ANMELDENThe blood mirror collapsed at my feet.
For one second, the tower stayed silent.
Then Althea made a sound I would never forget.
It was not a scream.
Screams had force. Screams fought their way out.
This was smaller. Older. The sound of
Alpha Torren of Graymere knelt in the snow, and everyone in the tower forgot how to breathe again.I was beginning to think Black Hollow had stolen oxygen along with common sense.Torren did not look like Damien.That was the first thing I noticed.He was not polished. Not beautiful in that terrible carved way. He wore a gray cloak patched near the hem, heavy boots crusted with snow, and leather armor scratched by years of actual use. His sandy hair had gone silver at the temples. The scar down the left side of his face pulled slightly when he spoke.He looked tired.He looked angry.He looked like a father who had come because blood c
Riven collapsed forward.Mara caught him before his face hit the stone.For one second, everyone froze.Then the tower exploded into motion.Mara shouted for water. Eli shoved a folded blanket under Riven’s shoulder. Ben tried to stand and immediately regretted whatever heroic thought had entered his body. Wren hid behind Althea, eyes wide and wet, while the Briar Glen survivors pressed themselves closer to the far wall.Riven’s body shook in Mara’s arms.Not like fever.Not like fear.Like something had reached through his blood, used his throat, and left the rest of him
The wounded wolf knelt in the snow with a Thorncroft arrow in his shoulder and Damien’s threat bleeding from his mouth.No one moved.Not the Queen’s Guard with their swords leveled at his throat.Not the refugees inside the tower.Not Garran, whose face had gone the color of old ash.Not me.For one strange second, all I could think was that the snow under the wolf’s knees looked too white.Then his blood hit it.Red spread slowly beneath him, soaking into the frozen crust.The image was too familiar.
The blood mirror collapsed at my feet.For one second, the tower stayed silent.Then Althea made a sound I would never forget.It was not a scream.Screams had force. Screams fought their way out.This was smaller. Older. The sound of grief finding one more room inside a body that should have been full already.She folded to her knees beside the blood.Mara caught her before she hit the stone too hard.“Mira,” Althea whispered.The blood from the mirror spread in a thin pool across the floor, too bright, too red, too alive. It slid b
Mira screamed like she already knew what I was supposed to be.The sound tore through the floating blood mirror and filled the watchtower, sharp enough to make Wren cover her ears and several of the Briar Glen villagers stumble backward.Mira pulled against the silver chains around her wrists.They cut into her skin.Fresh blood slid down her hands and dripped onto the black marble beneath her knees.Black marble.My stomach twisted.Thorncrest.She was in Thorncrest.Not near it.Not somewhere in th
The words sat in the tower like a second body no one knew where to put.Amara’s line had more than one surviving branch.For a moment, I heard nothing else.Not the crackle of the hearth fire.Not the groans of wounded people.Not Mara ordering someone to stop wasting clean water.Not Ben telling Eli that his bandage work was “less offensive than expected.”Not the Queen’s Guard shifting in the snow outside.Only that sentence.More than one branch.Another bloodline.







