Chapter 15 The Edge of Truth

Elara’s

The room was dark, but the sound of his breath filled it, ragged, uneven. I had woken to the sound of my name. My name, torn from his throat like a confession.

“Dorian,” I whispered.

He jerked awake, sweat dripping from his brow, his eyes wild as if he had been running through fire. For a moment, he didn’t see me. He saw ghosts.

“You were dreaming,” I said softly, though the weight in my chest was anything but soft.

His silence was louder than any scream.

“You said my name.”

His head snapped toward me. The firelight caught in his eyes, revealing fear. Not of Kael, not of hunters, but of me. That fear cut deeper than any blade.

“What were you dreaming about?” I pressed.

“Nothing,” he muttered, running a hand through his damp hair. “It was nothing.”

I laughed, bitter and small. “You don’t call someone’s name in your sleep for nothing, Dorian.”

His jaw clenched. For a heartbeat, I thought he would tell me. The truth hovered on his lips, sharp and trembling, but then he swallowed it down. Like always.

I turned away, but anger burned at the edges of my grief. “You know more about me, about what happened to my pack than you’re saying.”

“Elara...” His voice cracked, raw.

“Do you think I’m blind? That I haven’t noticed the way you look at me, like I’m some… ghost you can’t put to rest?” My throat tightened, but I forced the words out. “What are you hiding from me?”

His silence was answer enough.

I stood, the floor cold beneath my feet. My heart hammered as if it wanted to claw its way out of my chest. “Did you know?” I asked, my voice shaking. “That night. The night Silverfang fell… were you there?”

His eyes flickered. Pain, guilt, something unspoken and I knew. I knew without him saying a word.

The truth terrified me more than Kael ever could.

Before he could speak, a sound shattered the moment, a howl in the distance, long and sharp, carrying the scent of blood. My skin prickled. We weren’t alone.

Dorian rose instantly, his hand on his blade, his shoulders taut with instinct. “Stay here.”

But I didn’t listen. I couldn’t.

As he moved toward the door, I whispered, not sure if he heard me. “One day, Dorian… I will know the truth. Whether you tell me or I drag it out of Kael himself.”

The words hung between us, heavier than the night. And from the way he froze, I knew my threat frightened him. Not because of Kael… but because of what I might discover.

••

The days that followed felt heavy, like walking beneath a sky that refused to break.

Dorian barely spoke. He carried his wounds with the same stubbornness he always did, pretending he was unshaken, but I saw it—the strain in his movements, the shadow in his eyes.

And me? I pretended too. Pretended that the quiet was enough, that the walls of his home could keep the ghosts away. But every night, I heard them louder. The screams of Silverfang. The flames. The memory of what Kael had done and what Dorian refused to tell me.

Each time our eyes met, I wanted to demand the truth. Yet the words froze on my tongue.

Instead, I found myself pulling further away.

I sat by the window longer, staring at the trees as if they held answers. I slipped outside when the moon rose high, letting my wolf stir restlessly under my skin. Dorian never stopped me, but I felt his presence at the edge of the forest, watching. Always watching.

It should have comforted me.

Instead, it suffocated me.

One evening, as I tightened the cloak around my shoulders, I caught his reflection in the glass. He stood behind me, silent.

“You don’t trust me,” he said finally. His voice was low, frayed around the edges.

I swallowed, keeping my gaze forward. “It’s not that simple.”

“Then tell me what is.”

The words struck me like a blade. I wanted to scream at him, tell him that every heartbeat I spent here was filled with doubt, that I could feel the weight of secrets pressing between us. But my chest tightened, my mouth dry.

“I can’t,” I whispered instead.

The silence that followed was unbearable. He didn’t move, didn’t breathe, and when I finally turned, his eyes burned with something I couldn’t name. Guilt, anger, maybe even fear.

I looked away first.

That night, when he finally slept, I stood at the doorway, watching him. His face looked younger in rest, stripped of the burdens he carried. For a fleeting second, I thought of staying, of surrendering to the fragile safety I had found here.

But deep down, I knew.

This safety wasn’t real. Not until I uncovered the truth with my own hands.

I pulled the cloak tighter, the decision forming like steel in my chest. The decision came like a blade in the dark. Sudden, sharp, undeniable.

I couldn’t stay blind anymore. If Dorian wouldn’t give me the truth, then I would rip it from the source itself.

The night was deep, the forest hushed as if holding its breath. My cloak trailed behind me as I stepped beyond the safety of his cabin, every crunch of earth beneath my boots echoing louder than it should have. My wolf stirred restlessly, urging me onward.

The Council of Elders.

The Hidden Keep.

Few dared to even whisper its name. A city buried in the bones of the ancient forest, guarded by wolves older than bloodlines themselves. The highest authority in our world, those who could strip an Alpha of his crown with a single decree, who could erase a pack from existence.

If there were answers, about Kael, about the massacre, about me, they would be there.

The wind was sharp as it cut across my skin, but I didn’t stop. My path was uncertain, reckless, maybe even suicidal. But the thought of staying, of living in the shadow of half-truths, was far worse.

For the first time since Silverfang fell, I felt like I was moving toward something, instead of just running away.

As Elara disappears into the ancient forest under the cloak of night, she doesn’t realize that her every step is being tracked by more than just the Council’s spies.