The Wrong Masked Wolf Part 1
1337 Words
The Midnight Prince
Ashen
“Did the little cinder boy escape?” my daughter asked.
“For a time,” I said.
My son narrowed his eyes. “That means something bad happened.”
“Something bad was already happening,” I told him. “Escape does not always begin when the door opens. Sometimes it begins when you finally understand the cage was never allowed to name you.”
My daughter leaned closer. “Did the princess save him?”
I looked into the fire.
“No,” I said softly. “Not that night.”
“Then who did?”
I smiled faintly.
“A very old fae with a terrible sense of timing.”
I had been left in a room beneath the old west wing, chained to stone cold enough to bite through skin.
Callan had chosen the place well.
No windows.
No pack traffic.
No servants.
No witnesses.
Only thick walls, an iron ring bolted into ice-stained stone, and a silence heavy enough to make even breathing feel forbidden.
The guards had come during mealtime.
That was Callan’s favorite trick.
While the pack ate, while laughter rose in warm dining rooms above, while plates were filled and cups were poured, Callan came below with two guards and a smile.
A few questions.
A few blows.
A few reminders.
Where did you get the ring? What did you do to the princess? Did she know it was you? What did you tell her? What did you make her feel?
I gave him nothing.
Not because he was brave every second.
No one is.
I gave him nothing because every answer could become a weapon pointed at Nara.
So I swallowed blood.
I bowed my head.
I waited.
The little cinder boy was very good at waiting.
That was one of the saddest things about me.
By the time the room changed, I did not notice at first.
The air shifted.
Not colder.
Older.
The shadows near the far wall bent inward, and a familiar voice sighed.
“Well,” Veyra Moonwick said, “this is dramatic, even for you.”
I lifted my head.
One eye was nearly swollen shut. Blood marked his lower lip. The chains had rubbed his wrists raw.
But when I saw her, the first thing I said was not to help me.
It was, “Nara?”
Veyra’s face changed.
For once, no joke came quickly.
“She is alive,” she said. “Scared. Hiding. Packing terrible food choices.”
I exhaled.
Only then did my shoulders loosen.
Veyra stepped into the chamber fully, moon-pale hair falling around a face that looked nineteen and eyes that looked older than buried kingdoms.
“You should not be here,” I said.
“No,” she agreed. “I should be somewhere warm, eating stolen fruit and minding business that is absolutely not mine.”
“Veyra.”
“Unfortunately, your destiny has been interrupted, your life has been threatened, your sister’s path is about to be severed, and several idiots have decided to involve witches.” Her smile turned sharp. “That gives me room to be creative.”
The chains around my wrists frosted.
Then cracked.
I stared as the iron split apart like old bone.
“You are breaking protocol.”
“I am bending it elegantly.”
“You said you could not interfere with wolf problems.”
“This stopped being a wolf problem when witch dust touched the princess, and a false face stole your name.”
I went still.
“The princess?”
“Alive,” Veyra said quickly. “Unconscious for a time. Awake now, I think. Maybe confused. Definitely surrounded by fools.”
I tried to stand too fast and nearly fell.
Veyra caught me with one hand, stronger than she looked.
“Do not do the noble thing where you bleed on me and pretend you are fine.”
“I need Nara.”
“Yes. That is why I am here.”
“What about the princess—” He stopped.
Veyra’s brow lifted.
I looked away.
“Mm.”
“Is she safe?”
“For the next four minutes? Perhaps.”
“That is not comforting.”
“I am fae. Comfort is not my ministry.”
She opened her palm.
Silver dust curled above her skin, forming a small door made of light.
“Come on, little frostbite. Your sister is waiting.”
Children, there are parts of a story a person lives.
And there are parts he learns later.
This was one of those nights when too many threads snapped at once, and only years later could anyone see the whole pattern.
While Veyra pulled the cinder boy from the ice chamber, chaos came to SilvaFrost.
It began at the gates.
Rogue wolves moved through the snow like smoke, their scents masked by fire-root and blood ash. They did not come to conquer the pack. Not yet.
They came to create noise.
A bell rang.
Then another.
Then screams.
Fire burst across the eastern training yard, unnatural red flames eating through snow and wood alike. Guards ran toward it. Servants scattered. Wolves shifted in hallways. Doors slammed. Orders contradicted orders.
And in the middle of it all, Dorian Calder walked through the panic like he had paid for it.
Because I had.
Dorian had wanted two things that night.
The princess.
And the masked wolf.
The boy from the ball.
The one every whisper said had bewitched her beneath the Rare Moon.
He did not know Callan Drakewood wore another man’s face.
He did not know a witch’s glamour had turned the elder twin into a lie dressed in ash-blond hair, winter-blue eyes, and a borrowed scent.
So when Dorian reached the healing wing and found Princess Moona PentNova weak but awake, with “I” standing near her bed, he thought fate had grown generous.
Moon was sitting upright, one hand pressed to her temple.
The ring lay near her on the bedside table.
Callan, glamoured as I, stood close enough to seem protective.
Too close.
Moon looked at him with confusion.
Not trust.
Not recognition.
Confusion.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
Callan’s stolen face softened. “Princess, it is me.”
Her brows drew together.
The room tilted strangely in her mind. The witch had blurred the balcony, cracked the memory, twisted edges that should have stayed sharp.
But Storm was awake.
Storm remembered.
And somewhere far below the packhouse, the real I’s chains were breaking.
Moon’s fingers twitched toward the ring.
Then the wall exploded inward.
Dorian entered through smoke and splintered wood with three rogue wolves behind him.
Callan turned, startled.
That was his mistake.
I would have moved toward the danger.
Callan moved away from it.
Moon noticed.
Even half-drugged, even memory-tangled, she noticed.
Dorian smiled.
“Princess,” he said. “How fortunate. And the little masked wolf too.”
Callan’s eyes widened. “Wait—”
One of the rogues struck him hard across the head.
He dropped.
The glamour held.
That was the amusing thing about lies made by witches.
They did not care whether the liar wanted out.
Moon tried to summon Storm’s strength, but her limbs were heavy, her vision blurring at the edges.
“Do not touch me,” she warned.
Dorian looked delighted.
“Still commanding rooms while half-unconscious. You will make a magnificent queen.”
“I will make you regret breathing.”
His smile thinned.
“Eventually, perhaps.”
The rogues seized her.
The ring slipped from the table as she struggled, falling into the folds of her cloak where no one noticed.
A pull tore through her chest.
Not toward Dorian.
Not toward the glamoured boy being dragged beside her.
The opposite direction.
Away from the healing wing.
Away from the fire.
Away from SilvaFrost’s heart.
Toward the old west wing.
Toward the forest beyond it.
Toward someone leaving.
Moon gasped.
Storm lunged inside her.
Wrong one.
- Writer
