The whole night had been a celebration for the knights, bloodwine flowing like rivers and roasted boar split down the spine. The great hall echoed with the howls of Wolfhard knights, drunk on war and victory.
House Wolfhard knew how to celebrate its own.
The next morning, we gathered for breakfast in the dining hall. The long table sat in silence, as it always did. The only sound was the slow scrape of knives against plates.
The maids stood beside their masters' chairs, except mine.
Raina had been spending more time training with Reginald, determined to master the sword and protect me, as she claimed. She had already completed Zora's combat lessons and now learned under Reginald himself. I didn't mind. After all a blade in her hand was a blade in mine.
"Fuck." Dante van Wolfhard muttered, massaging his temples as he staggered in late, face pale and eyes shadowed. "I'm never drinking again."
He ruffled my hair as he passed. "If it isn't the potato hero."
Dragging a chair across the marble floor, he dropped into it with a sigh.
I said nothing, my gaze drifting between two faces, each one carrying the aftertaste of betrayal.
Nike van Wolfhard.
She sat across from me, poised and pristine, her utensils slicing through Duchess Potatoes, the very dish I'd introduced to the family. Back then, nobles had scoffed at them. Now, every blueblood craved them like caviar, and Nike devoured them with practiced elegance, as though they weren't the same potatoes she nearly murdered me over.
It made me frown. Even if it had happened two years ago, some debts can't be erased by time. And I would see her pay it in full.
I never told the Patriarch. Not yet. Only Raina, Valkyrie, and I knew. Because vengeance, like wine, tastes better aged.
Her carelessness, her failure to cover her tracks, was an insult.
She could learn a thing or two from the elder wives, who had shattered my mana core and vanished like shadows in the night.
Then there was my uncle.
Dante van Wolfhard, the man now threatening the peace I had built over the years.
The true antagonist of the Wolfsbane Arc, a name I coined myself.
Wolfsbane, the poison of wolves. And Dante, the man who nearly brought House Wolfhard to its knees.
In the web novel, this arc didn't begin until much later, when a teenage Arthur had already fled home and begun gathering allies for his rise as the future Demon Lord.
But I needed to stop the arc before it began. Because if I didn't, Dante would only grow stronger. By now, he must've already found the cursed book, bound in purest evil, etched with the darkest magic:
The Book of Curses.
At this point in the story, I was pretty sure he was trying to open it. It hadn't corrupted him yet.
First, I needed to get my hands on that book.
Not only could it serve as a replacement for my shattered mana core, it could grant me abilities beyond what even those with intact cores could comprehend.
Second, if I failed to stop this arc, one of my siblings would become heir after Grey's death. That would spell disaster for both Sushila and I.
In the web novel, after deciphering half the Book of Curses, Dante gained twisted powers at the cost of his sanity. He raised his first undead and then set his sights on the throne. He had always wanted it, ever since his exile. He plotted to kill Grey, the only obstacle standing in his way to claiming it.
But Grey, ever perceptive, learned of the plot and confronted him.
The battle that followed was brutal: From knights turning against House Wolfhard and swearing loyalty to Dante.
To Grey facing not only his brother, but their father, the former Patriarch, now raised as an undead puppet obeying Dante's will.
But Grey manages to defeat them all.
He burns the book when it begins whispering to him, tempting him with power.
But the victory came at a cost.
He lost his dominant arm.
He was left bedridden, filled with regret, over Sushila, over Arthur, over everything he could have done differently.
Alexander van Wolfhard, the eldest son, backed by numerous Houses and factions, was named the new Patriarch. But he saw every relative as a threat to what was now his.
After all, even wolves would devour their own if they perceived them as a threat to their alpha position.
After breakfast, Grey stood and dismissed us.
He needed to speak with Dante in private.
The hall emptied, chairs scraping, footsteps fading.
I knew what came next. It was part of the script:
Grey would lift Dante's exile. Tell him to retire as a knight and restore his name to the family records. Since the previous Patriarch was long dead; no one would stop Grey from doing so.
He couldn't give Dante his birthright back but he could give him his surname.
Dante, feigning humility, would decline at first.
Then Grey would insist.
Dante would bow. Swear loyalty to House Wolfhard. To Grey. To Grey's children and descendants.
He would kiss the ring.
Blah blah blah and so on.
I sat alone in my chambers, thinking about how the scene would unfold and how I could stop it.
I needed a plan. One that would rid me of both Nike and Dante.
Two birds.
One stone.
Even if it meant blood.
Then, an idea came to me.
One that would unravel without my hands getting bloody.
I would cast the first stone and let the birds of a feather, bring about each other's ruin.
I dipped my quill, another fallen feather in ink and began to write:
Letter #1
[To you, whom I was never meant to love.
I know I'm not worthy of writing this. Not even worthy of laying eyes on you.
But allow me, just this once, to speak, not as your brother-in-law, not as a shadow in the corner of your gaze, but as a man.
A man who saw you once, and never stopped seeing you since.
There is a kind of beauty that shouts, that demands to be noticed.
And then there is you, quiet, like a prayer. Like a dream I never dared whisper aloud.
I have stood at the edge of my own silence a thousand times, Nike. Watched you smile at him, laugh with him, love him. And all the while, I carved your name into the walls of my soul, over and over, until even my shadows bled the syllables.
I never wanted you to know. Because loving you in secret…was the only way I could keep you.
But some nights, even the stars feel too far away.
Some nights, your voice echoes in my memory.
And I wonder...
If I were someone else, in another life, in another world...
Would your heart have found mine?
I ask nothing of you. No reply. No guilt. No glance.
Just this letter.
This moment.
Proof that somewhere in this wide, wild world...
You are loved in a way that defies time, name, and reason.
—D. V. Wolfhard]
I had to admit, reading Shakespeare paid off.
I hoped it would work.
In the future, Nike, lonely and untouched by her husband, would eventually cheat with a young noble, the son of the imperial advisor.
Grey's wrath ended them both the moment he learned of the betrayal.
Now, I would simply nudge that future forward.
Rewrite the players. Replace the noble with my dear uncle, Dante.
As for Dante…
A man who'd spent a lifetime at war. Untouched by women. By affection.
Like a monk, pure and disciplined.
Well, maybe he'd welcome a woman's touch before Grey found out about his plot to steal the throne and killed him.
I was doing him a favor.
Let him know love.
Let him taste something forbidden.
Let him fall with a smile on his lips and a knife in his back.
I set the quill down, exhaling.
What a good nephew I am.