The first thing Nyra caught was how unreal the palace looked. It wasn’t just big—it was impossible. The place rose right out of the kingdom’s heart, so huge and magnificent her mind kept stumbling over the scale. Spires shot up into the clouds, silver tips flashing with sunlight until they looked like streams of fire. Walls of white stone stretched out forever, wrapping the royal grounds in a way that made anything Nyra had seen before seem like a child’s drawing.
This wasn’t just a home. It was a whole city. No, more than that—a kingdom tucked inside another kingdom, all power and grandeur piled on itself. Nyra sat frozen in the royal carriage, clutching her dress as they rolled closer to the looming palace gates, her heart hammering.
She’d known the Lycan Kingdom was supposed to be wea
