5. Axel

Axel suffers in darkness, shackled with a broken arm and inhibitor bands that keep his power drained and his bloodlust escalating. Mansel, a Nith Legacy adviser, drags him to a dim dining room, where Axel finds Bree DelaCrux, the oldest Night Child clan leader, seated with Arius advisers. Bree hints that Axel’s father has been detained and Luka now acts as Arius Lord.

Julius arrives with a Fae donor, and Bree publicly feeds, sending Axel into agonizing craving. Julius restrains Axel with magic while Bree taunts him with a smear of blood, proving his vulnerability. After a token goblet of blood steadies him, Axel demands answers.

Alone with Axel, Bree frames years of Arius oversight as an illusion, claiming the Underground as her domain and revealing she was sent to this realm long ago. She outlines fractures among kingdoms, worsened by Tessalyn’s emergence, as a chance for an uprising of shifters, witches, Fae, Night Children, and dissenting Legacies forgotten by the surface powers.

Bree proposes an alliance: Axel, respected in the Underground and tied to Arius lines, will stand at her side to lead the Underground and move when the kingdoms weaken themselves. Axel rejects the feasibility, but Bree insists victory is certain. She gives him time to decide, warning that if he refuses, the torment and blood deprivation he has endured will be nothing compared to what comes next.