Chapter 101: Athena’s Next Decision
The palace breathed with silence.
Not the peace of a resting kingdom, but the kind of silence that remembered screams. That clung to broken stone and bloodstained walls like the last wisps of smoke after a fire. My boots echoed against cracked marble, each step ringing hollow through the ruined corridors I once called home.
I ran my fingers along the blackened edges of the archways, remnants of carvings that once sang of the Moon Goddess’s glory. My glory. These were the halls I was meant to protect, the world I was meant to rule.
Instead, I had watched it fall—twice.
Faint moonlight filtered in through broken windows, bathing the dust in silver. I paused at a place where the ceiling had collapsed entirely. Stars blinked down from a shattered sky, and for a moment, I could almost hear the palace as it had once been: alive, warm, full of laughter and stories and wolves who looked to me not just for power but for hope.
It was gone now.
But I was still here.
A quiet sound behind me drew my attention. A heartbeat. Familiar, steady.
"Kieran," I murmured without turning.
He stepped into the ruined corridor, his coat streaked with dust and dried blood, his arms crossed tightly across his chest like he didn’t quite know how to stand in a palace without walls.
"I figured you’d be here," he said, voice low.