LOGIN(Daciana POV)The first Blood Feather book wrote that Bardolph was bound to both queens, and the moon field erupted before anyone could breathe.Blackfang warriors shouted first because wolves who had watched their Alpha kneel before one rejected mate could not bear seeing him kneel before two daughters of Northridge.Bardolph remained on his knees between Otsana and me, his head bowed beneath a vow older than his pride and heavier than his crownless shame.I felt nothing soft from the memory the crown had taken, yet the sight still pulled at some scarred place inside me.Otsana stood rigid beside me, her gold mark blazing, her eyes fixed on Bardolph like she expected the vow to become another trap.“Get up,” she said, though her voice carried more fear than command beneath the golden light around her wrist.Bardolph lifted his face slowly, and pain moved through him when the vow held him down before both of us.“I cannot rise while either daughter of Rudina stands unguarded before Bl
(Bardolph POV)The whole moon field had seen the first moment I knew Daciana was my true mate, and shame became heavier than every crown watching us.I remembered the riverbank, the mud, her laughter, and the vow I made before pride learned how to sound like duty.I remembered her hand inside mine, warm and trusting, while my wolf whispered that the moon had given me more than power.Then I remembered the great hall, Ashina’s tears, my cruelty, my rejection, and the way Daciana’s trust died beneath my voice.The memory still lived inside me.The crown had taken it from her.That felt worse than losing blood, title, wolf, or breath.Daciana looked at me across the moon field with eyes that knew facts but no longer held the warmth of that day.She knew I had loved her.She knew I had promised safety.She knew I had failed.But the place inside her where that love first became safe had been burned clean by the crown’s forbidden mercy.I pressed both hands against the grass, breathing thr
(Daciana POV)The crown held my happiest memory with Bardolph like a small flame cupped between silver thorns and merciless moonlight.I could feel the memory trembling inside its grasp, warm, innocent, and painfully alive despite everything that had happened afterward.The shadow child screamed from the throne’s cradle, its black eyes burning while Maelor kicked weakly inside Ashina’s shaking body.Ashina sobbed with both hands over her stomach, whispering Maelor’s name as if motherhood could pull him back from the throne’s hunger.The crown had already chosen its prize, but the choice still stood before me like a door made from every beautiful thing I had buried.Surrender the memory where love first felt safe.Those words burned through the air, and every wolf on the field understood the cruelty of a crown demanding tenderness instead of blood.Bardolph knelt beyond the barrier, his hands pressed against the moonlight, his face broken in a way I had never seen before.“Daciana, do
(Daciana POV)The throne screamed when Maelor kicked inside Ashina again, and the shadow child in the cradle hissed as if love had burned it.Ashina clutched the silver knife in one shaking hand while my fingers still locked around her wrist, stopping grief from becoming blood.Rudina’s spirit stood beside us, almost transparent now, yet her eyes still carried the strength of a queen refusing another stolen child.“Separate the name from the child,” my mother whispered again, and the crown above me answered with a trembling silver note.I looked at the shadow wearing Maelor’s face, then at Ashina’s stomach, where the real child had moved beneath terror and command.“How?” I asked, because every answer in this field seemed to demand blood from women who had already bled too much.Rudina touched the crown with one fading hand, and the silver branches lowered toward me like something ashamed of its own hunger.“The crown can cut false naming from living blood,” she said, her voice thinni
(Ashina POV)Maelor did not move inside me, and the silence beneath my heart frightened me more than the shadow child calling me carrier.The old throne rocked the shadow wearing my son’s face, while silver roots held my wrists like a mother chained beside another woman’s cradle.I pressed one bloody hand against my stomach, waiting for the smallest kick, the faintest flutter, or any sign that my child remained mine.Nothing answered me.Not Maelor.Not the moon.Not the girl I had been before Adolphus taught hunger how to wear obedience.The shadow child watched me from the feathered cradle, its black eyes open, its tiny mouth curved in patient command.“Carrier,” it whispered again, and the word crawled through my bones as if my body had never belonged to me at all.I shook my head until my hair fell across my face, hiding the tears I no longer had the strength to use beautifully.“No,” I said, forcing the word past grief, shame, terror, and the old need to survive by pleasing monst
(Ashina POV)The shadow child opened one black eye inside the throne’s cradle, and every breath in my body turned into ice.It wore Maelor’s face, yet it did not carry the softness I had imagined when my hands rested over my stomach at night.Its cheeks were shaped like an unborn dream, but its eye held something older than hunger, older than Adolphus, and colder than blood.I crawled toward it before anyone could stop me, because motherhood moved faster than wisdom when a child’s face appeared inside darkness.Daciana shouted my name behind me, and the shock in her voice told me she understood the mistake before I did.The silver roots curled around my wrists, not cutting, not crushing, but holding me like the throne wanted me close enough to witness.The shadow child smiled in its sleep, and Maelor kicked inside me at the exact same moment, making my whole body fold around pain.“No,” I whispered, looking from the cradle to my stomach, unable to decide which one held my son and whic
(Bardolph POV)They brought me before Blackfang at dawn with silver chains around my wrists and my burned hand wrapped in blood-soaked cloth.The courtyard smelled of smoke, fear, old law, and the shame of a pack pretending judgment had not already been poisoned.Lobo sat in the Alpha chair with my
(Conri POV)Due’s eyes turned black in the ash room, and the voice coming from her mouth belonged to the monster beneath every secret.Adolphus spoke through a trembling old servant, and every wolf in the room understood that Blood Feather had reached us again.Daciana stood nearest to Due, with ash
(Daciana POV)Rudina’s final line stayed inside the chapel like a candle refusing to die, burning every shadow around the name Due.Trust the servant who answers to Due, but only when she remembers the name I gave her before the ash.The words should have given me a path, but instead they turned ev
(Daciana POV)The black box sat between us on the cracked altar, tied with faded royal blue cloth and sealed with my mother’s mark.Otsana Blackmoon stared at her own name written across the old seal like it was a wound that had learned to speak.For the first time since she called me sister, she d







