CHAPTER 91: ASHES AND EMBERS.

POV: Ember.

The sky wept the morning of Dalia’s funeral.

Thin sheets of rain rolled over the stones and down the black coats of the mourners gathered in Raven’s Peak’s high glade—an ancient place, older than names, where the mountain kept its secrets and its dead. The earth had been opened in the clearing near the old ash tree, where the roots once whispered to the oldest bloodlines of their kind.

Ember stood at the edge of the grave, her fingers clenched around a bundle of wildflowers—yarrow, sage, and marigold. Her sister would have hated the rain. She would have made a joke about mud and ruined boots, teased Ember for getting too serious. But Dalia wasn’t here to laugh anymore. Only the cold wind and the solemn circle of the Pack, heads bowed in silence.

Ember stepped forward.

“I don’t have enough words,” she said, her voice steady though the grief was a tight, burning knot in her chest. “Dalia never asked for a place in history. She just wanted to protect what mattered. She made