LOGIN(Daciana POV)The fresh black feather lay beneath the servants’ floor like a living threat, and every wolf in the lower house stopped breathing.It was not old, not buried with Rudina’s crown, and not touched by the dust of eighteen hidden years.It had been placed there recently.By someone who knew I would come.By someone who had reached my Northridge room, stolen cloth from my blanket, and followed my path back into Blackfang.The last Blood Feather spy was not waiting in some distant tower or hiding behind a noble banner.The spy was close.Close enough to touch my bed.Close enough to know my steps.Close enough to watch me bleed over my mother’s crown.Rieka backed away from the opened floor, her face pale with horror that looked real enough to wound my suspicion.“I did not put that there,” she said, her voice rough and low because every servant had turned toward her again.No one accused her aloud.That made it worse.Silent suspicion has sharper teeth than shouted blame.Con
(Daciana POV)Lobo’s acceptance fell over the sacred field like a chain thrown around every throat, and Blackfang’s old shame found a new face.He stood with Bardolph’s Alpha ring on his finger, smiling at me like I was not a woman, but property returning to law.The Blackfang elders looked relieved, because frightened men love any strong voice that promises their sins can become tradition again.Bardolph stepped forward with murder in his eyes, but I felt through the bond that his rage was fighting something more dangerous.Guilt.He had surrendered his seat to prove he would not own me, and his own elders had turned that surrender into another cage.Lobo lifted his hand, letting the black Alpha ring flash red beneath the moon as if the stone approved his claim.“Daciana of Rudina’s blood will return to Blackfang under elder protection until the old marriage contract is fulfilled,” he said.Conri’s sword came free with a sound sharp enough to make several wolves step backward.“North
(Daciana POV)Gonzalo’s blood was still warm on my dress when the sacred field became a place where every wolf looked at every shadow.Conri held his captain’s body like a king holding the ruins of his own trust, and nobody dared tell him to let go.The black bone marrow had torn through Gonzalo’s throat before he could name the spy sleeping beside my door.Not Rieka.Not someone else.Not enough truth.Only one unfinished word had survived inside the blood between us.Not.That word could save Rieka.That word could accuse someone worse.That word could be another trap waiting for my tired heart to choose the wrong enemy.Bardolph stood beside me, one hand still half-raised from pulling me away from the second arrow.For one heartbeat, I had let him touch me because death had been faster than pride.Now the place where his fingers had gripped my arm burned, not with pain, but with the terrible memory of safety.I stepped away from him slowly.He released me at once.That mattered.I
(Daciana POV)The unborn child’s heartbeat echoed across the sacred field, and every wolf stood frozen beneath the weight of Otsana’s warning.Once.Twice.Three times.Each beat sounded too small to carry two kingdoms, yet every pulse made Blackfang and Northridge wolves step farther apart.I watched fear move through them like fire through dry grass, fast, hungry, and ready to burn whoever stood closest.Blackfang stared at Ashina’s stomach with horror because the woman they had almost crowned again now carried a child that could enslave them.Northridge stared at Gonzalo with broken trust because their king’s most loyal captain had become part of the weapon aimed at them.And everyone stared at me like my blood had become the door, the key, and the battlefield all at once.I wanted to scream at them to stop looking at me.I wanted to tear the moon from the sky and demand why my life kept becoming sacred whenever someone needed a knife.Instead, I stood in servant brown, with blood
(Daciana POV)The ground beneath the sacred circle opened with a sound like old bones cracking, and red light bled through the silver dust.Gonzalo’s blood crawled toward my feet like a living snake, carrying the unborn child’s heartbeat inside every dark red line.Ashina screamed again, but this time the sound was not victory, rage, or performance made beautiful for frightened wolves.It was pain.Real pain.The kind that stripped masks from faces and left only the terrified person underneath.Her black feather crown burned above her head, yet the fire did not consume it, because the ritual fed from suffering instead of wood.Adolphus stood behind her with both hands lifted toward the moon, smiling like a priest blessing a grave he had dug himself.“Begin,” he whispered, and the word moved through the field like a command older than any Alpha voice.The moonlight changed.It was no longer silver.It turned pale red, then black at the edges, as if the night itself had begun to bleed.
(Daciana POV)Gonzalo knelt beneath the moonlight with every wolf staring at him, and the black feather over his heart burned through his armor.For one long moment, nobody spoke, because betrayal looked different when it wore the face of a man everyone had trusted.Conri stood frozen beside me, his sword still half-raised, his silver eyes fixed on the captain who had guarded his life for years.I had seen Conri angry before, cold before, dangerous before, but I had never seen him look truly wounded until that moment.Gonzalo had stood beside him in war, carried his orders, protected Northridge gates, and smiled like loyalty had lived inside his bones.Now the moon had shown Ashina’s unborn child tied to him, and every oath he had ever spoken trembled beneath that silver truth.Ashina stood inside the sacred circle with one hand over her stomach, crying and laughing softly like even she feared what had been revealed.Adolphus watched us all with a smile that made the night feel older,







