Chapter 2

It was the largest room in the whole compound, south-facing, carved with bone, the floor layered three deep in furs, the window looking straight onto the Moon Goddess grounds. The place my mother had lived when she was alive.

That little house was her favorite place in the world. Roses in spring, a trellis in summer; in autumn she'd sit on the porch and comb my hair and say, “Elara, when you have pups of your own one day, bring them back so I can see them.” My father proposed to her in front of that house. The first rosebush he ever planted with his own hands still stood in the center of the garden.

I tore Magnus's face apart a hundred times in my head.

I traveled most of the night and reached a neutral trading town on the Iron Claw border at dawn.

Towns like that sit on no pack's land, watched over by a few old neutral wolves. Caravans pass through, goods change hands, anyone can come. I found an inn and slammed the pack treasury seal down on the counter.

“Your best room. And I need a few things done.”

The innkeeper was a one-eyed old gray wolf. He glanced at the Silver Mane mark on the seal, asked nothing, and nodded.

The first day, I called in a tailor from the North and ordered five court gowns. Thornwood marriage-rite standard: silver-fox collars, moon-wolf velvet, frost-silkworm thread, each one set with the white moonstone the North is known for. The tailor's hands shook. He said he hadn't touched fabric like that in three years.

“Two sets of moon-feast jewelry,” I said. “Moontear stone.”

“Only the Silver Mane Luna wears moontear—” The tailor caught my eyes and swallowed the rest.

“And a pure-blood warhorse,” I said, flipping through the book. “Frost-hoof, gray mane, North Ice-Plain stock.”

The innkeeper recorded it all on a hide scroll, his mouth twitching with every line.

The second day, the comm crystal lit up.

Magnus's image hung in the air, his face like iron. Behind him, in the hall, I could just make out Vesna carrying deer-blood wine and Seraphine sitting in the seat that used to be mine, draped in a brand-new moon-patterned shawl.

“Elara! Have you lost your mind? Two hundred thousand eagle coins in three days! That's half a year of Silver Mane's treasury income!”

I lounged on the inn's couch, turning a freshly delivered moontear earring in my fingers, my tone unhurried. “Father. Or I suppose it's Alpha Magnus now. A Silver Mane Luna can't go to her wedding looking shabby, can she?”

“You've been struck from the rolls!”

“Then what about the North's bride-price?” I lifted my eyes to him. “Thornwood is giving the whole North Wind Forest and three silver mines. They've asked more than once. The bride's send-off can't be so cheap that they think Silver Mane shorted me.”

His throat worked.

I put one earring on and turned it in the crystal's light. “What you traded me for isn't worth a fraction of these gowns. I'm doing this to save Silver Mane's face.”

“You—”

I didn't let him finish. I set the earring down, sat up straight, and stared into that hypocrite's face, saying each word slowly.

“By the way. I hear you tore down Mother's house.”

His expression locked.

“Leveled the garden too,” I said. “Just to make room for Seraphine?”

“Elara, that house is pack property—”

“Pack property?” I laughed, the sound cold as ice water. “You built that house for her with your own hands. You called it your home. The rosebush you planted, you put in the ground after you knelt in front of her and slid the moontear ring onto her finger. You said it stood for a heart that would never change.”

“And now you've flattened her home.” I stared at him, spacing the words out. “For a mistress's daughter.”

“Shut your mouth!” Magnus roared.

“Why should I? How much you loved her, all of Silver Mane knew. You stood in front of the whole pack and called her your fated mate, your only Luna, swore you'd protect her with your life. And? Her bones aren't even cold and you've torn down the house she lived in her whole life, for a mistress.”

“Elara—”

“You can tear down a house,” I said, looking him in the eyes, my voice quiet but every word a blade, “but you can't tear out the tongues of Silver Mane's old wolves. They're not all dead yet. They remember the oath you swore on the Moon Goddess grounds in front of the whole pack. Want to guess what they're saying behind your back?”

