Mag-log inSeraThe door scraped open and Yvara came in dragging him.She had Torin by the collar of his tunic — what was left of it. The collar was the only thing on his upper half still in one piece. His head hung back at an angle a head was not meant to hang at. The right side of his neck, the side that had been working when he left, was open from the jaw down to where the collarbone should have been. His arm on that side was gone. Gone meaning gone. It ended somewhere above the elbow in a torn, ragged stump still wet at the edge. There was no arm on the floor behind them.I stood up from the chair too fast."Why is he —"The smell hit before the word finished. Copper, hot, with the heavy under-scent of stomach contents. I clamped my mouth shut.Fenris was at the wall. Arms crossed. He had not moved when the door opened. He was watching me, not the body."Yvara." My voice came out high. I cleared my throat. "Yvara, why is he — Fenris, what the fuck —""Sera.""Bram. We have to find Bram. The
IrinaHe had to drag me three steps before my body remembered how.We ran for an hour. The two that had not gotten Torin came after us into the trees. They were behind us and they were closing and we were down to maybe twenty yards of running room before a rock face when they stopped.They turned around. They walked back to the road.We had thought, at the time, that the smell of the kill had pulled them off us. I had needed to think that, because anything else would have stopped me from running.I let myself think the other thing now.Wolves of conquest, Aldric had said an hour ago in the study. With the right person in charge, you could direct an entire Northern army of rogues. Point them wherever you needed them to go.He had said it because he was telling me he knew. He was using the captain's debrief as cover to tell me exactly what he thought had happened on that road. He was watching my face for the answer.And what he had got was yes.I pressed both hands flat against my mouth
IrinaI stood up. I did not mean to. My legs went out from under the chair before I knew why, and the cramp under my ribs went sharp and I bent forward over the bedpost, fingers wrapped around the cold wood, and I tried to figure out where my body wanted to go.Out. Out was where my body wanted to go.Where, though.I pressed my forehead to the bedpost.Not back to Holt. The thought came up and I shut it down. Not my father.Beren of Holt was the alpha of a small pack at the end of the southern provinces, and his alliance with Valdris was older than my marriage to Aldric. The marriage was the alliance. The marriage had paid for the alliance. The original loan from Valdris had covered eighteen years of failed harvests and missed payments and one bad winter where half my father's pack had starved, and by the time I was sixteen, the interest on the principal was higher than anything my father's lands could ever produce. I was the interest. I had known what I was on the night my father ca
IrinaI made it to the bedside chair before my legs went out.The chair was velvet. Cold against my palms when I gripped the armrests. I sat there for a long minute with my mouth open and my throat working, breathing through my teeth, trying not to make a sound that would carry into the corridor. My chest had been holding the same shape for the last two hours and the muscles weren't sure how to do anything else. Down by the door I could still hear the senior maid's footsteps fading into the carpet, and then nothing.For the first time since the carriage had crossed back into Valdris territory, I was not being watched.I drew a breath in through my nose.Lemon oil. Beeswax. The faint sweet rose of the soap the maids used in the linen press. The fire in the hearth was a clean orange, the wood already burned down to the second log, and the smoke smelled the way smoke was supposed to smell in a civilized house — like a fire, and nothing else. No iron in the air. No stone. No three-deep wo
AldricI looked at the captain."Hey," I said.He looked up. I smiled at him."Relax," I said. "Take a sip. It'll help, I promise you."He looked down at the glass. He picked it up — I watched his hand, the subtle shake in it — and he brought it to his mouth and drank. A real sip, a proper one.I nodded, watching him."There, there," I said. "That's good."I gave him a moment. Watched the color come back into him, the faint loosening that alcohol produces in a body that has been locked tight for too long."How are you feeling now?"He nodded. "Fine, my King. I’m better."Lies. But I nodded anyways.I leaned back in my chair, one hand resting on the arm of it, and looked at him for a moment. Then, pleasantly, as if it were a natural next question:"Who was it?"The captain's throat moved. He looked for just a moment genuinely scared. But he was able to compose himself fast enough."I don't know, my King. They had us locked away. I had no access to anything outside the cell." He paused.
Aldric"Apparently, our daughter prefers women."I watched it land. I watched her face — the way her brows came down into the small, immediate frown of someone receiving information that doesn't fit what they know. I nodded, letting it settle in. I held my cup out slightly, and chuckled."I was very surprised too," I said.Irina shook her head. "That can't be true," she said.I shrugged. My lips pressed together, even, noncommittal. "I’m just as surprised as you are."She stared. The information was still sitting in the air between us, unprocessed, too new to know what to do with it.Almost immediately, a knock, and the door came open. The senior maid — twelve years in this house, absolute discretion, knows exactly when to appear and when to become invisible. She greeted me with her customary composure, and then turned to Irina with a genuine smile, warm and unperformative."Welcome home, my Queen. We're so glad you're back.""Irina." I set down my glass. "I know this is a lot to sit
SeraI spat a mouthful of dirt onto the packed earth. The taste of copper and dry soil coated my tongue. I stayed on my hands and knees for three seconds, forcing oxygen back into my lungs, before I pushed myself up.My legs shook. My ribs throbbed with a sharp, localized heat every time I inhaled.
FenrisI didn't respond. I focused on the wrappings, moving with slow, methodical precision. Dimitri sighed and walked around the bag, his gaze moving across the small, cramped room."I still can't believe you managed to keep this place hidden from Father until he died," Dimitri said, a hint of a l
FenrisThe leather bag was old. It was cracked in several places, leaking thin streams of sand onto the stone floor every time I hit it. The heavy chains groaned, a high-pitched metallic scrape that echoed in the small, windowless space. This was the belly of the mountain, a place the torches barel
SeraI didn't feel the laces tightening across my ribs, even though Mina was pulling them hard enough to make me wince. My body was on autopilot—arms lifting when she nudged them, chin tilting when she needed to reach a fastener. My mind was stuck in the dirt of the training yard, picturing a seven







