A Warrior’s Fate (Wolves of Morai #1)

Chapter 39

CHAPTER 39

W hat was going on?

For a moment, Isla wondered if there was a way for her to somehow use the bond to read Kai’s mind. Break beyond the wall of stone protecting his thoughts. They should’ve been able to speak mind-to-mind now over the link between them.

Ezekiel stuttered and looked at Kai, who’d settled against the front of his desk. He gestured to the chair before him—before them—and crossed his arms.

Isla moved to sit in another seat at the desk’s side, honed in on the beta’s heartbeat, the way it skipped, and listened to how his breath hitched. He cast another glance her way as he sat.

Something suddenly flew across the room in Ezekiel’s direction. His reflexes were quick, and he caught it easily. Upon a glance at what lay in his hand, his eyes flashed.

The marker. The beta swallowed and lifted his head, asking the careful question, “What is this?”

Isla slid her gaze to Kai, who was looking at her, an invitation to disclose.

What was he doing? Was the plan to just lay everything out now in front of Ezekiel? Did they trust him?

Isla took a few moments to study her mate’s face, then felt her mind grow fuzzy.

She dug inside herself, finding a void she could sense at the end of a long stretch of ebony cord, twined with gold in an unbreakable stitch, drawing together two halves of a weaver’s blanket. It was a tightrope to teeter along, a road to walk, into a darkness unknown but…comforting.

An echo lay at the end, one she couldn’t decipher.

The cord thrummed, and shadows of the abyss drew closer, snaking along the path, swallowing the glow in tendrils until they reached and threatened to envelop her entirely. Coiling. Tightening.

She winced internally.

The icy binds dug in, sharp. Familiar but foreign. Overpowering as they tried to wriggle into her mind. Break in. Draw from it. Find that piece. That link like a doorway.

Isla’s instinct kicked in, and she reinforced that wall, the barrier that protected the most precious parts of her. Ones she’d never had to guard while in her human form when that bridge wasn’t exposed.

“Isla .”

That voicewasfaint, but she knew it.

Isla let the wall shatter completely, bringing her hand up to her head and scratching at her scalp.

“Kai?”

The shadows dropped into nothing but smoke, and the bond became a patchwork of radiance once more.

“It worked.” His voice filled her head as if he were standing right beside her, speaking right to her, but he’d since looked back at Ezekiel, perhaps to hide what they’d just done. “I think he knows about the witch, about the tunnels, about all of it.”

It took a moment for his sentence to register. She couldn’t believe that they were actually doing this. Communicating through the bond. Not only with pushes and pulls but with actual words. But, even if it was nice having him there, was linking with your mate supposed to feel like that? So…invasive? It hadn’t been that way when they shifted.

Isla blinked back to reality, hoping the pause hadn’t been long, needing to pull herself together quickly and maintain the cool facade Kai currently exuded. Even if inside, she was screaming.

Ezekiel knew?

“I got it out of the tunnels beneath the pack,” she answered. “ After I found that house in the wasteland with Rhydian and Ameera.”

Ezekiel jolted and spun to her, his voice harsh. “You had Ameera out there?”

“Mind your tone,” Kai gritted out, still standing with that unnerving calm. Control. “You’ve known about the tunnels and didn’t tell me. Why? And don’t. Lie .”

The room had become so quiet that Isla couldn’t drown out the sound of the ticking clock.

The bond trembled, strained, became…unfamiliar. Dark. A coiling of shadows, of cold, at the end of that fractured bridge.

She looked to Kai, who wasn’t looking at her but at Ezekiel with a stare so intense it was as if it could see straight through him, would rip right through him.

The beta shifted uncomfortably in his seat, giving a subtle shake of his head, scratching at it with a grimace. Then, he looked up.

Isla felt the tether ease as Kai gave a small start. At what, she wasn’t sure. But he blinked, shaking his head, too.

“You…had a lot going on,” Ezekiel began. “The Alpha Rite, the coronation, and then you were preparing for the Hunt. I planned to tell you afterwards, but while we were in Callisto, new information came to light.”

Information, she gathered the moment his gaze flickered her way.

“Me,” Isla answered before he could elaborate. “You met me.” She narrowed her eyes, trying to understand. “Why would that matter?”

