GOLD & AZURE

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 13: THE CHAINS OF SILENCE

PART I: THE SKINNERS’ TRAP

The return to the Quartz Palace had begun under auspices that Mia and Béa would have called triumphant, had their corsets not prevented them from breathing properly. In the hollow of her hand, beneath her fine silk glove, Mia felt the round, reassuring shape of the mother-of-pearl button. It was more than a piece of carved shell; it was proof, an anchor of hope for Elowen, and the key to an alliance no one had seen coming.

The ceremonial sleigh glided over the snow with a steady, almost hypnotic hiss. Behind them, Anton and Karl, their lifelong guardians, maintained a respectful but vigilant distance. Their mountain mounts, broad-hoofed beasts accustomed to steep slopes, left deep ruts in the powder.

But as the last lights of the village of Biting Frost faded into the grayness of a dying afternoon, the crystalline Northern air turned into something viscous and heavy. It wasn’t the pure cold that stings the lungs, but a scent of rusted iron, rancid blood, and carrion. The smell of ancient death awakened by the march of an army.

— “Do you smell that?” Mia whispered.

Her voice, usually so confident, drifted through the enclosed cabin of the sleigh like a wounded bird. Her hand tightened on the jewelry box, an accessory that suddenly seemed trivial, a dead weight in the midst of imminent danger.

Béa didn’t have time to answer. The silence of the forest was torn apart by a shrill whistle, the cry of an arrow slicing through the frozen air. Before they could even process it, a black-feathered arrow lodged itself with a dull thud into the shoulder of one of the lead reindeer. The animal let out a heartbreaking groan, its legs giving way beneath it. The sleigh, traveling at full speed, was carried by inertia into a brutal tailspin. Wood groaned, the runners shattered against a hidden stump, and the twins were thrown against each other in a chaos of silk and fur.

— “Ambush!” Anton’s voice roared.

The bodyguard’s cry was immediately followed by the roar of transformation. But the attackers did not emerge from the bushes like ordinary bandits. They seemed to pull themselves from the snow itself, like specters rising from the earth. A dozen massive wolves, with shaggy, filthy coats, instantly surrounded the wreckage. They looked nothing like the elegant wolves of the South or the proud leopards of the North. They were monsters of muscle and scars, foaming at the mouth.

On their flanks, painted with what looked like dried blood, were the banners of the Eastern Skinners: a clawed hand clutching a heart.

— “The Skinners...” Béa breathed, her face pale.

She tried desperately to free herself from the overturned sleigh. Her fingers clawed at the snow, reaching for her own instinct, trying to release the panther slumbering within. But fate had decided otherwise.

Anton and Karl threw themselves into the fray with the fury of despair. In their snow leopard forms, they were whirlwinds of claws and fangs. But they were overwhelmed. A dark, artificial, and suffocating mist began to spread across the path, a black magic that seemed to suck away light and heat.

THE SHADOW OF MALPHAS

A wolf, larger and more putrid than the rest, stepped forward with calculated slowness. Silence fell among the aggressors. With a sickening crack of bone, the beast reared up and regained its human form. He was a colossus whose mere presence seemed to wither the surrounding snow. A hideous scar slashed his face from temple to jaw, and his bloodshot eyes gleamed with sadistic joy.

— “Malphas sends his greetings,” the Alpha of the Skinners growled, his voice sounding like a rockslide. “We have come for trophies. And as it happens, Alpha Thalys’s little sisters will make excellent bargaining chips to recover the Cursed Wolf.”

Mia felt a burning rage flood her chest. Ignoring the pain in her ribs, she tried to force the transformation. Her muscles rolled beneath her ball gown, her skin beginning to coat with dark spots...

— “Now!” Malphas commanded.

A metallic hiss rang out. A net of solid silver, each link glowing with a malevolent light, fell over the two sisters. The cry that escaped their lips was not that of predators, but of victims. The silver, toxic and burning, acted as an instant poison. The contact of the metal against their skin tore their bond with their animals, inhibiting their magic and forcing them to remain in their human forms, trapped in vulnerable female bodies and encased in ceremonial clothing.

In seconds, the tragedy was sealed.

Anton, attempting a heroic breakthrough toward the sleigh, was stopped dead by a silver arrow dipped in wolfsbane. The projectile buried itself deep in his right shoulder, spreading a venom that paralyzed his limbs. He collapsed into the snow, his golden eyes fixed on the twins in a final look of apology.

Karl, for his part, was still fighting three soldiers, but a gaping wound to his thigh made him buckle. He was pinned to the ground, a blade held to his throat.

The twins, shackled and burned by the net, were dragged from the debris of the sleigh like common bundles of merchandise.

