reached for his shoulders and began to rhythmically massage the tension from his muscles. Wulv didn’t flinch, he simply leaned into the touch, having known she always has been here.

Ripple leaned down, her lips brushing against her husband’s ear as she whispered, "Perhaps you were too harsh with the Princess, my love."

"Not now, Ripple," Wulv replied, his voice a weary growl that signaled his patience had reached its absolute limit.

Ripple paused, her hands sliding from his shoulders as she moved gracefully around the desk. She settled onto the velvet sofa in the corner of the office, her eyes never leaving his face. "You surely must have accounted for something like this," she mused, "the moment you allowed her to continue that little hobby of hers with the two princes."

Wulv grew quiet, his expression darkening as he leaned back. "I did," he admitted, his voice tight. "But I assumed her heritage would act as a natural barrier. I thought she would find them mundane, that she would grow bored of their human fragility and move on. This... this level of sentimentality was not accounted for."

Ripple remained silent for a long moment, watching the flickering candlelight dance in his eyes. "For someone who is so vehemently against her actions," she said softly, "I noticed you haven’t actually denied the marriage proposal yet."