The message came in frost, not on parchment.
At midnight, for no apparent reason, a mirror in the east wing shattered. With silent authority, the ice rippled like veins across the stones. The words then appeared, written in icy script on the shattered glass:
"The Council summons the Alpha of the North. The issue is: Human intervention in the balance of power."
The maids didn't dare speak about it aloud. However, their gaze seemed to intensify once more in Sayori's opinion.
In a world governed by immortals, symbols had grown to be hazardous.
---
The summons was read by Fenris in silence.
"They want blood," Thalen said as he walked around.
Fenris answered coldly, "They'll settle for control, as they always do."
"And Sayori?"
The Alpha's face turned darker at that moment. "She's not theirs to threaten."
---
Sayori was later summoned to the strategy room, a round stone chamber with maps depicting battle scars, rather than to Fenris's chamber. As Thalen completed informing his lord, she stood awkwardly close to the edge.
Fenris' expression was something silent but unreadable when he turned toward her.
"The Council demands I appear before them in Crescent Hollow tomorrow," he said. "I will be leaving tomorrow."
"Because of me," Sayori answered with a gulp.
"Because of their fear," he replied. "They see you as a sign of weakness. I see you as the first move on a board that they no longer control."
"I didn't request a position on that committee."
"Nobody ever does," he said, almost sweetly. "But now that you are—you have to learn how to play."
---
Sayori was feeding flesh to one of the younger canines while sitting at the perimeter of the kennels that evening. She could hear the castle murmuring around her, with tension behind every closed door.
She was not powerful. She paid attention, but she lacked any enchantment.
And from behind whispered words and changing glances, a truth began to take shape:
The Council was not concerned about what she was.
...but what she could turn into if the Cursed Alpha granted her abilities.