The heavy iron bolt quivered in the masonry, holding Lysander’s pinned wrist against the stone wall as his shrieks of agony echoed through the hall.
High in the shadowed balcony, the silver-clad archer lowered their massive obsidian bow, their cold, piercing eyes locked with Elara’s for a fleeting second before melting backward into the darkness of the gallery. Beside the throne dais, Alpha Viktor fell hard to one knee, coughing violently in the swirling crimson smoke that leaked from his dragon-scale collar. Yet before Kaelen could bring his dire-wolf broadsword down upon the invader's neck, the heavy bronze doors of the Great Feast Hall shook under a thunderous barrage of iron rams.
"Break the perimeter!" a savage voice bellowed from the outer corridor. "The King is dead! Take the hall
