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She sobbed once, breath hitching. "They... mated to make me," Lia whispered, her voice hoarse, barely audible beneath the weight of Draken's aura pressing down on her. "Not out of love. Not even out of lust. It was a pact."

She lifted her eyes, blinking rapidly, her fear thick in the air now.

"A Highclaw—of a tribe I never knew the name of—came to my mother years ago. He told her the prophecy had already spread. That a Lunara would rise, bound to the future Alpha of Vargrheim. That their union would shape the tribes—bring power, balance, change."

Her voice faltered, a tremor running through her limbs.

"They wanted it stopped. He offered her a bloodline favour. If she could sever the bond before it ever truly formed."

"I was the blade they forged."

Gasps echoed through the room—Dain, frozen in horror; Garrik with his jaw clenched; Veyr, face unreadable.

"I was raised to charm him. To twist around him. I was taught what to say, how to feel, what would make him trust me." Her voice cracked on that word, and her beautiful blue eyes darted to Hagan, shame flickering there. "I didn't know everything. They kept things from me. But I have been told as long as I can remember to get close. Just close enough to poison the bond before it sealed."

She laughed bitterly, then winced. "And it worked... almost."

Her voice held no venom now—only weariness. Defeat.

"I don't even know who my father is. My mother said he was one of the wolves. A warrior with no name, only a purpose. She called me her 'crafted spell.' Said I was the curse they would never see coming."

Her shoulders sagged as though speaking it had taken something from her.

"I didn't ask for this. But I was made for it."

She looked away.

"I am sorry, Hagan."

Dain stepped back like she had struck him, his face crumpling, his eyes searching hers with the hollow disbelief of someone whose world had just splintered.

"You—" he whispered. "You lied to all of us."

Lia looked up at him, real pain flickering through her expression for the first time. But before she could speak, all eyes turned.

Seren.

She was no longer standing.

Seren sat now, slumped on one of the long benches along the wall of the hall, her head in her hands, fingers tangled in her hair. Her posture was broken—folded inward, not in defeat but in pain too heavy to hold upright. Her shoulders trembled once, then stilled.

The magic around her no longer flared—it whispered. Low and mournful, like the wind rustling through a dying grove. It seeped from her like breath, ancient and quiet, the kind that belonged to things older than language.

Hagan couldn't stop looking at her.

Even with Lia's confession echoing through the room. Even with the bond between them burning like a frayed wire. He couldn't pull his eyes away from the girl who had once walked beside him in the woods, camera in hand, smile crooked and true.

Now, she wouldn't even look at him. The guilt was eating him alive.

"Explain the rest," she said quietly.

Lia blinked. "What—?"

Everyone felt it. A shadow of grief and power hung over the room like the hush before a storm. She said nothing, but her grief was palpable—spreading in waves all around her.

Seren opened her eyes. Silver and knowing.

"You said you were placed in Hagan's path," Seren murmured. "But what you're not saying—is that none of this would have worked if he didn't care for you. At least a little. You couldn't spin your web without at least a thread from him. That is how the magic works."