The pack had gathered in the clearing, torches casting restless shadows that flickered across the stone and earth. The moon was high, its pale light falling on faces tense with anxiety. They had come for an Alpha ceremony, a tradition meant to celebrate strength and unity, but tonight a different weight hung in the air.

They weren't used to this.

They remembered Valta as the silent one, the daughter who rarely smiled, who rarely spoke, who moved with an unsettling stillness. She had always been different, yes, but her silence had once seemed harmless. A mystery, not a threat. Until the night she shot her older brother without hesitation. Until she humiliated her second brother, leaving him half-broken, beaten to a point from death.

Now it was no longer a mystery. It was a storm that had already torn apart blood and kinship.

Inside the healer's tent, at the edge of the clearing, Janet sat beside her surviving son. His breathing was shallow, his body pale and trembling. Every wound was bandaged, every bruise tended, but nothing could heal the anger that burned within him.

His mother dabbed a cloth on his forehead, whispering words of comfort. But he didn't hear. All he saw was Valta's face; expressionless, merciless as she beat him again and again, as if his life meant nothing. He remembered most of all the humiliation, the way she looked at him as if he were beneath her grasp, as if his existence were laughable. Weak. Useless.

He clenched his fists weakly beneath the furs, fury gnawing at him from within, but his body betrayed him: too broken to give voice to his rage, too fragile to tell his mother the thoughts that burned in his mind. He swallowed them, because he had no other choice.

Back in the clearing, the herd stirred nervously as Valta advanced. She moved like a shadow made flesh, her tall figure devouring the torchlight, her presence drawing all eyes.

He didn't smile. He didn't speak. He didn't explain.

Impassive, he stopped before them, his eyes scanning the crowd. Those eyes—flat, cold, lifeless—struck the group harder than any words. There was nothing human left in them. Nothing tender. Only emptiness.

And that emptiness filled them with terror.

The elders fulfilled their duties, raising the iron and bone crown and placing it upon her head. Ritual chants rose and fell, trembling voices repeating the ancient words. But Valta said nothing.

She just stood there, silent and motionless, watching her pack with the same dead calm that had preceded the bloodshed.

The wolves shifted uncomfortably. Some bowed quickly, not out of joy or pride, but because they could not bear the weight of his gaze. Others resisted a little longer, trembling, before finally bowing. Not a single soul dared to hold his gaze for more than a heartbeat.

There were no cheers. There was no celebration. Only the crackling of torches, the whisper of the wind, and the pounding of hearts that feared what would become of her now that the crown was truly hers.

Valta didn't need words. Her silence was command enough.

And so, crowned under the moon, she reigned not as a beloved Alpha, but as a specter of dread: the silent shadow that had always stood apart, now standing tall above all.

The Blood Rivers Pack's hall was shrouded in a silence disguised as celebration. Platters of roast boar, bowls of steaming roots, and jugs of wine filled the tables, but every bite was taken cautiously, every laugh stifled too soon. The air was thick, as if even joy feared to breathe in the presence of their new Alpha.

Valta sat at the head of the throne, the Alpha's seat, a place carved by centuries of blood and dominion. Her crown caught the light of the fire, but her face remained motionless, sculpted in stone. She didn't need to speak; her silence weighed more than any command.

Beside her, Gerald, her father, the man who once taught her to wield a blade, who protected her from storms, leaned toward her. His voice was low, trembling under the weight of a grief he could not hide.

"My children were supposed to bury me someday," he whispered, not looking at her, his gaze fixed on the glass in his hands. "That's how it had to be. But you…" His throat closed, a tremor in his words. "You've made me the one who buries his son. Your brother. My own flesh and blood."

Finally, he turned his head, his eyes sharp with pain and disbelief.

Are you happy now, Valta?

The words fell like stones in the room.

Valta's gaze moved slowly and deliberately until it rested on him. She didn't respond. She didn't frown, she didn't mock, she didn't erupt in anger. She simply looked at him, as silent as ever, with an unreadable expression.

Within her mind there was no storm of guilt. No struggle of conscience. Only stillness.

Happy?

The word echoed hollowly. Happiness was a concern for mortals, something ephemeral, something her pack clung to at banquets and festivals. She didn't seek happiness. She sought dominion. Power. The right to rule, carved by her own hand, not granted by tradition.

Her brother had been weak. Weakness was death. She had only hastened what fate had already promised him. And if her father couldn't see it, then he too was chained to feeling instead of truth.

So he held her gaze, cold and unperturbed, letting her silence answer him.

Gerald kept his eyes on hers as long as he could, but something in her gaze—something vast and empty—compelled him to lean back in his seat. His lips parted as if she were about to speak again, but no words came. He looked away, a father silenced not by defiance, but by the terrifying certainty that his daughter felt absolutely nothing.

The feast continued, the music forced, the voices muffled. And Valta remained there, motionless, untouched, seated in a triumph carved from blood, sweat, and sheer determination.