“Mating bonds are complicated—they cloud our judgment, especially in the early stages—and somehow, you two made it worse . It was a risk,” Ezekiel said, that haughtiness of his slipping into his tone. “Io isn’t aware of the tunnels. If they were, they would’ve been sealed long ago.”

“Maybe they should be if it leaves the pack vulnerable,” Isla argued. “If it allows bak to get through them.”

“They’ve been open since this pack’s founding. Bak have only been an issue recently with the Wall’s wards failing.”

That made sense. The wards typically repelled the beasts from the borders. “But for what reason would you want to keep them open? Just to stroll in, every once in a while, and look at the scenery?”

Ezekiel inclined his head. “Do you know what the Wilds once was?”

Isla straightened. Of course .

“Why else?” Kai finally spoke again, sensing their volley’s end. “As unfortunate as it would be, losing Phobos’s history doesn’t make it a risk and reason not to mention it to me . ”

Another glance Isla’s way by Ezekiel. “Because it’s an open front. One difficult to guard, and one Io could use to their advantage.”

Isla scoffed. “Io has no reason to attack Deimos.”

Ezekiel lifted his brows, challenging. “Despite its strength and despite serving its purpose in world relations, Io is in a poor position to rule over all of Morai. The Imperial Alpha is too far away for the expanse of territory he wishes to control. He’s losing touch with Tethys, Mimas, and Iapetus. Why do you think he’s entertaining that general? The yappy one who fancies you.”

Eli.

That would make sense. He was the son of Beta Sampson of Iapetus. Bringing him into Io through Isla—or even sending her there—would be a way to build relations, to get a foothold.

Kai snorted at the jab before concluding, “That’s why they’ve moved in on Charon. Why they have Locke as their puppet.”

Ezekiel nodded. “But Kyran and I feared that wouldn’t be enough for him. That Cassius would want the head and the heart of the continent under his control.”

Kai’s gaze snapped to the globe on his desk. Where dead at the continent’s center sat— “You think he’d try to take Mavec.”

“It wouldn’t be surprising if it eventually came to that,” Ezekiel said, picking a piece of lint off his jacket. No look her way, but Isla felt the words directed at her. “It may already be in motion.”

Her stomach bottomed out, and she couldn’t fight the odd sensation of being split in two.

“Your father got wind of it before he passed. Heard the rumblings of more frequent visits of Io’s Council, particularly the Imperial Beta, to Charon’s capital. Potentially rallying troops…and he discovered something else.” Ezekiel paused, looking directly at ea ch of them before finishing, “They have witches hidden in their prison. An unwitting army.”

“What?” Isla jerked back in her seat. “No, we don’t.”

We.

Both Kai and Ezekiel turned her way, and though she’d expected the pointed look she’d received from the beta, the one she’d gotten from her mate—the slight hurt along with the empathy—she hadn’t been ready for.

She pushed them away. Shoved Io and her family away into the other . For right now, for this conversation, she had to.

“There’s one here now, isn’t there? You’re hiding them in the wasteland.” Though Kai’s words had blissfully averted the attention from her, the world seemed to stop moving.

Ezekiel paled, but recovered quickly, finding a scowl. “She’s the one who told us. She escaped .”

“Who is she ?” Kai didn’t miss a beat, while Isla’s mind stumbled to keep up.

She couldn’t filter through the shock, the feelings of—betrayal. Io keeping witches? Planning an attack? Taking Mavec for Charon?

Maybe it was the anger at the confirmation of another secret that helped Kai push forward. To press and press for as much information and take time to break it all down and absorb it later.

Or it was a way to keep Ezekiel off-balance. Give him less time to spin a tale, a lie, in pauses.

“All we knew of her was that fact. We offered her refuge here in exchange for protection, need Io strike.” Ezekiel seemed to steel himself with a breath. “And then she turned on us. Had that dog of hers kill Kyran and Jaden, go for you, and then she disappeared.”

Isla stopped breathing.

Kai may have, too.

That dog —the killer.

“Why would she want us all dead?” Kai’s voice was hollow, cold, and the closest Isla imagined she’d ever be to understanding how it had felt that day to wake up and find out his life had changed forever.

Recounting the deaths also seemed to move Ezekiel, whose eyes gleamed. “I won’t pretend to understand the reasoning of a witch.”

But there was something else he wouldn’t say. Ezekiel was manipulative, conniving, and those words— Deimos, traitor — nagged at her.

