CHAPTER 3 — The Throne Belonged to the Farm Boy
Before anyone could speak...
The royal advisor pulled a hidden dagger.
"Kill him!"
Elite guards rushed toward Elias.
The Black Wolf roared, but this time Elias stepped forward first.
"Stop."
His voice echoed across the arena.
To everyone's astonishment...
The beast obeyed instantly.
The guards hesitated.
The old healer raised a faded leather journal she had hidden for fifteen years.
"I kept this because I feared this day would come."
Inside were the queen's sealed birth records, the infant's royal bracelet, and the advisor's own signed order to have the baby executed.
The queen recognized the bracelet immediately.
She burst into tears.
The king snatched the journal and read every page.
His hands trembled.
He turned slowly toward the advisor.
"You murdered my son..."
The advisor smiled coldly.
"I didn't murder him."
"I saved your throne."
Then he blew a sharp silver whistle.
Hidden mercenaries emerged from the crowd, swords drawn.
Chaos exploded across the arena.
Villagers fled.
Soldiers clashed with the mercenaries.
The advisor lunged toward Elias, determined to finish what he had started years ago.
But before the blade reached him...
The Black Wolf leaped.
With one thunderous strike, it knocked the assassin to the ground.
Still, it refused to kill him.
Instead, Elias picked up the fallen dagger.
Everyone expected revenge.
Instead, he threw the weapon aside.
"No kingdom built on blood deserves another murder."
His words silenced the battlefield.
The king slowly removed his own crown.
He walked across the bloodstained arena and knelt before the farm boy.
"My son..."
"I failed you."
"You owe me nothing."
"But this kingdom owes you everything."
The villagers followed.
Then the soldiers.
Then even the nobles.
One by one...
They knelt before the boy they had condemned to die only moments earlier.
The Black Wolf let out one final howl that echoed through the mountains.
For the first time in twenty years...
It wasn't a cry of grief.
It was a farewell.
As dawn broke, the creature turned toward the forest.
Elias reached out.
"You don't have to leave."
The great beast gently touched its forehead to his one last time before disappearing into the mist.
Months later, the cursed land bloomed again.
The rivers returned.
The harvest became the greatest in generations.
The monster had never demanded sacrifices.
It had only waited...
For the child it had sworn to protect.
And the kingdom finally understood the truth too late:
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The real monster had never lived beneath the mountain.
It had sat beside the throne all along.
