LOGINPOV: Luna"Come."The word settles behind my eyes, warm, pulling at something deep in my chest that wants to stop fighting. My shoulders drop before I can stop them. My jaw unclenches.I push onto my elbows. My legs shake like they belong to somebody else.Flint catches my wrist before my feet hit the ground. His shoulder is still bandaged where I pulled Draven's rot out with my own hands. He looks at the wound. Looks away. Looks at the tent pole instead."My Queen, no. Your body needs rest. Healer said twelve hours, minimum.""How long was I under?" The words scrape out thin."Three hours.""Three hours." I get past him, one hand on the tent pole. "And nobody woke me.""Aiden gave the order." Flint backs up, both palms raised. "Said if your heart stopped, he'd start it again himself.""Aiden can restart me after I've saved his pack."I shove through the flap. The Link presses under my skin, faint and clogged. Static. Distant pulses I can barely sort into individual minds.The stairs
POV: AidenThe smell of singed fur and wet iron coats the back of my throat. I swallow and taste both.Luna lies on the blood-slicked stones, her breathing shallow, each breath catching every three seconds.Jace cradles her head in his lap, one palm pressed flat over her sternum. His fingers tremble against her skin."She's still burning," Jace says. The usual heat is gone from his voice. "The core's cycling too fast.""How long?" I ask."I don't know." He stares at her graying lips. "Nobody taught me how long a person can hold the sky before it crushes them."I brush my fingers through her hair. Pear and white musk cling faintly to the strands, almost lost beneath smoke and blood.The other Omegas have already been moved deeper into the keep. Only the youngest remain here, forty-three frightened faces behind Zara's shield-wall.War horns detonate from the southern ridge. The sound punches the breath from my chest. Not Aidion brass. Not Orithorne iron. Bone and sinew.Four perimeter w
POV: LunaAiden’s blade sits a breath from her throat. Neither of them can seem to move.I catch it through the Link Call already stretched across every bonded wolf in the courtyard. Silver eyes. Blood on Raven’s lip. A smile that isn’t triumph. It’s relief.“Aiden.” I shove the word through the bond hard enough that it should hurt him. “AIDEN. Move.”Nothing comes back. Just static.I don’t get to stay with that image. The lower gates go.Wood turns to shrapnel. Iron screams as it splits. Through the gap pour three hundred bodies, knees bending wrong.“Gates!” someone shouts below. “GATES ARE DOWN!”Collared Omegas. Iron rings pulsing sick cobalt at every throat. Scorched metal and wet fur roll off them in waves, burnt sugar gone rancid underneath.My stomach drops where Aiden should be answering. I tell myself I’ll deal with him after the people below are safe. I push the grief down hard.“Off the wall, now!” My voice cracks over the courtyard. A guard near me doesn’t move fast enou
POV: JaceThe lower gates of Solen don’t open. They detonate.I’m mid-stride across the war room floor when the blast slams my teeth together and steals half a second of hearing. Heavy damask curtains billow outward, ash-choked. Dust floods my mouth before I can breathe. Boots skid on wet grit.Through the Link Call, Luna’s heartbeat spikes against mine. Fast. Uneven. Her pear-and-white-musk scent suddenly sharp with fear.“That’s not a breach,” I say, voice flat, already moving. “That’s an invitation.”“Left corridor collapsing. First wave heading straight for the war-room stairs,” she snaps inside my skull.They pour through the shattered gate. Dozens. Then hundreds.Wolves in half-shift. Bones crack wrong as they push forward, matted coars
POV: RavenThe sealed chamber under Aidion’s southern wall is quiet except for the scratch of my thumb on parchment. Torchlight makes one tight circle on the desk. Damp stone sits cold against my back. Above me the war room is empty. Zara will find the crow feather and the cold air I left her. I know that. I just cannot spare the feeling for what she will think of me. Draven’s orders sit in my hands. Written in his own hand. Not shadow-glass. Not a stolen frequency. Ink. Handwriting. Names. Forty-three of them. Children’s names. My eyes snag on one line: “Mira, age six, south kitchen run.” Six. The number sits wrong in my chest. My breath stalls halfway. Throat tightens. I get only half the air I need before my lungs catch up. Myrrh clings to my skin, the plum note gone sour under cold sweat. The parchment smells of oud and black saffron pressed deep by his fingers. The torch pops. Wax drips. I stay still. “Collar inversion at third bell,” I read out loud. My voice stays b
POV: ZaraColt stands between me and the lockbox. That's the only fact that matters.My short-swords are already red. He notices, eyes dropping to the blood before climbing back to my face."Still want the box?"He swings the chain. I duck. Links crack against the pillar behind me, sparks scattering across the stones.The room's too tight for a clean fight. Low ceiling, narrow floor, one flame-pit burning center, the lockbox chained to the far wall. Him in the way.Good. I prefer knowing exactly what I need to kill.He comes again. I turn sideways, let the chain pass my ribs, and cut across his wrist. He curses."You're guarding a dead woman's secrets," he says, shaking the hurt hand. "Walk away and keep your throat."Dead woman's secrets lands harder than the chain. I know which dead woman. The one whose letters sit in the Selenyx archive under three interlocked crescents, whose codes keep the border dens breathing.I circle left. "I don't guard. I collect."His mouth twists. He smel







