Chapter 373 - 107: Lost

The old woman spoke quickly, her calloused fingers dragging across the worn table.

"She arrived out of breath," the woman said. "Dusty, terrified, and asking about a wagon with a silver banner. When I told her it went toward the forest, she went pale. She looked at the treeline, said they’d taken the wrong child, and turned back toward the settlement. I never saw her again."

Silence fell over the room.

Destiny’s hands tightened under the table, her fingernails biting into her palms. An exchange. A mistake. She waited, but the old woman had nothing left to offer. She had carried that single sentence for decades, completely unaware of what it meant.

Destiny tried to fit the woman’s words into the fragments of her own history, searching for something that might explain why a child had been taken in the first place. The woman had seen someone frightened enough to ask about a specific wagon, then heard her speak of the wrong child. It suggested that whoever arranged the journey had intended to take someone else. But who had been meant to go, and how had Destiny ended up in their place? The answers remained buried in the past, beyond anything the old woman could remember. For the first time, Destiny understood that finding the people who had raised her was only part of the mystery. She also needed to discover who had arranged the exchange and what they had intended to accomplish.

Vance stood up. The quiet observer vanished, replaced by the cold, dangerous authority of the Lycan King.

"A silver banner belongs to a royal escort," Vance said. "My transport officers signed off on that carriage. Someone in my court ordered a child moved under the crown’s seal."

Destiny watched him walk right past the BloodMoon warriors waiting outside. He didn’t ask Dane’s men for help. Instead, he marched straight to his own personal guard, his posture rigid and his jaw locked. He kept his voice so low Destiny had to strain to hear him over the wind.

He’s keeping this in-house, she realized. If someone inside Silvercrest had traded a child under his seal, Vance wasn’t about to hand the investigation over to an outside pack.

"Rider," Vance commanded his guard. "Return to Silvercrest immediately. Unseal the royal transit logs from that season—every guard roster, every steward’s mark, and every carriage requisition. Have them brought to me at BloodMoon under armed guard. Tell no one."

The royal guard bowed and vanished down the road in a cloud of dust.

Destiny followed Vance to the horses. Marcus helped her mount in silence. As they trotted down the dirt road, Marcus pulled his horse alongside hers, keeping his eyes on the trail ahead.

"We don’t know who was on that wagon," he said, his voice low over the thud of hooves. "Or who was left behind. But whatever those ledgers say when Vance opens them, you are still our daughter."

Destiny swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded, taking comfort in his words as the farmhouse vanished into the trees. The uncertainty surrounding her birth had not changed the years Marcus and Kalessie had spent raising her, nor did it erase the place she held in their family. Whatever the records revealed, she would not lose the people who had given her a home simply because she had begun searching for the truth.

They had a real trail now, and it led straight back to Silvercrest.

They reached BloodMoon as the sky turned a bruised, dark purple. The stronghold was unnaturally quiet.

When they dismounted, Dane met them near the temple steps, his jaw set in a hard line. He addressed Vance with rigid deference, stepping back to give the Lycan King room.

"Your Majesty," Dane said, keeping his voice controlled. "The healers had to sedate Aurora two hours ago. The curse in her blood is adapting to the priestess’s magic."

Vance brushed past him, striding straight through the heavy temple doors with Destiny and Marcus right behind him.

Inside, the inner chamber was dead silent except for Aurora’s shallow, labored breathing. She lay unconscious on the stone cot, completely still under heavy herbal sedation. But the curse was visible—black veins webbed across her neck and cheeks, and beneath her half-closed eyelids, her eyes glowed a faint, sickly yellow.

Vance stood over the bed, his chest heaving as he stared down at his daughter.

"The sedation will hold her for twenty-four hours," the priestess said, stepping out from the shadows. "After that, her body will burn through the herbs, and the curse will force the shift."

Vance turned on Destiny, desperation cracking through his royal composure. "The Heart Stone. Bring it here now. Use your blood to clear the curse!"

"No," Destiny said, stepping forward to meet his gaze. "It almost killed the wolf in the clearing. Her body is already weak. Channeling raw power into her right now will kill her."

"She is dying anyway!"

"Which is why we need facts, not guesses!" Destiny matched his stare, refusing to back down. "We wait for your royal records from Silvercrest. We find out what was done to these children and this stone before we act."

Vance stared at her, breathing heavily with rage and fear. His gaze returned to Aurora, and for a moment, the authority he had carried into the chamber seemed useless against the sight of his daughter’s failing body. He could command guards, demand records, and order an entire court to obey him, but none of those things could guarantee that Aurora would survive the night. The temptation to act immediately was written across his face, yet he had no certainty that the Heart Stone would save her rather than finish what the curse had started.

As he looked from Destiny back to his unconscious daughter, the fight slowly drained out of him. He knew she was right.

Dane stepped forward, addressing Vance respectfully. "My Lord, my trackers have doubled guards on the valley passes. If the cursed Alpha moves on BloodMoon while Aurora is asleep, we will know."

Destiny looked down at Aurora’s still face, then back at Vance. He was staring at his own shaking hands, pale and helpless.

"Your records will be here soon," Destiny said softly. "We go through every page together."

Vance looked up, meeting her gaze, and gave a single, rigid nod.

It was a cold, desperate alliance. But as night fell over BloodMoon, it was the only option they had left.