TOWARD THE FORTRESS OF WHISPERS

Silence fell once more upon the path, a heavy silence, disturbed only by the crackling of broken wood and the muffled moans of the wounded. Malphas approached, eyeing Mia and Béa with a lecherous gaze that chilled the young women to the bone.

— “Look at these pretty porcelain dolls,” he sneered, lifting Béa’s chin with his calloused hand. “Did Thalys really think he could hide you behind curtains of silk and ice?”

Béa spat in the giant’s face. Her sole act of resistance earned her a brutal backhand that knocked her unconscious for a moment.

— “Chain them,” Malphas ordered, his face hardening. “And gag them. I don’t want to hear a single one of their screams before we pass the gates of Krane.”

Cold iron chains, enchanted to drain the energy of shape-shifters, snapped shut around their wrists and, more humiliatingly, around their necks. The contrast between the crudeness of the irons and the delicacy of the lace they wore was the very image of their fall. Rough leather gags were tightened with cruel force over their mouths, stifling their Barsky protests.

They were tossed unceremoniously into the back of a heavy transport wagon, a cage of wood and iron covered by a thick tarp. Around them, Malphas’s riders took their positions, their coarse laughter echoing through the petrified forest.

THE BREATH OF TREACHERY

The convoy set off. Instead of following the royal road toward the peaks of the Blue Glacier, it veered East, taking smuggler trails and forgotten passes. They were leaving the known world, their brother’s kingdom, to plunge into the desolate lands of Alpha Krane.

Their destination was the sinister Fortress of Whispers. A place of which legends said the walls were kneaded with the screams of the tortured, a bastion where the Alpha of the Dark Moon broke the strongest of wills.

In the gloom of the wagon, Mia finally caught her sister’s eye. Béa’s eyes were red, clouded with tears of rage and pain, but deep within her pupils, a small flame refused to go out. They were Barskys. They had the blood of Northern kings in their veins. They could be chained, gagged, and dragged through the mud, but their souls could never be subdued.

Meanwhile, on the deserted path, the snow was already beginning to cover the traces of the struggle. Elara’s mother-of-pearl button, that precious little link to the past, lay in the frozen mud, trampled by the boots of the Skinners. The North was no longer a refuge. War was no longer knocking at the door; it had just broken in and stolen what Thalys held most dear.

PART II: THE CALL OF THE BLOOD

At the Quartz Palace, the atmosphere was strangely calm. Thalys, Alpha of the Blue Glacier Kingdom, stood before the large bay window of the throne room, watching the twilight. Elowen sat near him with a book on her lap.

Since his sisters’ departure, a dull anxiety had been gnawing at his vitals. Thalys was not a superstitious man, but he believed in instinct. And he was screaming that something had just broken.

Suddenly, he pressed a hand to his temple, his face contorting.

— “Thalys? What is it?” Elowen asked, jumping to her feet.

The Alpha didn’t answer. He was elsewhere. In his mind, the pack bond, that invisible thread connecting every member of his lineage to his heart, had just burst into flames. It wasn’t clear communication, but a mental scream, a blast of pain and terror.

Thalys...

The voice of Karl, his Beta and childhood friend, rang in his skull like a dying echo. It was heavy with the smell of blood and the bitter taste of wolfsbane.

The ambush... Malphas... The girls... They are... gone...

The bond snapped abruptly, leaving behind only a frozen silence, more terrifying than any howl.

THE AWAKENING OF THE HUNTER

Thalys let out a roar so visceral that the palace’s crystal chandeliers vibrated, tolling like a knell against the quartz walls. It was no longer the cry of a sovereign, but that of a brother whose heart had just been ripped out.

In the mind of every member of the lineage, the pack bond flared, saturated by Karl’s distress and Anton’s silent agony. Panic could have set in, but the Barsky hierarchy immediately reasserted itself under the Alpha’s impulse.

— “Xander! Matveï!” Thalys roared as his brothers burst into the great hall. “Ready the guard! Arm every man; I want absolute vigilance on the ramparts!”

Without a word, the two warriors veered toward the barracks, their presence alone enough to channel the rising chaos. Anastasia and Olga appeared in turn, their faces livid but their gazes made of steel. They needed no questions; they had felt the echo of the bond.

— “Ana, Olga,” Thalys commanded, his voice raspy. “Get Elowen to the safe room. No one goes out, no one comes in. Gather the women, children, and Elders there. Maxim!”

The youngest brother, already in motion, stopped short.

— “Hermetically seal every exit of the Palace,” his Alpha barked. “Lock the quartz seals. Let this palace become an impregnable fortress.”

Elowen, who had rushed after Thalys, wore a face marked by devouring guilt. She knew her own secrets were the engine of this tragedy.

