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CHAPTER ONE

A koro stood rooted to the spot, the world slowing to a terrible crawl.

Naya stood at the center of the maelstrom, her sapphire ceremonial gown billowing as though caught in a windstorm, her copper hair whipping around her face.

Her eyes were wide open, her hand extended, the stone clutched in her fingers, its blue glow now a blinding beacon that seemed to distort the air itself.

Then the light imploded, snapping inward with such force that it knocked the breath from Akoro’s lungs. A vacuum of sound deafened him in a terrifying moment of suspended time… and then nothing.

Where Naya had stood, there was only empty space. His Omega gone.

Shock stunned him for a heartbeat. Then rage exploded through his veins.

“ Naya !” The bellow tore from his throat, a sound of such primal fury that his soldiers recoiled, dropping their gazes.

He surged forward, crossing the roof in powerful strides, reaching the spot where she disappeared.

His hands grasped at nothing, sweeping through the air as if he could tear through whatever veil had swallowed her.

But there was just emptiness. Nothing remained, not even the faintest trace of her scent. No residual heat on the floor.

Akoro whirled, his eyes wild, heart hammering against his ribs. This wasn’t possible. She couldn’t just vanish, yet the magic that surrounded her was unlike any he’d ever seen—not like the portals they used in the sand drifts nor like the wild magic.

Rage battled with a clawing dread in his chest. But beneath the fury churned something colder, more insidious—dread.

If it was a portal, she could be anywhere, and if it wasn’t, she could be…

dead. Fuck. Fuck! Everything in him erupted and he roared, a harsh burn flaring in his chest as his deafening bellow shook the roof.

He should never have fucking allowed this!

He should have trusted his instincts to keep her from tampering with something so dangerous.

She had no idea what she was dealing with, and he’d let his guard down because she’d looked at him with such hope in her beautiful eyes.

But this had always been dangerous and he was her Alpha. He was supposed to protect her!

He turned to his council, the group of them standing frozen at the edges of the roof, their faces masks of shock and disbelief.

“What was that?” he demanded, striding toward them, each footfall a thunderous impact on the stone.

No one spoke. Their silence fed his rage.

“I said, what the fuck was that?” He loomed over them, his shadow falling across their faces. “Where is she? Where did it take her?”

Tshel was the first to recover, stepping forward with her hands raised as if to calm a wild beast. “My king, we’ve never seen anything like this before. Never. I don’t know?—”

“Then what use are you all?” he snarled.

Ranin cleared his throat, his usual diplomatic demeanor strained. “Magic shouldn’t be able to enter the city at all, my king,” he said, his voice tight with disbelief. “That’s what the nnin -boulders are for. They’ve protected us for generations. This shouldn’t be possible.”

“And yet it happened,” Akoro thundered, his patience fraying.

“Right here on my palace grounds.” He paced, his ceremonial robes swirling around him like a storm cloud.

“We aren’t even able to use portals within the city, we have to travel to the sand drifts to use one.

So tell me how someone else has that ability within my fucking palace ? ”

The council exchanged glances, worry etched deep on their faces. Nanaek stepped forward, her brows drawn “Could our security be compromised?” she asked the others. “If someone can bypass the boulders...”.

“Impossible,” Nrommo snapped, but there was a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes.

Oppo turned to him, his voice quiet but sharp. “Not impossible, since we just witnessed magic the boulders didn’t prevent.”

Nrommo’s mouth tightened but he didn’t respond.

“Whoever controls this magic must be incredibly powerful,” Oppo continued, turning back to Akoro, who noticed his brother’s panicked look.

He looked alarmed, more than Akoro had ever seen before.

“Which means they’re a significant threat…

,” he spoke forcefully. “They’ve clearly targeted the princess, and they’ve bypassed our entire security to do it. ”

“Her parents,” Ranin said slowly. “Her empire. Could they have found a way to take her back?”

Akoro stilled, the possibility taking shape in his mind.

They were the only ones who wanted her back badly enough.

They had most likely been searching for her since she left with him.

Had they found a way to breach the city?

He knew they were desperate to get her back, but did they have that level of power?

