~Lyra~
The news of Kael joining the Trade under the Royal Hall spread like wildfire.
A full-page spread in the national paper was devoted to it. Analysts, royal watchers, and a couple of self-important "strategists" were all brought in to dissect what it meant. The headline read:
"Trial Run or Succession Signal? Kael’s Sudden Entry into Trade and the Implications for the Lycan Throne."
I still didn’t know what Kael had said to King Aldric that day in the study. I’d asked once, and Kael had looked at me with that unreadable expression and changed the subject.
Which, of course, made me even more nervous.
The EPD and the Elite trial had already been a battlefield, but that was just a sliver of the royal family’s cutthroat world. A crumb.
Trade, on the other hand, was a full slice of th
