Mag-log in[Selena's POV]Riders. More of them, coming up the slope behind the line already holding me, torchlight bouncing off wet rock, and for one wild second I thought Lucian had somehow found a way to send help after all.Then I saw her.Eileen rode in at Alaric's side, pale, one hand braced against her stomach, and every soldier on that ridge turned half a step toward her without meaning to, the way people turn toward heat in winter. She looked half dead on her feet even sitting on a horse. She looked like she should have been carried off that battlefield an hour ago instead of climbing a ridge in the dark to watch me finish falling apart."You shouldn't be here," Alaric said to her, low."I know." She didn't stop. "I'm here anyway.""Selena," he called out, "get down from the horse. Nobody else needs to die tonight.""That's rich," I said, "coming from the man who just buried a sword in my brother.""Your brother put that sword there himself, the day he decided murder was an acceptable op
[Selena's POV]I watched my brother die from the north tower, too far away to do anything but grip the stone until my nails split against it.I'd climbed up there to see better, to find some angle where the fight made sense, where Lucian's blade found an opening and Alaric went down instead. It never came. I watched the sword go into his side.He folded around it, and then the whole ward went quiet around his body.Then I ran.I don't remember the stairs. I remember the horse, one of the last saddled mounts left in the stable yard, and a stable boy too frightened to stop me from taking it. I remember the gate hanging open because nobody had thought to guard an exit nobody expected anyone to use, not with the whole ward watching their alpha die in the open.Lucian's dead.I said it out loud, once, into the dark, the way I used to say Bloodhowl just to hear how the word sat in my mouth. It didn't steady anything this time. It only made the shaking worse.Nine years, Selena. Kade's voice,
[Eileen's POV]The east wall came into view in pieces, torchlight and running men and shouting, and a knot of North Pack soldiers backed against the stone with their spears out and nobody willing to close the last few feet."Move!" Alaric shoved through them, and I saw why they'd stopped.Alice stood in the middle of the gap with a stolen sword too heavy for her grip, swinging it in wide, wild arcs, nothing trained or careful about the way she held it. Blood soaked one side of her dress from ribs Alaric had cracked days ago, and her hair had come loose from its pins, plastered to her face with sweat."Stay back!" she screamed at the ring of soldiers. "All of you, stay back!""Alice." Alaric's voice cut through the noise, low and even. "Put it down."Her head snapped toward him, then found me behind his shoulder, and something in her face shifted, ugly and raw."Of course," she said. "Of course you'd bring her.""Nobody brought me anywhere," I said. "I came because you were screaming."
[Eileen's POV]Kade's hand closed around empty air where my arm had been a second ago. I was already back on my feet, and every part of me screamed that I shouldn't be, and I didn't care. My legs shook, my head swam, and none of it mattered next to the man I was watching lose ground on those stairs."Eileen, don't..." His voice chased after me, but the ward was already tilting, and none of it mattered except the shape of Alaric's arm rising too slow, and the blade coming fast for his throat.I didn’t decide to reach for it. My hand went out on its own, the way it had in the cellar and again when the whole ward dropped to its knees. This time, there was barely anything left. Just a thin, shaking thread of power.It was enough.Lucian's foot slid on the stone like the ground itself had turned to ice under him, just for a heartbeat, just long enough. His swing went wide. Alaric's didn't.Steel found him below the ribs, deep, and Lucian folded around it with a sound that wasn't a word."N
[Alaric's POV]The steps in front of the keep had never seemed so long. I counted them without meaning to, Twelve stone slabs between me and the man who killed my brother. The man who had called Eileen a project instead of a person.Lucian didn't move as I climbed. Blood had dried under his nose and along his jaw, and his sword hung loose at his side like it cost him nothing to hold."You look tired, Alaric," he said. "Running a war does that to a man.""You should know. You started it.""I finished what your father started when he took my sister's inheritance and called it justice." He turned the blade slowly in his hand, testing the weight of it. "But we're not here to argue history.""No. We're here because you touched something that was mine.""Kill me and watch what happens to your peace." He tipped his chin toward the men kneeling in rows around us. "My territory splits three ways within a season. The South Pack loses their favorite bargaining chip. You'll spend the next ten yea
[Eileen's POV]Alaric set me on my feet the moment I asked, one arm locked around my waist so I wouldn't fall, The ground beneath my feet was already vibrating.”"Eileen, talk to me.""It's not in my hands this time." I stared at my fingers, at nothing, at the silver crawling up my arms. "It's in the ground, Alaric. I can feel the whole ward.""Then let it go.""I don't know how!""Take her alive!" a captain in black shouted from the left. "Lucian wants her breathing!""Alaric, they're coming," Kade said, and stepped in front of us with his sword up.Two guards charged, and I threw out my hand as I had in the cellar, and this time there was no wall of light. There was a deep sound under our feet, and both men dropped to their knees and both men went to their knees with their swords clattering away over the stones."What did she do?" one of them gasped. "I can't get up. Why can't I get up?""Lucian said she was a hostage," the captain groaned from his knees. "Nobody said she was this."