— “I’m coming with you,” she declared, her voice vibrating with desperate resolve.

Thalys turned to her, his blue eyes burning with a wild light.

— “Stay here, Elowen. It’s a trap. They want you, and I won’t give them a second target. Get into that safe room and wait for me.”

As the tension reached its peak, Thalys paused. His breath was short, his jaw tight with rage, but his eyes anchored into Elowen’s. Suddenly, ignoring the presence of Anastasia and Olga standing a few feet away, he made a sudden move. He seized Elowen’s face between his powerful hands and pulled her to him, kissing her passionately.

It was a wild, desperate kiss that sealed a silent promise amidst the chaos. Elowen was left speechless as he finally pulled away. Her heart pounded against her ribs, her mind completely reeling from this mark of affection as sudden as it was intense. His sisters exchanged surprised and awkward glances, but Thalys already had his sights set on the horizon.

As he headed for the exit, he sent a powerful impulse through the pack bond: “Mia and Béa have been taken. I am leaving the palace to investigate. Xander assumes command in my absence. Protect the Clan.”

Sacha, the Royal Pack’s healer, joined them with a quick step. Despite the fact that her own husband, Anton, was in mortal danger, she displayed the legendary composure that made her the clan’s medical pillar. She already wore her emergency bag slung across her shoulder, an accessory designed with expandable straps allowing her to keep it even in animal form.

— “I am ready, Alpha,” she said simply, her eyes betraying contained worry but her hand perfectly steady.

Without wasting a second, Thalys did not head for the stables. The time for reindeer was over; the emergency demanded the speed of predators. Before the eyes of the guards, he lunged forward. In a crack of bone and a tearing of fabric, his human form vanished to make way for a massive snow leopard with thick fur and powerful muscles. Sacha and the other members of the escort imitated him instantly.

The pack of leopards bolted out of the palace, their spotted silhouettes blending into the swirling snow, streaking like silver arrows toward the site of the ambush.

THE FIELD OF RUINS

The journey was a silent agony. Every leap through the powder seemed too short for Thalys. When they finally arrived, the sight froze even Sacha’s blood.

The white sleigh was nothing more than a skeleton of broken wood, overturned in a ditch. The snow, once pure, was stained with large crimson patches. Two reindeer lay on the ground, their throats slit.

Thalys shifted back to human form in a fluid movement, rushing toward the dark figure stirring near the debris. Karl was on his knees, pressing a hand on his bloodied thigh, fighting unconsciousness. Sacha, ignoring everything else, threw herself onto him to stabilize the hemorrhage while searching the area for her husband, Anton.

The Gamma lay a little further away, pale. Sacha stifled a cry when seeing the silver arrow piercing his shoulder. She opened her bag, her movements precise and rapid to counter the devastating effect of the wolfsbane.

— “Karl!” Thalys growled, seizing his Beta by the shoulders. “Where are they?”

Karl raised tear-filled eyes to his Alpha, humiliation mingling with physical pain.

— “Malphas... He surprised us... The Magic... The mist... The silver... The Wolfsbane, Thal. They couldn’t even fight. They took them East. Toward the Fortress of Whispers. Toward Krane.”

Thalys let go of Karl, his fists clenching until his knuckles cracked. He took a step back, his gaze sweeping the crime scene. That was when he saw it. A small glint of light nestled in the mud, right next to a heavy boot print belonging to the Eastern Skinners.

He reached down and picked up the object. It was the mother-of-pearl button. An unknown object.

A PROMISE OF BLOOD

The Alpha stood motionless, the button squeezed in the hollow of his palm, as the wind began to howl around them. Sacha worked in silence, her jaw set as she extracted the silver tip from Anton’s shoulder.

Thalys straightened up. The sadness had left his features, replaced by a determination so cold it seemed to freeze the ambient air.

— “Krane and Malphas have made a fatal mistake,” he said, his voice carrying into the depths of the forest. “They believed they could enter my home and steal my flesh. He believed the North would remain silent in the face of his arrogance.”

He raised the mother-of-pearl button toward the black sky, like a challenge thrown to the gods.

— “Tonight, the time for diplomacy is over. We are no longer guardians. We are hunters.”

He turned to his men, his silhouette silhouetted against the swirling snow.

— “Sacha, stabilize them. As soon as they can be moved, take them back to the palace. The rest of you, with me. We are going to mark this trail. I will not stop until I have reduced the Fortress of Whispers to ashes. And if a single strand of their hair has been touched... Malphas and Krane will regret being born.”

Thalys shifted back into his animal form, a roar of defiance rising toward the moon. This Chapter closed with a vision of darkness, but the snow leopard was now on the hunt, and no shadow could escape him.