“Who’s the killer?” She chanced the words gently. “The one who did it.”

His stare hardened, and his nostrils flared. “I never saw their face. I never heard them speak. I don’t know who they were. She simply called them ‘her sword’.”

Her sword.

If that witch had been in the Wilds, then she’d need one. That was how she’d conquered the bak.

From the new quiet came another question, “That jewel, where did you get it if not the vaults?”

Kai, who’d since gone to sit in the chair behind his desk, inclined his head. “Why?”

Ezekiel tightened and released his grip on the marker still in his hands. Fidgeting. Anxious. “She had a crown, the witch. Obsidian stone. It looked just like it.”

“It’s a gift for Isla.” A vague brush-off. A lie. “Why keep the desire for Mavec a secret? Mate of Io or not, you know I’d defend the city.”

“I apologize; it was just too much of a risk at the time,” Ezekiel conceded, lowering his head. “Even now, you’re unbound, you belong to Io, and from what I understand, you’ll still be returning there when all is said and done.” He cast a look between them. “That is still your grand plan, isn’t it?”

Isla’s heart stumbled, and she cast a look at Kai. It had only been for a few fleeting moments, but whatever Ezekiel had clocked in it had been enough. When Isla’s gaze returned to the beta, his jaw was slightly unhinged, his eyes wide. “I see.” His smile unnerved her. “I suppose congratulations are in order, then.”

Both Isla and Kai responded with curt thank you’s , and Ezekiel cast a long look between them, eyes focused on their necks, the signs still hidden from him. “When are you planning to share the news? I imagine the mark won’t be wholly faded by the time the Imperial Alpha arrives.”

“When we tell her family is for Isla to decide, and the pack will know when the challenge is over.” Kai folded his hands over his desk, jerking his chin towards the door. “You can go. ”

Ezekiel nodded, rising to his feet. Though an abrupt dismissal, he seemed eager for it. Carefully, he placed the marker on Kai’s deskandthen bowed. “Alpha.” He turned to Isla and dipped again before drawling, “And Warrior— for now. ”

Isla returned the address with a scowl.

Once Ezekiel had gone, Isla turned fully to her mate, whose features had fallen into a grimace. He’d dulled his power and was massaging his temples. “He’sstillhiding something.”

Isla’s brow shot up. “How do you figure?”

“After you and I parted in Callisto, when I came back, all anyone—including Ezekiel—tried to do was convince me that Io was to blame for killing my father and Jaden. To turn me against them, against you …and I believed them. But Ezekiel knew the truth the entire time. That it was the witch they’d been helping who turned on them.”

“He just said why he didn’t tell you.”

“But why try to turn me against Io so violently, so quickly ?” Kai let the question linger for a few moments before answering for himself. “My father wasn’t someone who would deign himself to assist a witch as a precaution . ‘Need Io strike.’ If he heard rumblings that something was happening, he’d want to strike first.”

Isla’s eyes widened. “You think they had a plan to attack Io with the witch?”

Kai heaved a breath, likely catching the flash of fear in her gaze. He leaned back, looking at the ceiling as he spoke and thought aloud. “One witch wouldn’t be enough. Neither would having numbers on our side, especially against the strength of Io’s guard, the fact they can all pretty much shift, and with their own supposed arsenal of witches.” He glanced at the map on the wall beside him. “To even entertain the idea, he’d need to feel like he had another weapon.”

A weapon effective against wolves and witches alike. Brutal enough to take down feral armies but resilient enough to withstand magic.

Isla fell back in her own seat, her eyes snagging on the map. She trained her eyes over the terrain of Phobos, a land now ravaged by beasts.

She felt that sword’s icy touch on her forehead again and relived that crooked finger shifting over to the bak and then pointing to themselves. They’d been holding the last piece of the diadem. A piece of the diadem, the crown, that the witch had supposedly possessed.

Isla sat up in her seat, her mind buzzing. “What if…”

If there’s a resistance…but Kyran would need a weapon, the greatest weapon, one that couldn’t be destroyed. If the witch had figured out how…if she could…wield like a sword…many swords…

“What if she could control the bak? What if that’s how she’s survived?” At Kai’s look of perplexity, she explained her vague reasoning steeped in desperation. “If the killer hasn’t been acting of their own volition, but on behalf of her, maybe they aren’t the only ones. They’d pointed to the bak, too. What if they’re both being manipulated?”

