My wolf claws against my skin, desperate to break free. Lyanna is right there, just behind those doors. The ceremonial music shifts again, sixth binding note vibrating through my blood. One more to go before she’s lost to me forever.
Ben drives his elbow into a guard’s throat, creating space around Rafe. “Eastern flank secure! Focus on the breach!”
The ward structure wavers, a hairline fracture appearing in the center of the doors.
“Almost there,” Rhonan grunts, veins standing out on his neck as he maintains the stream of angelic dragon fire.
My skin burns with urgency, my muscles coiled to spring the instant an opening appears. I won’t let her be bound to another. Not while I breathe. Not while my heart beats in time with hers.
Rafe’s magic pulses brighter, his face contorting with effort. “Now or never,” he grits out.
The fracture in the ward structure widens suddenly, the magical barrier destabilizing as Rhonan’s dragon fire and Rafe’s disruptive magic find the perfect resonance.
“THERE!” Derek shouts, pointing at the opening forming in the wards.
The guards realize what’s happening, throwing everything they have into a desperate final defense. Three launch themselves at Rafe, knowing if they break his concentration, the breach will fail.
I intercept the first, driving him back with a vicious combination that leaves him stunned against the wall. Ben takes the second. Derek materializes behind the third, yanking him away from Rafe.
The breach in the wards grows wider, an actual physical opening appearing in the magical barrier. Behind it, the crystalline doors themselves begin to crack along the same lines.
Through the fragile thread that still connects us, I feel Lyanna’s desperation mixing with determination. She feels me coming. She’s fighting from the inside.
The seventh binding note begins to sound, its magical resonance building toward the final seal.
Now or never.
The crystalline doors explode inward as the combined magic finally shatters the wards. Shards cascade through the air, glittering like deadly diamonds under the throne room’s enchanted light. I stride forward with Ben and Derek flanking my left, Rhonan and Rafe to my right.
Every nerve in my body is singing with Lyanna’s presence after our dimensional separation. There she stands—at the altar beside Prince Korren, her ceremonial gown flowing like liquidmoonlight, eyes locking with mine in a mixture of relief and terror.
The assembled court erupts.
Screams ricochet off crystalline walls, amplifying into a deafening symphony of pure chaos. Noble fae scramble backward, ceremonial robes tangling around their legs as they flee the shower of razor-sharp crystal shards. Guards draw weapons with a metallic song that cuts through the panic. Diplomats freeze in perfect stillness, their political masks cracking to reveal genuine terror.
At the altar, the tribunal members remain statue-still, the seventh binding note dying on their lips. The magical resonance that was building toward the final seal sputters and fades, the ceremony’s power bleeding away into shocked silence.
And in that silence, every eye in the throne room turns to us.
“INTRUDERS!” The voice thunders across the chamber, and I recognize the face from Lyanna’s father’s message—Lord Theron himself, features hardening with rage as he steps forward from behind the altar. “Guards! Seize them!”
Prince Korren takes a careful step back from Lyanna, confusion crossing his aristocratic features as his gaze shifts between us. His hand moves slightly away from the ceremonial binding cord.
Behind Theron, a hooded figure shifts in the shadows. My wolf’s hackles rise before my conscious mind catches up—that corruption signature. I’d know it anywhere. The same rotting magic that poisoned our pack, that tore Lyanna from my arms.
Faelan. Wearing some noble’s face, but I can smell the corruption beneath the glamour.
Ben’s team locks into defensive formation behind me. Derek materializes at my flank, appearing more shadow than substance. Rhonan’s hands glow with elemental power, wind stirring at his command. Rafe’s disruptive magic cracklesaround his fingertips, ready to counter any spell. Behind us, I hear Evren breathing fire, keeping the guards from our backs.
The connection between Lyanna and me vibrates like a plucked string, her presence flooding my senses after what feels like a lifetime of agonizing separation. Everything in me wants to charge forward, grab her, and fight our way out—but that’s not why we came.
I raise my hand, my voice carrying through the throne room with authority that silences even the guards moving to intercept us:
“I challenge this ceremony’s legality under Inter-Realm law.”
Chapter 34
Lyanna