Vesna's nails dug into Magnus's arm. Seraphine's smile finally slipped.

“And you.” My gaze moved to her, sweeping coldly over that new shawl. “Sleeping well? My mother's name is carved into the boards under that bed. She chose every plank herself. If you can't sleep at night, don’t doubt it, that's her. She's there. Watching.”

“Elara!” Magnus slammed the table and shot up. “You've been cut from the rolls. You have no right—”

“No right to what?” I cut in. “No right to say my mother's name? To live in her house? To spend Silver Mane's coin?”

I fixed the earring in place, leaned back, and stared blankly at a thin crack in the ceiling.

Early the third morning, the innkeeper knocked and came in, set the seal on the table, and slid it toward me.

“Miss. Word came from Silver Mane. The seal's frozen. You can't draw on it anymore.”

I looked at the wolf-head crest and didn't reach for it.

I'd expected this.

“The inn bill,” the innkeeper said, hesitating, not quite meeting my eyes. “About that—”

“I understand.”

I gathered my things and left the five gowns and two sets of jewelry in the room, too heavy to carry. The warhorse hadn't arrived, so there was nothing to collect. I took only my mother's old silver comb and walked out.

I stood on the cobbled street with the sun high overhead.

I checked my pockets. A few stray copper coins. Enough for a loaf of black bread.

I thought of a few old wolf friends. Back when I was Silver Mane's princess, they'd called me Elara, invited me onto their lands, given me deerskin boots they'd tanned themselves. I borrowed the inn's comm crystal and called the first one.

It rang a long time. The voice that finally answered was a stranger's, polite and distant.

“Elara? Ah… my father says it's not a good time for guests. You understand. Pack rules are strict…”

The second one simply didn't pick up.

The third sent back a single line: My elders keep a tight rein, no contact with outsiders. Be well.

I looked at the message and deleted it.

At dusk I walked the woods outside town, a small case in hand that held next to nothing. Moonlight leaked through the branches, picking out a narrow game trail. I found an old oak, sat against its trunk, propped the case under me, and pulled my cloak tight.

Wind moved through the trees, carrying the chill of deep autumn. Five more days and I'd leave for the North. Just five.

I didn't know how long I'd been out when a rustling in the trees jolted me awake.

Gray shapes took form out of the dark. Five wolves, maybe more. Patchy coats, clouded eyes, the kind no pack takes in, drifting along the border. The leader was a scarred gray wolf, ribs sharp from hunger, but his shoulders were dropped low, set to attack.

“Well, now.” He bared half a broken tooth. “The little Silver Mane princess. What are you doing out here all alone?”

I didn't move. My fingers crept toward the short dagger at my waist.

“Get a whiff of that scent.” Another wolf leaned in and sniffed, then laughed. “Oh. So it's a poor little abandoned pup.”

“I heard you've got a temper. I don’t think so. A body like that ought to come with some fire.” The scarred wolf's eyes lit up. “Princess, this is your lucky night.”

“Go ahead and try,” I said, gripping the dagger, staring him down. “See how many throats a cast-off Silver Mane wolf can tear out before she dies.”

That was when the woods went silent. The kind of silent that comes when a hand closes over the world's mouth. Insects, night birds, the distant stream, all of it gone.

The scarred wolf's pupils shrank to points. His head snapped up, looking past me, into the dark.

A thick, crushing presence rolled out from deep in the trees, like a boulder coming down, pressing the breath out of you. The five rogues' legs began to shake. Two of the younger ones dropped flat to the ground, tails tucked, noses in the dirt, low whimpers in their throats.

The gray wolf's broken tooth was chattering.

A figure stepped out of the dark.

He was broad-shouldered, his stride unhurried. The moonlight found his shoulders first, then the hard line of his jaw, then those wolf eyes glinting faintly in the black. He didn't shift. He didn't even speed up. He just walked over, the way a top predator strolls into a herd of waiting prey.

Cain.