Kai tilted his head, paler, fearful, considering. “But bak can’t be influenced by magic.”

“Unless she found a way. Or maybe she can…talk to them?”

Because reasoning with bak sounded perfectly plausible.

“I guess anything is possible at this point.”

A terrifying thought.

Kai frowned as he remained back in his seat. He folded his hands over his stomach and pondered, mindful of his words, “All the secrets that have been kept have been because I met you…and I have to imagine that’s why Ezekiel’s still hiding things. The plan is still to move in on Io.”

Though her body locked up, Isla tried to keep the fear off her face. But the bond—oh, the bond gave her away.

Kai’s lips were pursed, his face drawn in concern, understanding, and maybe slight discomfort.

Our packs fucking hate each other.

Isla swallowed but found her mouth dry. “How? He wouldn’t do anything while they were here for the challenge, would he?”

“I wouldn’t let him. Anyone,” Kai assured, a timbre in his voice showing he meant it. He’d do whatever he had to in order to prevent it.

Though the words didn’t ease any queasiness Isla felt. The thought of the beta still had her prickling. “If Ezekiel knows you wouldn’t support action on Io, how do you know he won’t hurt you?”

Kai exhaled sharply through his nose, a bored expression casting across his face as though he’d already thought of it. “He could try, but he needs me. Once a hit is dealt on Io, they’ll hit back, and we’ll be at war. And if not for strength, he needs me for pack morale. Our people will be too shaken to stand if there’s another sudden change in leadership, especially given I’m the last alpha of this bloodline.” His voice shuddered at the words, at the implication. “Which means he knows the witch isn’t a threat to me if she had been before, or else he would’ve said something. If I believe anything from him, it’s his love for this pack, his family, and loyalty to my father.”

Slightly more reassuring.

Isla began fiddling with one ridge at a curve of her chair. “Do you think he knows where she is?”

“Maybe. But we won’t get much from asking again. He knows there’s no coming back from this, that he’ll never regain my trust, and that he’ll be replaced, and—” A darkness shone in Kai’s eyes, one that made Isla remember that intensity she’d seen as he’d stared down Ezekiel. One it seemed even the beta felt bearing down on him, making him squirm.

What would be done with Ezekiel after? How would he be dealt with? He’d lied to Kai, his alpha, about something as serious as this.

More precarious lines for Kai to walk.

He wouldn’t just be cutting such a strong tie that the beta had historically maintained with his family; he’d also be upsetting Ameera’s life.

Kai didn’t elaborate on any plans or offer any options. He only moved on to say, “I suspect he’ll be movinga lot and doing everything he can to ensure whatever the plan is works out. So, we’ll watch…and I’ll need to talk to Ameera.”

“You’re going to have her tail him?”

He raked a hand through his hair, tugging at it so much that some of its curls loosened, curving towards his temple. “I don’t want to have to, but who else is there?”

For a moment, Isla found herself in Ameera’s shoes, ones she also wore—the beta’s daughter.If she had been assigned to spy on her father and watch how he moved within Charon, what he was doing—even with any hostility she’d felt, even if she’d wanted to defend Deimos with everything she had, it was her father . She’d be terrified of what she’d find, what she would have to do upon an unfortunate discovery.

They fell into silence, and Isla watched Kai drift into that place of solitude. Sparing her from all of this, what she shouldn’t have had to deal with to be with him.

Without a word, she pushed up from her seat and circled the desk. Once at his side, his eyes flicking her way, she leaned down, pressing her lips to Kai’s forehead, his temple, his cheek, and as a small grin bloomed on his mouth, he tugged her down to sit on his knee, and she lay another on his neck.

Isla wrapped her arms around him as he did her, and with her head leaning against his, Kai closed his eyes and breathed.

Time slipped away while they sat in the quiet as he continued to think. She waited, not pushing, knowing that eventually—

“I spent my entire life telling myself I’d never be like my father.” Kai began tracing an idle circle over her thigh. “And then I became alpha, and that’s all I’ve done. I thought adopting his council, his beta, would make it easier. For me. For the pack to adjust and feel secure after so much—change. Fast change…forced change. But I’ve been alpha for months— months —and we’ve been attacked by rogues, bak are slipping through the Wall, and witches are using our territory to hide and hurt other wolves. Who hurt you .” His circling ceased. “There were— are —plans for an attack that I don’t even know about. I’ve made everyone more vulnerable than they even know.”

