Chapter 5 Five

Mira POV

I moved through the tower silently, my shadows wrapping around the corners, swallowing every sound. The Council’s spells flared at my approach, but they bent to me, powerless against what I had become. Three years of training, three years of survival, three years of rage sharpened every muscle, every thought. I was no longer the girl Jason had known. I was the Shadow Wolf. I was vengeance incarnate.

The chamber where the Core was kept pulsed faintly, a dark heartbeat that called to me. I stepped inside. The artifact hovered above the pedestal, its energy vibrating with an intensity I recognized instantly. The Council had drawn on forbidden magic to bind it. They had underestimated me.

I reached for it. My fingers brushed the black surface, and shadows leapt into my palms, obeying without hesitation. The power was intoxicating, sharp and precise. I felt it course through me, an extension of my own body. I had dreamed of this moment. I had planned it. I had been patient. And now, finally, I had it within my grasp.

A sound behind me made me spin. Jason stood there. Alone. His armor glinted faintly in the moonlight streaming through the broken tower windows. My chest tightened. My wolf stirred. Anger, desire, memory, and hate tangled together inside me.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I said, keeping my voice level. My hand tightened around my blade.

“I could ask you the same,” he said, his eyes sharp, scanning every inch of me. He looked older, harder, the boy I loved replaced by the man who had to survive a kingdom and a crown. But beneath the mask of control, I saw the same pain I remembered. The same regret.

“I’m not the girl you remember,” I said. “I am not the one you betrayed.”

His jaw tightened. “I never wanted to lose you.”

“You lost me,” I said. “And now you must live with it.”

He stepped closer. “I don’t care what you’ve become. I need to know why you’re here. Why you survived. Why you’re alive.”

“I am alive to finish what you started. To take what you could not protect. To make the Council pay.”

He flinched. My words hit the truth he had buried. He had protected his crown at my expense. He had failed me, and he knew it.

The ground shook violently. Dust rained from the ceiling. Torches flickered, their flames bending unnaturally. The Council had sensed our presence. Reinforcements were coming.

Jason’s eyes flicked to the doorway. “We need to move.”

“I move when I choose,” I said. “And I choose to stay.”

He hesitated. “You’re not ready for this fight alone.”

“I never was,” I said. “But I survived. I am ready.”

The first wave of soldiers stormed into the chamber. Shadows leapt from my hands, wrapping around them, dragging them to the floor. My blade moved in precise arcs, cutting through armor and bone alike. Every movement was calculated, deliberate. I did not hold back. I had no mercy.

Jason fought beside me, his sword moving with lethal precision. But even as we fought shoulder to shoulder, I could feel the tension between us. Every glance he gave me carried a question, a memory, a longing. Every movement he made beside me reminded me of the boy who once loved me. And every strike I landed reminded him of the woman he had failed to protect.

The soldiers fell, one by one, until the room was silent except for our breathing and the hum of the Core. Jason looked at me, eyes searching, desperate, full of something I could not name.

“You could have died,” he said quietly.

“I was supposed to,” I said. “Three years ago.”

His face went pale. “I never wanted that. I thought I was protecting you.”

“You protected yourself,” I said. “And that is why you lost me.”

The Core pulsed again, more violently this time, reacting to the presence of our combined energies. I realized then that Jason’s wolf energy, his blood, his essence, was intertwined with mine in ways the Council had never anticipated. Together, we were stronger than they had imagined. Together, we could tear this tower apart.

But the moment passed. Reinforcements were coming. I could sense the Council summoning more soldiers, more magic, more death.

Jason took my hand. I stiffened. His grip was firm, insistent, grounding.

“We survive this,” he said. “Together.”

I wanted to pull away, to remind him that I was not his, that I owed him nothing. I wanted to remind him of the years of pain, betrayal, and loss. But I did not. I let his hand stay, because the fight ahead would demand more than hatred.

Shadows swirled around us. The Core pulsed faster. The Council was about to arrive, and the war was about to begin in earnest.

For the first time in years, I felt something that was not anger. Something I had buried deep beneath the layers of pain and rage.

Fear. Not for myself. Not for Jason. For what we could become if we failed.

The Shadow Wolf and the prince, standing side by side, preparing to face the Council.

And neither of us would survive unscathed.