His hands clenched into fists at the idea they thought they could simply take her back, that they could steal what was his.

But a sliver of doubt wedged into his thoughts, becoming so wide he had to address it.

“They would need intimate knowledge of our city’s defenses and how the Sy Dynasty uses magical tools to steal her,” he said, his voice low.

“They couldn’t have developed that in such little time, and we know no one has disturbed the portals since we’ve come back. ”

“Right,” Nrommo nodded in agreement. “During our reconnaissance of their empire, we found no evidence they have any understanding of our magic.”

Akoro found little comfort in eliminating them as the culprit.

If it wasn’t her family, then who? And what did they want with his Omega?

His gaze swept over his council, noting each reaction, each shift in posture.

And then he realized—Prillu hadn’t spoken.

She stood slightly apart from the others, her face gaunt, her eyes still fixed on the spot where Naya had vanished.

“Prillu.” His voice cut through the tense silence, her name a command.

She didn’t respond immediately and when she did, her voice was hollow, distant. “The magic was too sophisticated to be anything other than ssukkǔrian , my king,” she said.

Silence pressed down like a weight over the council, unease shifting their bodies.

“It had to be the stone,” Prillu said, almost to herself. “It must have transported her.”

Akoro went perfectly still, a deadly calm descending over him. He took a step toward her, then another, until he towered over her. “The stone you gave her,” he said, the words landing heavily. “Why would you give my Omega an active stone to experiment with?”

Fear flickered across Prillu’s face, but there was something else there too—not guilt, but something close to shock. Her bewilderment gave him pause; he’d never seen such an expression on Prillu’s face.

“I checked it myself.” She swallowed, her voice breaking slightly. “There was no activity in it.” Her large eyes were haunted, filled with genuine alarm. “It was dormant, my king. I wouldn’t have risked something happening to the princess?—”

“Even though she is to blame for your sons’ injuries?” Akoro asked, his voice deep and biting. “Even though your anger with her about that never faded?” As he spoke, disappointment twisted in his stomach. He had believed her when she said she’d uphold her vow, but maybe he’d been too trusting.

“No! No, my king. I didn’t plot against her.

I was hoping for her success.” Prillu’s large eyes were bright and piercing, her throat drawing in a swallow.

“Of course I was angry about what happened to my sons, but the princess’s control of magic and her ability to end our struggle with it is the only way they will have a safe life here in Tsashokra.

I would never plot against that possibility. ”

Akoro studied Prillu with predatory intensity, his eyes tracking every minute shift in her wild expression.

Something in her desperation cut through his doubt—the slight tremble of her hands, the uncharacteristic widening of her eyes, the raw edge to her voice.

His rage still burned hot and savage in his chest, but his instincts, honed from years of detecting deceit, told him she wasn’t lying.

The realization lifted a small weight of relief from his chest while deepening the dread that Naya was in real danger. “Where did you get the stone?”

“It was from a new batch,” she explained. “That’s why I picked it. There were unlikely to be any mistaken active stones from there.”

“Where did this batch from?” Oppo asked.

“Ntorkkan.” As she spoke, Prillu’s expression changed to one of realization. “From Soge Otenyo’s district.”

Otenyo. The same soge who had demanded Naya’s punishment for the city’s devastation; who had lost a vote challenging Akoro’s authority; who had been furious enough to attempt an ambush on their journey to the Omega forest.

Silence fell over the rooftop, heavy and charged.

If the districts were plotting against the Sy Dynasty using tools that could not be detected, then they were already more powerful than anyone realized.

“But how could they deliberately target the princess that way,” Tshel asked, doubt in her tone. “How could they know the princess would have ended up with that stone?”

“Yes, it’s unlikely,” Ranin said.

“Or it’s very sophisticated,” Akoro growled.

“What we have seen goes against everything we know about magic and our city. We cannot underestimate whoever did this.” He looked over them all and his eyes landed on Nrommo.

“Gather a small troop,” he ordered. Turning sharply on his heels, his ceremonial robes billowed as his voice cut across the roof, sharp and tense. “We’re traveling to Otenyo’s district.”