“Your father made them vulnerable,” Isla said quietly. “And Ezekiel’s kept them that way, among others.”

“I should’ve realized.”

“Maybe, maybe not. But you know now , and what matters is how we fix it.” His stare burned into hers, the “ we” seeming to touch something inside him . “You’re not doing things alone anymore. You can do your little alpha protective thing, but we’re a team now.”

He smiled, and his broad hand settled flat on her thigh. Leaning forward, he pressed a kiss to her jaw. “There’s a lot going on with Io. It’s going to be like that for a while. ”

Lukas’s words echoed in Isla’s head, along with that gutting urge to get him out. A lot of bad blood . She should’ve known since the Hunt. “I know.” She let out a breath and gazed down, lifting her fingers to play with the collar of his shirt, his skin. “Even when I lived in Io, I knew there were dark and light sides to the pack. Maybe not as dark as they seem to be, but there’s that split everywhere.” Even here , she thought but didn’t mention. “I have great memories and not-so-great ones from my time there, and I can hold onto them, but—I just have to look at things differently now. There’s Io, there’s my family, and then there’s what matters most.” She raised her eyes to meet his, flattening her hand on his chest over his heart. “My future here. With Deimos. With you. The waters are messy, but I can get through them.”

Something in Kai’s eyes gleamed, and he was still as if the words had arrested him, stunned him, and then she felt him squeeze her. As if to check if she was, in fact, there. In fact, real. He leaned up to kiss her again, tentative and restrained, given he pulled away a few seconds after she kissed him back.

They had to stick to business.

“I think Jonah’s in the library,” Isla said, getting to her feet. “We should bring him what we found and tell him what we learned before you have the rest of your meetings.”

Isla had been impressed withThe Bookshoppe’s size and inventory, given what it was, but the library within the Pack Hall…at least six of those could fit in here.

And that was just her assumption from where she stood.

When Isla and Kai stepped inside, letting the door close with a heavy thud behind them, she was not in a library. She was in a small city.

Towers of books lay at their sides as they traveled down the length of the wall next to the entrance. Volumes upon volumes, collected over what she imagined centuries or a millennium, given how ancient Deimos was. She’d need to live at least several lifetimes before she could read through half of it .

Beside her, she could hear Kai breathe a laugh at her wonderment before he pressed a soft kiss to her hair.

Beyond the opening stacks, she heard murmurs of conversation and the faintest smooth melody, full of horns, drums, and taps of piano keys. They moved down one of the rows and reached the common area where Jonah, Ameera, and Rhydian had spread themselves out between one of the long mahogany tables, a rung of a ladder against a shelf, and a spot on the mezzanine overlooking it all.

Davina noticed them first.

“You’re both here!” She rushed up from the small leather armchair she’d been sitting in, her arms outstretched to engulf both of them in an embrace. A good change from last night—she was awake and didn’t smell like she’d bathed in wine. “Ow, shit.” Davina recoiled and reached for her head, a grimace on her face.

Maybe she still bore some traces of the events prior.

Isla chuckled, rubbing the smaller woman’s back. “Hangover?”

“I’m never touching alcohol again.”

The same words had passed Isla’s lips countless nights. Not once had they been true.

“Lightweight,” Ameera cooed, pushing herself up from her wooden perch. She closed the book she’d been flipping through, leaving her finger to mark her page. “Another visit from the two of you. What’s the occasion this time?”

Davina, who’d been glowering at Ameera for her comment, turned back to face Isla and Kai.

“Wait.” She leaned in again, taking in a deep, exaggerated inhale of Isla before teetering over to Kai. Another sniff. “Your scents are different. You smell like…each other.”

Isla pursed her lips, feigning innocence, and glanced up at Kai.Her mate smirked in return.

“No way.” They lifted their heads to find Rhydian jumping up from the floor of the upper level with his arms up, his smile wide and bright. “No fucking way!”

Kai’s smile nearly rivaled his brother’s as he shifted the neckline of his shirt to the side, revealing his mark. He attempted a dejected sigh. “She got me.”

