CHAPTER 17: THE CHESSBOARD OF ALLIANCES
PART I: RAYS OF DISCORD
Night had brought no rest to the princes of the Royal Pack of the Sun bringers. Within the private chambers of the Citadel of Dawn, where the gilded marble walls still bore the blackened scars of the Great Fire, Ian and Kian paced back and forth. Elara’s message looped in their minds like a sacred, terrifying mantra: Elowen is alive.
This certainty, awaited for thirteen years, acted as a balm on a gaping wound, yet it came with news that shook the very foundations of their beliefs. A Royal Wolf Princess, a direct descendant of Ra, bound by fate to a snow leopard. To the pack purists, it was heresy, a breach of ancestral laws dictating that the blood of the sun should only mingle with that of the stars, never with the predat
