The Abandoned Luna's Journey to Power Chapter 378: The Fool of Blaze Pack

Cindy's POV:

Viola drew up a chair and sat, her brow furrowed so deeply it might have been carved from stone.

"It's... complicated," she said after a moment, exhaling slowly as though forcing the words past her teeth. "And honestly? Revolting." A flicker of anger surfaced in her eyes before she pressed it down. "The good news is, my grandfather and my father held their ground. They may be merchants, but they're not blind. They know exactly what kind of man Prince Niall is. They refused him outright. Said I've already sworn loyalty to the Crown, so marriage is no longer on the table."

"That is good news," I breathed, relief washing through me. "If your family stood firm, surely the council cannot compel you?"

"I am safe enough, yes." Viola's jaw tightened, and something ugly flickered in her eyes. "But that old beast has not given up. He dangled inducements before the council. Political concessions, mining rights, all the choicest morsels a man can offer. And those venerated elders, discerning as ever, saw only the glitter of profit. They decided that an alliance with a prince would elevate the Blaze Pack to new heights.

"My father refused to sacrifice me, so the council determined to select a suitable omega from the collateral branches to offer up instead. My father fought them and did his best to forestall the matter, but..."

She slammed her palm against her thigh, fury breaking through at last. "Our family produced a fool. A complete, irredeemable fool."

"Who?" I asked.

"My cousin. Ayla."

The name came out like something bitter. Viola's voice dropped, thick with disbelief and contempt. "That woman's been jealous of me her entire life, always clawing for a way up. Somehow, she heard about the arrangement. Marched straight to the council chambers and knelt outside in the snow overnight. She volunteered herself. Said she would willingly take my place and marry Prince Niall as his wife."

My eyes widened in disbelief.

"Is she mad?" I could scarcely comprehend such folly. "Sephiria's fate unfolded before our eyes mere days ago! Everyone in the kingdom knows what Niall is. A wife-abandoner, a whoremonger, a brute who casts aside women when they no longer serve his pleasure. Does she knowingly leap into a fire that will consume her?"

"Because she covets power! A vain creature who longs to be above everyone!"

Viola rose and began to pace the room, agitation in every line of her body. "Her mother raised her on fairy tales of marrying into greatness. To her eyes, even if Niall were a swine—and he is—he would be a swine wearing a prince's coronet. She imagines that as a prince's duchess, she may strut through the kingdom as she pleases, that she may finally trample upon those of us who have always stood above her!"

Viola's voice rose in fury. "The sheer stupidity of it! To abandon dignity, to risk life itself for the sake of vanity... She brings disgrace upon the entire Blaze Pack! Since when do the daughters of our house debase themselves so, offering themselves as playthings to some lecherous old nobleman?"

I listened, the weight of it settling into something colder.

"You're right," I said quietly. "She is a fool."

I turned the glass in my hands, watching the light catch against its surface. My gaze lifted, sharpened by something far less forgiving. "She thinks marrying high will make her powerful. She has no idea how power actually works. That man doesn't want a wife. He wants your family's wealth, influence, and leverage. Once she's there, without strength of her own, she'll be nothing. In a castle already controlled by Leanna and Scarlet Pack, she won't even understand how she's losing until it's too late. Sephiria's fate should have been warning enough."

I met Viola's eyes, my voice steady as stone. "In this vipers' circle we inhabit, it is far safer to marry down, or to marry one's equal, than to reach for some gilded title and subject oneself to the whims of monsters. The only sure path is to hold power in one's own hands, and be master of one's own destiny."

I touched my chin, considering. "Take me. If I didn't have the Silverpeak's loyalists behind me, if I didn't command the Gamma Guard, it wouldn't matter that I married Adam. Women like the Queen, or Princess Margaret... They would have torn me apart piece by piece."

Viola slowed, then nodded, the tension in her shoulders easing just slightly. "You're right. If she's determined to throw herself into the fire, no one can stop her. The council has already accepted her offer. My father's washed his hands of it. As far as the Blaze Pack is concerned, she no longer exists."

She paused, and when she spoke again, her eyes had sharpened to a hunter's focus. "Yet Ayla's fate doesn't concern me as much as Prince Niall. That is another matter entirely. We are not finished with him."

"What do you propose?"

A slow, dangerous smile curved across her lips as she reached for the whip at her waist, flicking it once through the air with a crisp snap. "I have activated the highest protocols Fern left me. My best shadows now track his progress back to his own lands.

"I mean to see how that old beast manages Sephiria's funeral rites. He will be eager to erase all trace of her, to make room for his new bride."

The fire of vengeance burned in Viola's eyes. "If he dares to bury her meanly, if he attempts to conceal his crimes through any indignity done to her memory... I swear to you, I will raise a force and tear his palace apart stone by stone. I will take her coffin and lay her to rest properly, upon Silverpeak lands."

Something in my chest answered that vow, fierce and unyielding.

"Then I'm coming with you." I rose, stepping to her side. "Whatever schemes he nurses, whatever forces he has hidden within the Bloodridge Mountains. Debts of blood must be paid."

The sunlight beyond the palace walls was bright, almost deceptively so, but we both knew that the currents running beneath the kingdom's placid surface had only begun to stir.