THE WOLF KING’S BRIDE

CHAPTER FOUR: THE WOLF KING'S PROMISE

Elara Pov

The whispers didn't stop all night. They breathed my name through the hairline cracks in the stone walls soft, patient, and waiting. I sat by the hearth until the candles burned down to nothing but pools of cold wax, hugging my knees to my chest. I was too afraid to blink; every time I did, I saw Seraphina’s silver eyes flickering in the iron-framed mirrors, watching me with a smile that suggested she knew exactly how this story ended.

By morning, I felt hollow. It was as if the castle itself had reached into my chest during the night and drained something vital from me. I didn't even realize I was crying until Liora walked in. She looked as haggard as I felt, with dark circles bruising the skin under her eyes and her hair falling in loose, messy strands around her face.

She set the breakfast tray down, but her hands were shaking so badly the silverware sang a frantic, rhythmic tune.

"You must eat, my lady," she said, her voice small and brittle.

"I'm not hungry, Liora," I muttered, my gaze fixed on the dying embers in the fireplace.

"Tell me have you ever heard the walls whisper? Not just the wind, but words?"

She froze, her entire body tensing as she glanced toward the door. "The castle listens, my lady," she whispered urgently. "But it only whispers to those it... recognizes."

"Recognizes?" I stood up, the heavy silk of my nightgown rustling.

"You mean it recognizes her in me? Is that why it speaks?"

Before she could answer, the heavy oak doors groaned open. Kael stepped inside, dressed in dark velvet lined with silver.

His expression was the same unreadable mask, but as his eyes landed on my face, I saw a flicker of something softer a moment of genuine concern that he tried to hide behind a stern brow.

"Leave us," he commanded Liora. She bowed so low I thought she might collapse before she scrambled out of the room.

Kael walked toward me, his boots clicking with a slow, deliberate pace. He stopped just a few feet away, his silver eyes scanning the exhaustion written on my features.

"You didn't sleep."

"I couldn't," I replied, my voice steady despite the fatigue. "She wouldn't let me. She’s everywhere, Kael. In the mirrors, in the water, and now in the very stones."

Kael’s jaw tightened, a tiny spark of pain showing in his gaze. "Elara," he said, his voice dropping to a low, gravelly tone.

"There are things in this castle that feed on fear. They are echoes of a past that refused to stay dead. If you let them near your heart, they will take root there. You have to be stronger than the memory."

I took a step toward him, closing the gap between us. "Then stop giving me riddles and give me the truth. Tell me who she was. Truly. Not the queen the history books write about, but the woman who watches me."

For a long moment, the only sound was the crackle of the fire. Kael looked away, his hands tightening into fists at his sides.

"Her name was Seraphina," he began, his voice barely a whisper. "My first queen. My only love, once."

"I know the name," I said softly. "But who was she to you?"

"She was light," he said, and for a second, his face transformed with the memory of it. "And I was darkness. She loved the moon more than life itself; she believed its light could make her eternal, a goddess among wolves. I believed I could keep her human, keep her tethered to the earth and to me. We were both wrong."

He walked to the window, the gray morning light illuminating the sharp planes of his face.

"The night she died, the moon burned a red so deep it looked like a wound in the sky. Her power turned against her, consumed her from the inside out. When she fell, the castle changed. It became what she left behind a place that is alive, cursed, and incapable of forgetting."

I followed him to the window, sensing the raw, human grief radiating off him. It wasn't the monster of the stories standing there; it was a man who had lost everything to a force he couldn't control. "You loved her."

He nodded once, his throat working as he swallowed.

"I still do," he admitted, his voice cracking. "In a way that love shouldn't exist. It’s a wound that won't heal, a ghost that won't leave the room. And now, you are trapped in the middle of it."

I felt a strange ache in my chest. It wasn't jealousy it was a profound sadness. I felt like a guest in a tragedy I hadn't auditioned for. "She won't let you go," I whispered. "And she certainly won't let me stay."

Kael turned to me then. For the first time since I had arrived at Moonspire, I saw him clearly. His eyes weren't just silver; they were filled with a fragile, terrifying hope. "You're not her, Elara," he said quietly. "You are fire and blood and life. And that terrifies me more than anything else in this world."

I didn't know what to say. The silence between us softened, becoming something peaceful rather than tense. I reached out, my fingers trembling as I touched the back of his hand. His skin was warm, a stark contrast to the deathly chill of the room. His heartbeat was unsteady beneath my fingertips, a frantic rhythm that matched my own. He didn't pull away. He leaned into the touch, and for a heartbeat, we were just two people trying to survive a haunting.

Later that afternoon, when the sky had turned the color of lead and a soft, icy rain began to fall, Kael found me in the library. The room was massive, smelling of old parchment, cedar, and beeswax. I was tracing the gold-leafed spine of an ancient book when I felt his presence.

"You read?" he asked, standing by a shelf of wolf-hide volumes.

"I try," I said, a small smile playing on my lips. "Though your library feels like it's made of secrets rather than stories."

He walked over, his presence quiet but commanding. "Some of these books remember their readers," he murmured. "If you listen closely, they might even whisper your name."

I looked up at him, the candlelight dancing in his silver eyes. "Everything in this castle whispers my name, Kael. I'm beginning to think it's the only word the stones know."

"Maybe it's because you finally belong to it," he said, his voice dropping to a tender, dangerous register. "Maybe you were always meant to be here."

We spent the evening by the library fire, reading in a silence that felt heavy with things we weren't yet brave enough to say. Every now and then, our eyes would meet over the tops of our books, and it felt like we were learning how to exist in the same space without the armor of our titles.

When I finally yawned, Kael closed his book with a soft thud. "Rest, Elara," he said gently. "The castle sleeps lighter when you are at peace."

"I'll try," I replied, though the thought of the mirrors in my room made my skin crawl.

He hesitated at the door, looking back one last time. "Elara," he said, his tone weighted with a heavy promise. "Whatever happens, whatever you see... remember this.”

“I will never let it take you. I will fight the moon itself to keep you."

He left, and the warmth of his words lingered in the cold room like a ghost of a different kind.

That night, the dream returned with a vengeance. I was standing in the Silver Garden, but the flowers were no longer silver they were burning with a white-hot flame. The moon was a swollen, red eye in the sky, and the lake was as black as ink. From the water, Seraphina rose. Her gown trailed smoke, and her eyes were twin fires of silver light.

"You touched his hand," she said, her voice a melody of sorrow and sharp glass. "You felt his heart, didn't you? You think you can heal what I broke."

I tried to scream, but my throat was tight with silver dust.

"You think he loves you," she whispered, gliding toward me over the burning grass. "But look at your face, little princess. Those tears aren't yours. They are mine."

I looked down at my hands and gasped. My cheeks were wet, but the liquid wasn't warm. It was cold, viscous, and shimmering liquid silver. I was crying her tears.

"Why are you doing this?" I choked out. "What do you want?"

Her smile was the cruelest thing I had ever seen. "To finish what I started," she said. And then the garden shattered like a mirror hit by a stone.

I woke up gasping, my pillow soaked with that same silver shimmer. My fingers were trembling as I wiped my cheeks, finding the liquid already turning to dust.