The King Before Death
There was no wind.
No birdsong.
Not even the small carrion beasts that haunted the ravine's crevices dared remain in the open.
Samael crossed the Forest of the Three Suns like an ancient shadow.
The kind whispered about in stories told around dying campfires.
The kind mothers invoked to frighten disobedient children.
But there was no fear in his footsteps.
There was something far more terrifying.
There was silence.
The silence of a king who no longer needed to roar to be heard.
His crimson eyes glimmered between the twisted roots before vanishing as he moved onward.
The forest itself seemed to retreat before him.
Branches bent away from his path.
Snow cracked beneath his boots as though it would rather shatter than touch him.
The ancient power radiating from his body was so overwhelming that even the trees seemed to hold their breath.
The stench was unbearable.
Blood.
Not the ordinary blood of prey, but the blood of warriors.
Thick.
Rich with magic.
Heavy with the pheromones of noble bloodlines.
Iron.
The scent of shattered armor.
Broken blades.
Torn-out fangs.
Forbidden magic.
A sickening residue that scorched the nostrils like the ashes of burned bone.
And death.
So much death.
The bodies became more numerous the deeper he descended into the heart of the forest.
Rogues.
Veterans.
Wolves who had once worn the crest of the Lunar Court with pride.
Now nothing more than cold flesh beneath the snow.
Others bore ancient symbols of Solari branded across their chests.
Men who had tried to erase their own past...
yet had never truly escaped it.
The iron brands were inflamed.
Red.
As though their own skin rejected the attempt to forget.
None of them had died peacefully.
Some had been cleaved from collarbone to hip in a single strike.
So cleanly that the snow beneath them had remained white, the blood taking precious moments to reach it.
Others had been pinned to trees with crude spears fashioned from broken branches.
Their arms spread wide.
Like sacrifices nailed upon a forgotten pagan altar.
There were traces of fire.
Not ordinary flames.
The sacred fire of the Lunar Bloodline.
A fire that burned from within outward.
Leaving bodies untouched on the outside...
and hollow within.
Claws had torn through throats.
Swords had pierced hearts.
Fangs had ripped away limbs.
This was not the work of a single style of combat.
It was desperation.
It was survival.
It was what happened when a Lycan princess was trapped between a wall...
and her enemies.
Samael never slowed his pace.
His gaze, however, missed nothing.
Every detail was recorded with the cold precision of a man who had crossed battlefields long before these men had ever been born.
The positions of the bodies revealed a path.
Every one of them had fallen facing forward.
As though they had died while charging ahead.
The direction of the footprints painted a grotesque dance.
Circles.
Advances.
Measured retreats.
Deep gouges scarred the earth where claws had tried to gain purchase...
only to be ripped away by force.
Elizabeth.
She had not fled.
She had advanced.
Always advancing.
Like someone desperately trying to keep the battle from reaching another soul.
Like a living wall.
Then he found feathers.
Large.
White.
Stained crimson.