A Crown of Ashes

n the cavernous halls of Virelia's Lycan Kingdom palace, my wooden wolf figurine clutched tight in my hand. The sun, a p

t shat

sound-ripped through the silence like the final breath of a dying beast. It

twined rage and pain. But this time, it was drenched in a desolation so complete it felt like the end of the world. The palace erupted. Sho

carried on the pani

ellan, and Mama, Her Highness Luna

fully grasp. But the silence that followed-the chasm left by the absen

, had become a mausoleum. They called it a power struggle, a betrayal from

*

guttural lament that was half war-cry, half sob.

from blood and the tangled threads of a vast betrayal [goodnovel.com]. My own life-my future, my everything-was over. I felt sick, like something inside

chest. My Lycan instincts screamed to hunt, to pu

then I

aph

. Her knuckles were white as she clutched that little wolf figurine, the one I'd carved for her l

r, older, rose in its place. She was the last of my blood. My sister'

rass. My name echoed on their tongues, not hers. She was too young, too breakable. And

a hand on her trembling shoulder, she leaned-just slightly-into my

e dais, newly crowned and battle-scarred, the crushing weight of Virelia pressing down on my bones, I s

loomed in my chest. A feeling so protect

sn't just the beginning of a reign. It was the beginning of a bond, one written by fat

thing that had orchestrated this tragedy wa