CHAPTER FIVE: Seraphine.

Ravencrest was built from dark stone.

That was the first thing she noticed as they came through the mountain pass,  not the size of it, though it was enormous, not the iron gates that groaned open as they approached but the colour. Everything was dark. The walls, the towers, the road beneath the horses' hooves. Like the whole territory had been carved out of the mountain itself and never quite separated from it.

It felt nothing like Silvermere.

Silvermere had been warm. Timber and healer's herbs and the smell of pine coming down from the ridge. Children running between the buildings in the evening. Windows lit amber from inside.

Celeste pressed that image down before it could hollow her out completely.

She rode with her wrists bound in front of her, seated behind one of Kaelan's guards on a horse she had not been given permission to decline. Her mother rode separately, three horses back. Celeste had twisted to check on her so many times that the guard in front of her had told her flatly to stop moving.

She had stopped. But only because she needed to save her energy.

Kaelan rode at the front. He had not looked back at her once since they left the ruins of Silvermere. She told herself she was glad about that. She told herself his indifference was exactly what she wanted.

The bond told her something different. It pulled at her chest in a low, constant ache, the way a bruise aches when you press it, and she could feel exactly where he was without looking, the way you always know where a fire is in a dark room even with your eyes closed.

She hated it.

She hated him.

She focused on that and let it keep her warm the whole way in.

The great hall of Ravencrest was nothing like she expected.

She'd pictured brutal—cold stone, weapons on walls, bloodstain on floors. This was worse: grand. High beams, torches throwing warm light, smooth stone underfoot. A hall that'd seen generations of power.

Every wolf in it turned to look when she was brought through the doors.

She counted them, thirty, more. Warriors, courtiers, wolves, all watching her walk in, wrists bound. Their eyes felt like a weather shift, like a pressure change, the air growing colder

She kept her chin up. Kept her face still.

They do not get to see it, she told herself. None of them.

Kaelan was already across the hall, talking low to a man she didn't know, older, broad-shouldered, same dark hair, same way of standing. She knew who he was instantly.

Lucien Draven. Former Alpha. Kaelan's father.

Whatever they were saying, it was not a pleasant conversation. Lucien's face was tight with something that looked close to anger and even from across the hall she could see the stiffness in Kaelan's spine.

The conversation ended. Lucien looked across the hall at her with cold, assessing eyes. Then he turned and walked away.

Kaelan faced the room.

The guard cut the binding at her wrists without being told to. She rubbed the feeling back into her hands and said nothing.

"You'll be given a room," Kaelan said. He was speaking to her but his voice carried to the whole hall and she understood that was deliberate. Everything he did in this room was deliberate. "You are a guest of Ravencrest."

"I am a prisoner of Ravencrest," she said clearly. Also loud enough to carry.

A ripple moved through the watching wolves.

Kaelan's eyes met hers across the space between them.

"You are a guest," he said again, quiet and final.

"Then cut the rest of my bindings," she said. "Let my mother walk beside me instead of behind me. And tell me why you burned my home down." She kept her voice perfectly even. "If I am a guest."

The hall was very quiet.

She watched him look at her. Saw something shift in his eyes. It wasn't anger but close to it.

"You'll have answers," he said at last.

"When?"

"When I'm ready to give them."

She held his gaze for one more moment. Then she looked away first, deliberately, like a woman who had decided the conversation was over on her own terms, and turned her attention to the room around her.

That was when she saw the woman by the eastern pillar.

She was striking. Dark skin, short hair and striking face. She stood apart, hands folded, watching Celeste with cold sharp, assessing eyes.

She was not looking at Celeste with pity or curiosity or the cold evaluation the rest of the court was offering.

She was looking at her like she recognised her.

The room they gave her was not a cell.

That surprised her. She had expected cold stone and a locked door with no handle on the inside. What she got was a room on the upper floor with a wide window that looked out over the mountain line, a fire already lit in the hearth, and furniture that was plain but solid and clean. A bed with actual blankets. A washbasin. A chair by the window.

It still had a lock. She tested the door the moment the guard's footsteps faded down the corridor.

Locked.

She stood at the window instead and looked out at the dark mountain shapes against the night sky and let herself feel, for exactly one minute, the weight of everything that had happened in the last two days.

Thorne's face. The pack bell. Her packmates on their knees. The smoke.

Her mother, somewhere in this building, in a room she hadn't been allowed to see.

The bond, pulling steadily at the left side of her chest like a hook she couldn't remove.

One minute. She gave herself one minute.

Then she straightened up, turned from the window, and started thinking.

She didn't hear the knock the first time because she was too deep inside her own head.

The second knock was slightly louder.

She crossed to the door, expecting a guard with food or orders. Instead it was the woman from the hall. The one with the sharp eyes who had looked at her like a puzzle she had already solved.

Up close she was beautiful. She wore dark clothes, nothing elaborate, and a small mole sat beneath her right eye. She looked at Celeste with that same steady, searching expression and then did something unexpected.

She smiled genuinely.

"You told him you wouldn't go," she said. "In front of his entire guard. Everyone is still talking about it."

Celeste looked at her carefully. "Who are you?"

"Seraphine Vael." She tilted her head slightly. "I'm his betrothed."

Celeste blinked.

Seraphine's smile stayed exactly where it was. "Don't worry about it." She looked at Celeste with those eyes that seemed to go right through things. "May I come in? I think we need to talk."

Celeste stepped aside.

They were still talking when the knock came at the door.

Celeste crossed to the door and opened it. 

Seraphine smirked, nodded at Celeste and left the room.

Kaelan stood in the corridor. No guards behind him. No armour. Just dark clothing and those eyes and the scar across his left eye and the bond pulling hard the moment the door was open between them.

She gripped the door handle and said nothing.

He looked at her for a moment, before speaking. "How are you settling in," he said. It came out stiff. 

She stared at him. "You burned my home down."

"I know."

"My packmates were on their knees in the ruins of what they called home.”

"I know," he said again, quieter.

"And you're asking how I'm settling in."

He held her gaze, said nothing. She saw it, what he'd come to say, stuck behind his eyes. He didn't know how to say it. A man used to things coming when he commanded.

She had no interest in making it easier for him.

She stepped back and closed the door.

The latch clicked into place.

She pushed off the door and went back to her chair.

She thought about what Seraphine had told her. 

There was a lot to figure out.

She was going to start now.