LOGINMIRA'S POVI had felt the first cramp when the warrior grabbed my arm.I had told myself it was the adrenaline, the sudden movement, the reflexive clench of every muscle in my body responding to the threat. I had told myself it would pass. I had followed Isla through the servant passages and focused on putting one foot in front of the other and kept the information about what my body was doing in the category of things I would deal with when there was space to deal with them.There was space now, in the storage room, and the cramping had not passed. It had gotten worse.I pressed my hand flat against my stomach and tried to assess it without my fear doing the assessing for me. Sharp, not dull. Coming in intervals that were not consistent but were getting closer. My back ached in the specific way that was different from exertion and I knew the difference because Elara had told me what to watch for and I had listened carefully because I was not an idiot, even when I pretended the info
ISLA'S POVThe lock took forty seconds for me to pick. It was a good lock — better than the one on my cell at Finn's territory, better than most I had encountered in my life, which told me the person who designed Royalfang's secured quarters had actually thought about who might be put in them. But a good lock is still a lock and I had learned to pick them at fifteen from a rogue trader who visited our pack twice a year, and some skills do not leave you regardless of how long it has been since you used them.The door swung open onto an empty corridor.The explosions had done that much for me — every guard who had been stationed near my quarters had gone toward the breach points, which was correct prioritization on their part and convenient timing for mine. I stood in the doorway for a moment and listened to the castle and made a calculation.The calculation was simple. I was in a building under active assault by a man who had used me as a tool for four years and had no particular rea
MIRA'S POVI was off the bed and on my hands and knees before I understood what had happened, and then the second explosion came and the wall to my left developed a crack that ran from the ceiling to the floor in one long line.Dust and small pieces of stone came down. The lamp on the table went over and the room went dark.My guards were on me before the debris stopped falling. Two of them, one on each side, bodies angled to put themselves between me and the cracked wall. A third was already at the door, checking the corridor."What was that?" I said. My voice came out steadier than I expected."Explosive breach." The guard on my left — Corran, I had learned his name — was scanning the room with his hand on my arm. "More than one point. Stay low."Through the ringing in my ears, other sounds were filtering in. Shouting from multiple directions. Running footsteps in the corridor above and below. And underneath all of it, something that was not battle noise — higher-pitched, less contr
ROWAN’S POVDinn’s army did not rush; they moved with a slowly as if they were just having a stroke that made my jaw tighten. Three hundred warriors, draped in dark armor. They moved in tight blocks, expanding their line until they covered the entire approach to my gates.I didn't need a scout to tell me who they were. I could feel the malice coming from them even from this distance."They’re early," a voice said behind me.I didn’t turn around. I knew the heavy sound of Tobias’s boots. He came to stand beside me, his hands resting on the cold stone of the battlement. He looked out at the valley, his eyes narrowing as he did the same mental math I was doing. Three hundred was a formidable number for a frontal assault, especially when they were led by a man who had nothing left to lose."What is the status of the interior?" I asked. My voice sounded gravelly and strange in my own ears."All civilians are secured in the lower levels," Tobias reported. He sounded calm, but I could hear t
ROWAN'S POVThe day after Isla's questioning, I put every piece of information she had given us to work.The passages were the first priority. I took the maps Tobias had pulled from Hadrian's hidden files and walked every route myself with the head of my guard unit, identifying which sections could be collapsed without structural risk to the castle above and which needed to be sealed and stationed instead. By the end of the first day, the north entry point was rubble and both east access routes had four guards each at every junction, with orders that did not allow exceptions.I recalled warriors from three border assignments. Not all of them — pulling the borders completely bare would be its own invitation — but enough to bring the castle's defensive force up to something I was confident in. I repositioned the archers. I revised the watch rotation so the gaps Hadrian had documented no longer existed.Tobias managed the scouts. He sent teams out in four directions with instructions to
MIRA'S POVCorvin said I should not be out of bed.He listed the reasons — the residual toxin still clearing my system, the strain on the pregnancy, the fact that two days of unconsciousness was not something a body simply walked away from without consequence.I told him I understood all of that and I was going anyway.He looked at Rowan. Rowan looked back at him with an expression that said clearly he was not going to be the one to stop me, and Corvin exhaled through his nose and went to get the wheelchair he had been hoping not to need.I accepted the wheelchair. That was my concession and it was the only one I was making.~~~They brought Isla to a secure room on the second floor — not a cell, but close enough in feel. Stone walls, one window too narrow to be useful, a table and two chairs and guards stationed outside and inside the door. Rowan walked beside me and said nothing about the chair or the pace or any of it, which I appreciated more than I would have said out loud.When
Mira’s POVThe click of the lock felt like the loudest sound in the world, a definitive, echoing finality. I leaned my back against the heavy wood of the door, my legs finally giving out completely as I slid down until my knees hit my chest. I was shaking uncontrollably. Not just a little tremor in
Mira’s POV I woke up to the sound of low, unfamiliar, and professional voices vibrating through the heavy door. It wasn't the usual light banter or bored silence of the guards who had grown used to my silent presence. These new voices were hard, professional, and entirely new to me. I could hear
Rowan's POVI stood there, completely paralyzed in the center of the room, staring at Mira as if I were seeing her for the very first time in my life. The air between us was thick, charged with the kind of volatile electricity that precedes a massive, catastrophic storm. My chest felt agonizingly t
Finn’s POVThe shadows in my study seemed to stretch and crawl, growing impossibly long as the fire in the hearth died down to a dull, angry orange. I didn't sit. I couldn't allow myself to sit. I paced the entire length of the floor, my boots rhythmic against the dark wood—back and forth, back and







