Chapter 24: Summoned
The chamber doors slammed shut behind Aeron with a finality that echoed like the fall of the executioner’s lever. He stood for a moment on the threshold, chest still tight from the public square, where the crowd’s murmurs had followed him like smoke. The golden embroidery on his sleeve caught the firelight from the hearth, but the warmth did nothing to ease the chill that had settled deep in his bones.
Inside, the room felt smaller than it had that morning. Two heavy oak chairs had been dragged close to the long table, and there sat Theron, broad shoulders hunched, fingers drumming a silent, restless rhythm on the polished wood. Kael stood near the window, arms crossed, his face drawn into lines of pure tension. A half-empty decanter of dark wine stood between them, its contents untouched since the last pour.
Aeron shrugged out of his heavy coat and tossed it onto the nearest chair. "She left in a fury," he said without preamble. "Stormed off like the devil himself was at her heels. But not before promising I’d regret today."
Theron’s drumming stopped abruptly. His silver-grey eyes lifted, sharp as freshly honed blades. "Regret is the least of what she’ll try to hand us. You know that."
Kael turned from the window, the firelight carving harsh shadows across his sharp jaw. "Elowen doesn’t make empty threats. She makes plans."
Aeron crossed to the table and poured three measures of wine with deliberate care, the liquid glinting black-red in the goblets. He had just set the decanter down when they heard a knock on the door.
Kael moved first, crossing the room in two strides and yanking the door open.
A royal messenger stood outside, face pale beneath the torchlight, holding a parchment scroll sealed with the council’s black wax and the heavy imprint of Lord Castor’s signet ring.
"My Princes." The messenger’s voice cracked on the last syllable. "You are summoned to appear before the royal council. Immediately."
The scroll was pressed into Kael’s hand. The messenger bowed, hurried, and retreated almost before the door had closed.
Kael broke the seal with a single, brutal motion. His eyes scanned the formal script once, twice, then lifted his eyes to meet Aeron’s.
"This must be Elowen’s move," he said, voice hoarse with barely restrained fury. "They demand answers about the human servant."
Aeron took the scroll without a word. The parchment crackled under his fingers as he read the terse summons.
Theron rose slowly. "Then let’s not keep them waiting. The sooner we face this, the sooner we know how many knives are already drawn."
They left the chamber together, boots ringing on the floor, the bond between them thrumming with shared tension.
The Star Chamber lay deep within the oldest part of the palace, carved into the living rock centuries before the first wolf king had claimed the throne. Windowless, perfectly circular, lit only by twelve silver sconces shaped like crescent moons. A single table of polished black obsidian dominated the center, its surface etched with the lunar phases in hair-fine silver lines that caught and reflected every flicker of light. Twelve high-backed chairs ringed it. Only six were occupied.
Lord Castor presided at the head, elderly, silver-haired, spine still straight despite the years that had etched deep lines around his mouth and eyes. His face was carved from granite and disapproval. With him sat five more nobles whose family names had been etched into Silvermoor’s history longer than the triplets were born. They carried no weapons, yet every folded hand, every measured glance radiated the quiet menace of men who could unmake kings with ink, parchment, and whispered alliances.
Castor took the seat beside the late king’s empty throne. The others arranged themselves in careful hierarchy. When the triplets entered, no one rose. No one spoke.
They did not sit.
Aeron positioned himself at the head of the table—exactly opposite Castor. Kael stood at his left shoulder, arms crossed, claws half-extended in silent warning. Theron leaned one hip against the back of an empty chair, a smile pleasant and utterly false on his face.
Castor steepled his fingers.
"Rumors have reached this chamber," he began, voice calm and deliberate. "That the heirs of Silvermoor have taken a human woman—not as servant, not as plaything, but as mate. That the ancient mating bond, unbroken and unchanging for a thousand years, has somehow crossed species to bind all three of you to the same mortal girl. Seren Ashwood. Daughter of the royal medicine woman."
The name landed like a thrown gauntlet.
Theron tilted his head, his smile never wavering. "Gossip has always moved faster than truth in these halls, my lord. Sometimes it even arrives before the facts."
"Do not insult this council with wordplay, Prince Theron." Castor’s voice sharpened to a blade. "We have statements. Servants who have seen her in your private wing, treated not as staff but as... something else. Guards who report your protectiveness. Your visits to her cell in the dungeon. And tonight..." He gestured toward the doorway without looking. "...your sister has come before us with testimony that can no longer be ignored."
The doors opened with a low groan.
Elowen entered alone.
