Chapter 123

The council chamber smelled faintly of smoke and plaster dust, the same stench that had lingered since we returned to the ruined Pack House. The elders were already arguing when I slipped into my chair beside Richard, their voices sharp and overlapping like quarrelsome crows. Numbers flew across the table: how many bricks to replace, how many roofs still bare, how many families displaced. It wasn’t strategy, not even debate, just bickering.

I forced myself to sit straight, though the chair’s wood was chipped under my palms. I hated that I still felt like an imposter here, surrounded by wolves who had been ruling longer than I’d even been alive. They looked at me like I was ornamental, a courtesy seat granted because Richard insisted.

Then Callen Rusk cleared his throat. A junior elder, younger than most, with dark hair that fell into his eyes when he bent over his notes. “If we’re arguing over budgets, we’re missing the larger issue. Our workers aren’t safe. We need a safety board before rebuilding moves further. Amelia is right, if families can’t trust their leaders to protect them, all this stone means nothing.”

The room fell still for a beat. My throat tightened. He wasn’t just agreeing with me, he was recognizing me. The smallest acknowledgment, yet it pierced through months of derision.

Across the table, Richard’s hand flexed against the wood. I knew that look, the controlled neutrality he wore when he didn’t want anyone to see what he really felt. The recognition that warmed me seemed to harden him. I couldn’t stop wondering if every word I spoke made him feel like his own voice was diminished.

The discussion lurched forward again, numbers piled on numbers, and soon the meeting broke with nothing settled. But I carried the weight of that brief silence, the one where Callen’s words hung in the air, heavier than bricks.

The shipment arrived at noon. Crates marked for repairs, stacked under the cracked marble arch of the service hall. The serial numbers had been scraped clean, only ragged grooves left in the wood. Nathan crouched to examine them, his sharp eyes narrowing.

By the time the wall crew hauled the first load into the courtyard, I felt uneasy. I stood back with Mira, watching mortar slapped over brick. Richard had his arms crossed, jaw set. Then a sharp crack split the air, followed by a blast that sent dust and flame bursting outward. The ground bucked under my boots. I tasted metal and ash, and my ears were ringing.

Screams echoed. One worker clutched his hand, blood slicking his wrist. Others dragged him clear. Nathan and Monroe darted forward, voices rising as they secured the scene. My heart raced as I forced myself to kneel beside the injured man, pressing his arm to stop the bleeding, my palms hot and sticky.

When the chaos dimmed to groans and coughing, Nathan held up a charred fragment of brick. “Chemical traces in the mortar. Same pattern as the salt shipment.”

Richard’s voice was like steel. “Where did it come from?”

Nathan’s jaw tightened. “A subcontractor recommended by Darius.”

All eyes turned toward him. Darius didn’t flinch. “Materials are scarce. Half the manufacturers don’t support the Pack House in this war. We take what we can get.” He spread his hands. “If you want me to stop sourcing, fine. But then you’ll explain to families why the roof caves in before winter.”

His words slid through the air like oil, and several elders already nodded, desperate for quick solutions. My stomach knotted. I couldn’t prove his guilt, but every time disaster struck, his name seemed nearby.

Later, security pulled footage from the blackout. A grainy shadow slipped into a storeroom, limping badly, weight shifted off one leg. It was the kind of limp that told a story of injury, recent and painful. Whoever it was had risked exposure to move during the outage.

“Someone inside,” Richard muttered, low enough only I heard. “Has to be one of our own.”

The thought settled like ice between my ribs.

I ended the day in the kitchen, where tension spilled over into gossip. Flour dust coated the air, souring against the metallic tang of ruined salt. A cook leaned close as she kneaded dough, voice pitched low. “My mother used to deliver food to a hidden chamber here. They called it the Hollow. Said elders held councils there, where no one could overhear.”

A cleaner across the counter nodded vigorously. “I’ve heard it too. Old tunnels beneath the east wing.”

The Hollow. A secret chamber, a place where whispers turned into law. The idea clawed into me, too vivid to ignore.

That evening, Richard intercepted me in the corridor. The lamps cast him in pale light, blue-gray eyes unreadable. “Callen Rusk isn’t what he seems.”

I folded my arms. “And what exactly do you think he seems?”

“Charming, supportive, convenient. You can’t lean on men like him, Amelia. Not if you mean to stand as Luna.”

The warning scraped raw against the flicker of pride I still carried from the meeting. “So I’m supposed to rely on you alone? Pretend I have no mind of my own?”

His voice sharpened. “That’s not what I said.”

“It’s what you meant.” I moved past him before the words could curdle further, pulse drumming in my throat.

“Amelia,” he called after me, voice low. “If you’re going to challenge me, don’t do it where they can see the cracks.”

I didn’t look back. “Then stop giving them cracks to see.”

Nathan’s discovery came the next morning. A whistle tucked into a radiator, disguised as rusted scrap. He held it up for me to see, thin and gleaming. “Not an ordinary one. Tuned low enough you’d feel it more than hear it. A call signal. Could summon without detection.”

Every new secret made the Pack House feel smaller, its walls closing tighter.

Mira sought me out that night, slipping a sketchbook into my hands. On the page, charcoal lines formed a cloaked figure, shoulders broad, gait distinct. “I saw him near the east hall,” she whispered. “The frame looked like Callen.”

I traced the smudged lines with my thumb. “You’re sure?”

“I can’t bring myself to believe it, but I know what I saw.”

Her eyes searched mine, uncertain, before softening. “You know, I look up to you. Everyone thinks you’re just trying to survive, but… you’re doing more than that. You’re leading. You walk into rooms where people dismiss you and somehow they leave listening. You treat staff like they matter and they follow you because of it. You hold yourself together when the rest of us would totally freak out. I don’t think you realize how rare that is.”

The words pressed into me harder than the dust or the ash or even the explosion. I’d spent so long trying not to drown, I hadn’t seen that anyone else was watching me swim.

I closed the sketchbook and pulled her into a brief embrace. “I’m not sure I deserve that. But thank you.”

Mira squeezed once before pulling back, her expression steady. “Deserve’s got nothing to do with it. People are watching, Amelia. Whether you want them to or not.”

Her words lingered long after she left, louder than the echoes in the ruined halls, louder even than the whistle hidden in the radiator. I lay awake that night with the weight of them, wondering if Richard heard the same things and feared what they meant for both of us.