LOGINBy the next morning, Asher’s declaration had already reached further than either of us expected.“Three smaller packs sent word overnight,” a Kade council member reported, spreading a stack of letters across the war table. “All three want to align with us formally. With the Ironback coalition, specifically.”“Three,” Asher repeated. “That fast.”“Word travels faster than caution, apparently. They’ve been waiting for someone larger to move first.”“Which packs?”“Thornwood, Reed Hollow, and the smaller settlement near the eastern pass. None large individually. Together, meaningful numbers.”“What do they want in exchange for aligning?”“Protection, mostly. And a promise that whatever comes after this war treats them as equals, not afterthoughts.”“That’s a promise I can actually make honestly.”“And the older territories,” I asked. “What’s their response?”The council member’s expression tightened. “Less enthusiastic. Alder’s response was measured, at least, given their envoy already k
Asher found me sitting alone near the training yard fence an hour later, Wren finally resting after everything the memory had taken out of her.“Garrick told me what happened,” he said, sitting down beside me without asking permission, close but not crowding. “Ancestral memory. A face nobody can quite place. That’s a lot for one afternoon.”“It’s been a lot for one month, honestly.”“Fair point.”We sat in silence for a moment, the training yard quiet in the fading light.“I’m not here to talk about the memory,” he said finally.“Then what are you here for?”“You. Us. Whatever’s still sitting unresolved between us since I told you the truth about the alley.”I felt my shoulders tense despite myself. “Now. With everything else happening.”“I know the timing is terrible. I’ve been telling myself to wait for a better moment for weeks, and there hasn’t been one, and I don’t think there’s going to be one, given how things have been going.”“That’s fair, actually. There hasn’t exactly been
Wren gasped back into herself all at once, stumbling forward, and I caught her before she could hit the ground.“I’ve got you. I’ve got you, breathe.”She gulped air like she’d forgotten how, eyes wide and unfocused for several long seconds before finally settling on my face.“Briar.”“I’m here. You’re safe. What happened?”“I don’t know. I don’t know what that was.”“Take your time. Nobody’s rushing you.”“I can’t stop shaking.”“That’s alright. Shake as long as you need to.”Garrick knelt beside us, expression grave. “Tell us what you saw. As much as you can remember, while it’s still fresh.”Wren pressed a shaking hand to her forehead. “Fire. So much fire. Screaming, everywhere, all around me, except it wasn’t me. I was watching it happen to someone else, through someone else’s eyes.”“What kind of fire,” I asked. “A battlefield. A building.”“Everywhere. Like an entire camp burning at once. Wolves running, falling, and none of them getting back up.”“None of them at all.”“None. I
“You’re going to laugh at me,” Wren said, rolling her shoulders like the motion might shake loose some of her nerves.“I’m not going to laugh at you.”“You laughed at me falling off a horse when I was nine.”“That was different. You deserved that one.”“I did not deserve that.”“You absolutely did. You’d been bragging about your riding for a week straight.”“That’s not the same as deserving to be laughed at.”“Agree to disagree. Are you actually nervous, or just stalling?”“Both, if I’m honest.”Garrick waited at the center of the training yard, patient in the way only someone who’d trained hundreds of nervous beginners could manage.“Ready when you are,” he said.“I don’t feel ready,” Wren admitted. “I feel like I’m about to embarrass myself in front of my sister and a stranger.”“I’m not a stranger. I’m someone who’s watched more people fumble their first real attempt at this than you’d believe. Nobody starts gracefully.”“Did Briar start gracefully?”“Briar started by throwing a Pr
“Not for a long time,” I repeated. “How long is not a long time, Mother. Give me actual years.”“Since before you were born.”The words landed heavier than I expected, settling into the room like something physical.“Before I was born. That means every decision I thought was yours, every consequence I’ve spent my whole life absorbing as your choices, wasn’t fully yours at all.”“Some of it was mine. I want to be clear about that. I made choices within the space I was given. I didn’t have as much space as either of us assumed.”“That’s a careful way to describe losing control of your own pack.”“It’s the honest way. I’ve stopped having the energy to phrase things carefully tonight.”“Start from the beginning. All of it. I’m done accepting fragments.”She took a slow breath, gathering herself in a way I’d never once seen her need to before tonight.“The oath,” she said. “The alliance with Voss. The silence clause. All of it traces back to a threat I’ve been managing since before you wer
The news reached Ashguard before I’d even finished laying out everything Callum and I had found.“My Prince.” A messenger, breathless, cutting through the study door without waiting to be announced. “The operative sent to Kade territory. He’s dead. Poisoned, from what the surviving reports say, before he could be properly questioned.”Callum and I exchanged a look.“Poisoned by whom,” I asked.“Unknown. The assumption is a failsafe, triggered on capture.”“That’s not an assumption. That’s a certainty, given everything we’ve already found.”“Should I inform the Queen,” the messenger asked.“I’ll inform her myself.”“She’s already been told, my Prince. A separate courier reached her moments before I came to you.”“Then she already knows more than she’s told either of us tonight.”The messenger left, and I made my way toward my mother’s study, no longer willing to wait for a convenient moment to have this conversation.I found her already in motion, pacing rather than seated, a stack of