More sounds came from various directions—gasps, a holler, laughs, and some clapping. Rhydian had gone so fast down the mezzanine steps he’d practically leaped, and Davina screamed, jumping at Isla again. As they hugged, laughing, Kai and Rhydian exchanged their own embrace.

And before she knew it, Isla was being lifted off the ground in the guard’s arms.

“Welcome to the family,” Rhydian said, the words so pleasant they also felt like a punch in the stomach. “I hope you know Magnus is going to shit himself when you show up to training as his luna.”

A cruel grin crossed her mouth. That did sound fun, but could she even attend training anymore?

Over Rhydian’s shoulder, Isla caught Ameera and Jonah smiling, too.

“And so, the dynasty begins,” the general presented overdramatically. “I thought you two had the look .”

Kai, who was enduring another hug from Davina, raised a brow. “What look?”

“The ‘finally fucked’ look,” Jonah said from his place at the table behind his tall stacks of books. They nearly shrouded him.

“We have to celebrate!” Davina bellowed, then held her head again. “Maybe with some cake, though. No alcohol.”

“Maybe later,” Isla said, turning fully to face Jonah, finding the book held open to a page by the marker. The pieces of the diadem, the dagger, and her scribbled messages sat at its side. “Things may have just gotten worse.”

As if the disclosure of the witch’s presence hadn’t been enough to shake the group, the revelation of Ezekiel’s knowledge of everything had been catastrophic. She almost wondered if maybe they should’ve told Ameera privately first because the crumbling hurt that crossed the general’s face was unlike anything Isla had ever seen.

Kai had followed her after she stormed out of the doorway, likely to talk her off the ledge of ripping her father in two and to propose his need for her to trail him.

While Rhydian and Davina retreated to the upper floors to pull more books, Isla crossed the room to Jonah and dropped the diadem’s jewel on the table with a clunk .

“So that’s it,” he said. The last piece. He didn’t ask how she’d gotten it. Rhydian and Ameera must’ve filled him in on everything.

Isla nodded towards his spread. “What have you found?”

Jonah rose from his seat and sifted a tome from the highest of his multiple stacks. The leather was worn, and the cover skin wasraised in places. Whatever was written was too faded for her to decipher. He opened it up to a page riddled with dark writing and symbols. Symbols she recognized—but also not at all.

“What threw me off at first was the messages.” Now, he pulled at one of the papers she’d sketched on. “There isn’t just one thing to pull from here, but three.” He traced his finger over the symbols she’d scribbled down from the alleyway, focusing on one whorl. “This isn’t any type of language but a rune—or, at least, an attempt at one.”

Isla’s stomach bottomed out. “A rune? Like from a witch?”

“Yes, but it’s incorrect enough to tell me that whoever sketched it had no idea what they were doing.”

Easily explained. “I copied it. What if I’m the one who messed it up?”

“It’s more than a mistake from duplication. It’s just wrong, but close enough to this—” He pointed to a symbol in the tome, several of them, and then motioned to certain glyphs copied onto the paper. “It’s for protection—all of them are, in some way—but I doubt whoever left them for you is magically inclined and meant to use them.”

“How do you know?”

“Because if they cast this rune with it depicted incorrectly, either they or the surrounding area would’ve been turned inside out.” Isla went wide-eyed, trying to picture what that would look like. “Ill-practiced spell work is no joke from what I’ve read. Witch magic has limits, costs, and if it’s not respected…it’s not pleasant.”

It sounded like it. Curiosity beckoned her. Maybe she’d do a bit more digging herself into those of the other continent.

But for now—

“So, they…copied it themselves?” she asked.

“Or tried to draw them from memory because they knew them or had seen them somewhere. ”

Isla quieted, taking in the information before gesturing back to the message. “What’s the rest, then?”

Jonah pointed to the symbols also in the book she’d gotten from Lukas, on the markers. “This is a language, but it’s old. Very old. Nearly pre-dating written record, which is odd.” He paused, and Isla raised her brows, urging him to continue. “This is a journal that belonged to Alpha Aneurin.”

Isla jerked back. “The Alpha of Phobos?”

Jonah nodded. “The one in power and killed alongside his people during the decimation five centuries ago.”

Why would the killer give Lukas an old alpha’s journal? What was the message here ?

She glanced up at Jonah. “Do you know what it says?”

