Chapter 115

• Alaric’s POV
• The wind howled through the jagged peaks as we rode, and each gust felt like a chorus of voices—mocking me, defying me, daring me to fail. I clenched my fists around the reins until my knuckles whitened, my nails biting into my palms. The landscape below Hunter's Ravenhold stretched vast and wild, but all I saw was a kingdom waiting to be claimed. Mine. All mine.
• But beneath that hunger, beneath the fire in my veins, there was rot—anger so deep it coiled around my soul like a serpent. How dare they resist me? How dare they whisper of rebellion, of hope, when I had given them a chance to kneel and live? Fools. Every last one of them. The thought of the packs that had defied me sent fresh fury surging through me, a storm building behind my eyes. And Freya—the jewel I had forged with my own hands—she wavered. I felt it. Even now, as we approached Ravenhold’s borders, I sensed the cracks in her obedience, the flicker of her old self struggling to surface. It disgusted me. It terrified me. It made me want to crush every last glimmer of it until there was nothing left but my weapon. My queen of ruin.