She had changed her gown since the square. Now she wore stark white silk so fine it seemed spun from moonlight itself. Her golden hair hung loose, catching every flicker of torchlight like molten metal. She carried no fan, no attendants, no visible weapon, yet the room seemed to dim around her.
She stopped just inside the threshold and curtsied. Deep, flawless, edged with mockery.
"Brothers," she said, voice sweet as frost on glass. "My lords."
Aeron did not turn his head.
"Speak plainly, sister."
Elowen smiled. Her smile was a crescent moon, beautiful, sharp, and cold.
"The truth is plain enough," she said. "You have marked a human. All three of you. The bond sings so loudly that half the palace can smell it on your skin. And you..." She turned to the council, voice lifting just enough to carry to every shadowed corner. "...sit here debating succession while the future kings of Silvermoor defile the bloodline with mortal flesh."
Kael took one step forward.
Aeron’s hand lifted, barely an inch, and Kael stopped.
Lord Harrow surged to his feet, face flushed purple above his stiff collar. "This is abomination! Three alphas sharing one mate? A human? The old packs will never kneel to such filth. Alpha Magnus is already massing troops on the northern border."
"Alpha Magnus masses troops because he smells blood in the water," Aeron said quietly. "Not because of our mating choices. He would have come regardless."
"And you think bedding a mortal will stop him?" Harrow spat.
Kael’s growl was low, barely audible, but it vibrated through the obsidian table and set the silver etchings shimmering.
Aeron’s voice never rose. "We do not bed her. We have claimed her. She is pack. She carries our mark. And if any wolf, border lord, councillor, foreign alpha wishes to challenge that claim, they may do so in the old way."
The threat hung in the air like drawn steel.
Lady Veyra leaned forward, voice soft but cutting. "The old way would mean civil war. You would tear the kingdom apart for a human girl?"
Theron answered before Aeron could. "We would tear it apart for far less," he said pleasantly. "But we would prefer not to. Which is why we are here."
Castor raised a hand. The chamber stilled.
"The law is clear," he said. "The mating bond is sacred. If it has truly formed; Moon-touched and unbreakable, then this council cannot dissolve it without risking divine wrath." His gaze moved from face to face. "But sacred or not, it changes nothing about succession. You cannot present a human as queen. The packs will not kneel. The border lords will rebel. The council will fracture."
Aeron met his eyes without blinking.
"Then we will not ask them to kneel to a human," he said. "We will ask them to kneel to their kings. All three of us. Joint rule. A triumvirate. As you yourself proposed last week when Father’s body was still warm."
The chamber went deathly still.
Castor blinked, once, slowly.
"You would share the throne?"
Theron spread his hands in a graceful, mocking gesture. "We already share a mate. What’s one crown between brothers?"
Kael said nothing. He didn’t need to. The promise of violence rolled off him in waves that made the nearest sconce flame gutter.
Castor leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled once more.
"And the girl?"
Aeron’s answer was immediate. "She remains ours. Protected. Hidden until the transition is secure. After that..." He let the sentence die, unfinished.
"After that," Elowen interjected, stepping forward until the firelight painted her white gown in shades of blood and shadow, "the packs will demand her death. Or exile. Or both. You cannot hide a scent that strong forever."
Aeron finally looked at her.
"Then we will not hide it," he said softly. "We will show them what she becomes."
Elowen’s smile froze.
"What she becomes?"
Aeron did not answer.
He simply turned and walked toward the door.
Kael and Theron fell in behind him without hesitation.
Castor’s voice followed them, cold and measured.
"This conversation is not finished, Your Highnesses."
Aeron paused at the threshold. He did not turn.
"It is for tonight," he said. "The rest can wait until dawn."
The doors closed behind them with a heavy, final sound.
In the corridor outside, Theron exhaled through his nose.
"She’s moving faster than we thought."
Kael cracked his knuckles, the sound sharp in the silence. "Let her."
Aeron said nothing.
He was already walking fast, then faster, toward the dungeon where Seren was still locked.
"No more hiding," he muttered under his breath. "She has to be released."
Then the bond pulsed again.
Stronger this time.
Urgent.
But different.
He felt pain.
Sharp and sudden. Radiating from the direction of the dungeon.
Seren’s pain.
Aeron broke into a run.
Behind him, Kael and Theron followed without a word, boots pounding stone.
The palace corridors blurred past tapestries, torchlight, startled servants who pressed themselves against the walls and whispered as the three princes tore through the night like wolves on the hunt.
Somewhere in the darkness ahead, a single scream tore through the silence.
Seren’s scream.