“Just the name took me all night, and getting it was luck,” Jonah grumbled, hunching and placing both hands back down on the table. “I don’t know how I’ll get what the rest of the words are, but I’ll figure it out.”

Isla’s gaze shifted to the open book on the table, the writing in it so crisp and clean, yet it could’ve been scribbles for how little they understood it.

“If Alpha Aneurin was in power during the decimation…that was the time of our native languages, if not the Common. Why would he use an ancient dialect beyond the ones we’re even aware of to chronicle in a journal?”

“I can’t exactly read it yet, but I do have a theory.” He shuffled through some documents on the table. “Most of the knowledge of Phobos, for the public, was destroyed, but I could piece some things together from texts of Deimos chronicling the same timeframe before the decimation. I figured out the entries' dates and mapped them to these fragments here. Colliding with Io seems to be a popular pastime.”

At Isla’s heaved breath, he added, “Though it’s not just Io; it’s other packs, too. We tend to ally with the more southern territories, further from Io’s reach in the north. From the language in these speeches, from what I can translate of our native dialect, it seems like some territory war. Io had the strength—a lot of warriors deemed from those coliseum trials and battles. And they had bigger numbers, too, even with Ganymede, since Io’s population was surging once they’d recovered from the eruption. Deimos, Phobos, and the allies in Mimas and Tethys were outmatched and outnumbered. But Aneurin…” He pointed to a line of text in Deimos’s native tongue that Isla had no hope of translating. “Apparently, Aneurin had a weapon. A great one. Big enough that he had personally come to Deimos and traveled to those other packs to assure them of their victory and even persuaded Iapetus and Rhea to join the fight.”

“A convincing guy,” Isla murmured.

“Indeed,” Jonah echoed. “I bet Aneurin’s writing about whatever the weapon is, and he doesn’t want anyone to know about it.”

Isla leaned against the table, eyes trailing across the pieces. A weapon sounded very familiar. “But what could it be?” she whispered, more to herself. “There were no bak then.”

“Bak?”

She flicked her gaze up to Jonah. “Would it be possible for a witch to control the bak?” He raised his brows, and she elaborated, “We think she’s manipulating them. Using them as weapons.”

Jonah flattened his mouth. “It’s…unlikely. The bak were created by some pretty powerful magic.” He tapped his finger on the table. “It’s difficult to alter a dead witch’s curse, not to mention one that potent. It would only work if this witch you’re talking about is stronger than she had been.”

A shiver crawled up Isla’s spine. “ Stronger than the witch that decimated Phobos?”

Jonah nodded, fear even flickering in his eyes. “Even the scale of the decimation’s destruction feels like an implausible amount of power for one witch to possess.”

Isla swallowed hard, moving down the table to the diadem and dagger buried under some papers.She shifted the papers away from the blade to take it in, and her fingers caressed the metal. A coolness eddied through her body, and she took a breath.

That was…new.

She brushed it again and dared to pick it up, her grip constricting over the hilt. She gazed at her reflection in the metal, speckled with gold. The weapon hummed as she twisted and angled it through the air, and its three sisters, the diadem pieces, sang to her, too. So delicate, so soft and lilting, yet jilted and hurt. Drawing her to lift them and care for them as well.

She put the dagger down, not rushing but carefully.

Jonah had been watching her closely before pulling over a canvas envelope of some sort. From it, he extracted a wrinkled, discolored piece of artwork and laid it out for Isla. “What do you recognize?”

Isla gazed down at the parchment. The portrait, done from the waist up, had been crafted by what seemed to be a shaky hand. It showed a woman with moon-white hair and eyes such a dark violet they were nearly black. Atop her head, stark against the lightness, she donned a crown. Not quite the diadem before them, but in her hands…in her folded hands over its hilt, she clutched a dagger.

The dagger.

Eyes widening again, she noted the woman’s extravagant clothing and other pieces of large jewelry. “Who is this?”

“No idea. An ancestor of Kai’s, I think. I found it buried in the archives.” Jonah flipped the page, revealing more of the old language scribbled on the back of the sheet. “But hopefully, once I get a better grasp on the language, I’ll figure it out.”

“An ancestor,” Isla pondered, eyes sliding between the diadem, dagger, and the woman’s picture again. She swore something within her tugged, thrashed. Why, she didn’t know.

Didn’t know if she wanted to.