Chapter 76: Hidden Direwolf

Irvine’s shout tore through the hall, raw and furious, and by the time it faded his hands were already wreathed in flame, mana gathered and ready in case the creature turned savage the moment the cage came open.

House Augusta wasn’t alone in bracing for the worst. Across the room, House Versys had already drawn their bows, arrows nocked and humming with mana, every point trained without hesitation on the creature’s skull.

Nearly everyone in the hall had gone rigid with the same wary tension, watching the Emperor’s gamble unfold. Nearly everyone, except two of the Seven Pillar houses, who sat through it looking almost bored.

House Sarnel was one of them. They barely stirred as the cage doors swung fully open, as though they already knew exactly what the crown intended tonight. And after a long, breathless moment, the creature inside didn’t move at all.

The other unbothered house watched the same scene with an entirely different kind of attention, one far more curious than afraid.

"Matriarch Evalia. Is that creature what we suspected it might be?"

The voice belonged to a woman in her forties, seated across from Irvine and Cedric’s table. Beside her sat an Elder in long, flowing robes patterned all over with beast motifs, a single flower tucked behind one ear.

Their guards stood apart from every other house’s, dressed in clothing woven through with green leaves, faces marked with intricate painted patterns that might have belonged to some deep forest tribe.

They weren’t tribesmen, though. A banner stood planted at their side exactly as it did for every other Pillar house present, and stitched into its cloth, beneath the image of a great beast curled around the roots of an ancient tree, ran the name of House Melampus.

The woman who’d spoken was addressing her Matriarch now, a figure draped in soft green leaves and a profusion of pink and white blossoms that covered her from shoulder to hem like something grown rather than worn.

"You’re right, Lia. This Dark Beast does resemble the one we crossed paths with on our way here. But this one’s a different breed, and far calmer than the one we ran into before."

The Matriarch’s voice, when she spoke, carried a practiced grace, the voice of a woman keeping herself deliberately cool at the center of a room that had gone anything but. Rather than following the uproar over Varka’s plans like everyone else, Evalia’s whole attention had settled on the creature caged before them.

This was not the first Dark Beast she’d encountered today. It was, in fact, her second.

The first had been a Direwolf, glimpsed just outside the capital of Peria itself, somehow ranging far beyond the borders it should never have left, deep inside territory that had no business bordering the Calamity Forest at all.

"Could a difference in breed account for a difference in temperament?"

"It’s possible, Matriarch Evalia."

"But the one we fought earlier was a Direwolf. If a creature like that were caged the way this Dusk Feather is now, it ought to be raging against the bars exactly the same. They’re still Dark Beasts, both of them."

Lia, one of House Melampus’s trusted Elders, had a point. By every rule they knew, the Dusk Feather standing before the entire hall should have been thrashing against its confinement, just as the Direwolf had.

"But Lia, that Direwolf was strange in its own way too. Think about it. Why would a lone Direwolf wander that far from the Calamity Forest, and instead of running straight back into the trees the moment it was threatened..."

"It ran for Castilla instead. As though someone had ordered it there."

For most people living along Bravenheart’s border with the Calamity Forest, the sight of a Dark Beast prowling the edge of that territory was nothing unusual. What was unusual was what happened next.

Whenever something stronger than a wandering Dark Beast appeared, the creature would typically bolt straight back into the forest’s dark heart.

What Evalia had seen instead was a Dark Beast pressing steadily toward the border of the kingdom of Castilla, a distance far greater than anything that should have separated it from the Calamity Forest in the first place.

She’d been fortunate enough to bring it down before it reached anyone nearby.

"You’re right, Matriarch. Unfortunately, we have no way of guessing what’s truly behind either creature’s behavior. If Lord Evandra were here, we might know more. He is, after all, a Beastmaster."

Lia said it with the particular confidence of someone who trusted Evalia’s older brother without reservation.

Evandra, as a Beastmaster, should by rights have inherited House Melampus’s seat.

He had refused the position outright, unwilling to be tied down by a life spent so close to court and so far from the beasts he loved, choosing instead to hand the succession to his younger sister, who happened to be every bit as skilled in the arts of politics as he was in the wild.

Evandra’s judgment of her hadn’t been wrong. But Evalia herself had never much cared for the seat she now held, and some part of her still resented her brother, quietly, for handing her his burden along with his freedom.

"Enough, Lia. Leave my brother out of this. He wanted to be free, that much is true, but I never imagined his idea of freedom would mean following Princess Andromeda to stand guard at the northern border."

Evalia had genuinely been startled by his choice. She enjoyed a good fight herself, if she was honest, but her brother’s whole philosophy on the matter had always struck her as reckless.

If she’d understood his plans sooner, she might well have refused the title of Matriarch altogether.

"Don’t worry so much, Matriarch. Lord Evandra will be fine up there. He’s standing beside a strategist and the War Maiden herself. As long as he follows orders, everything should go smoothly, and he might even be home before winter sets in."

Worry still crossed Evalia’s face every time her brother’s name came up, because the northern border held two territories currently locked in open conflict with the empire. Fortunately, with the War Maiden, Princess Andromeda, stationed there alongside House Winter’s own forces, that frontier remained safe from any real threat for now.

"Matriarch, what are you doing?"

Lia hurried after Evalia, who had begun walking, without warning, straight toward the iron cage in full view of the entire hall. Evalia waved her off, telling her simply to stay where she was.

She kept walking until she stood directly before the Dusk Feather. The imperial guards moved at once to block her path, but Evalia didn’t stop. She reached out and took hold of the shaft of one guard’s spear, steady and unhurried.

"Your Majesty. Did you find this Dark Beast while it was trying to slip into the capital of Peria itself?"

Evalia bowed her head slightly as she asked it, her voice carrying clean across the hall.

Her question, and the ease with which she’d asked it, drew a wave of attention her way.

"Ah, you’re the new Matriarch of House Melampus, if I’m not mistaken. Evalia, was it?" Varka’s eyes found her with open interest. "It seems you’ve come to this ball carrying more useful information than every other noble house combined."

There was a quiet edge folded into that last remark, aimed at every Pillar family who’d let their emotions run loose so quickly tonight.

"No, no, Your Majesty. It was simply chance that I happened to know something. I’ve seen a creature act this way once before."

A ripple of shock passed through the hall at her words. To say plainly, in front of everyone, that she had witnessed something like this before was to suggest the night’s trouble ran deeper than anyone had yet imagined.

Even Varka’s eyes sharpened with open curiosity at that.

"Evalia. Please, tell everyone here the rest of it."

Without wasting the moment, Evalia recounted what she’d seen earlier that day: a Direwolf near the border that, rather than fleeing back toward the safety of the Calamity Forest, had run instead for the far more distant kingdom of Castilla.

She stated her suspicion plainly. From the way it had moved, and the direction it had chosen to flee, that Dark Beast had looked, unmistakably, as though something else had been controlling it.

"What? Are you saying that Dark Beast was being controlled?"