The flickering candlelight cast long, eerie shadows on the stone walls of the castle’s war room. I stood before the large, intricately carved map that stretched across the table, my fingers trailing over the outlines of the forests that bordered our lands—the ones crawling with rogues. I knew he was out there. Alden, the king of rogues, the one who had been stirring chaos within the packs, picking them off one by one.
I knew nothing about him—nothing except that he was dangerous, that he was powerful. And he was threatening everything I had built.
I clenched my jaw, frustration boiling in my veins. No one had been able to find him. No scout returned alive after entering his territory, and even the most skilled trackers lost his scent in the dense woods. He was a ghost. A phantom. And I h
