Chapter 3

I stopped fighting.

The guards dragged me through the chapel and out into the courtyard.

Snow fell beneath a moonless sky, gathering on the palace roofs and the marble statues that lined the royal gardens. The air smelled of iron, frost, and distant woodsmoke. Somewhere beyond the walls, a wolf howled.

My own wolf answered with a weak, frightened whimper.

I tried to reach for her, but the broken mate bond had left us both shaken. She curled into the deepest corner of my consciousness, refusing to emerge.

I couldn't blame her.

We had been abandoned by everyone we trusted.

Beyond the palace gates lay the forbidden forest, a vast wilderness stretching across the northern mountains. Its trees were older than the kingdom itself, their twisted branches reaching toward the sky like skeletal fingers.

Children were warned never to approach its borders. Hunters told stories of strange lights between the trees, of voices calling from empty clearings, of wolves that emerged at dawn with blood on their muzzles and no memory of what they had killed.

The strongest warriors refused to patrol its depths.

Even the royal packs avoided it.

No hunting party had ever returned with a complete account of what lay inside.

The kingdom had spent centuries warning us about the things that lived there.

Now my family was sending me to them.

A black carriage waited beyond the gates.

Lucien stood beside it, his hands clasped behind his back. Snow had settled across his shoulders, but he seemed untouched by the cold. He looked as composed as he had during our first dance, when he had whispered that he would never let anyone hurt me.

I remembered the warmth of his hand against my waist.

I remembered the way my wolf had purred when he kissed my forehead.

I remembered believing that the moon had chosen him for me because I had finally done something right.

The memories felt obscene now.

"Any final words?" he asked.

I stared at him.

"Do you even remember our first meeting?"

His brows drew together, clearly irritated by the question.

"The spring festival," I continued. "Three years ago. I was standing beside the fountain because the other girls wouldn't let me join their dance. You came over and asked me to dance anyway."

"I remember."

"Do you remember what you told me?"

His expression did not change.

"You said that one day I would stand beside you, and no one would ever be allowed to make me feel small again."

For a moment, the courtyard seemed to fall silent.

Then Lucien exhaled.

"I was younger then."

The answer hurt more than I expected.

Not because it was cruel, but because it was so ordinary. He dismissed three years of promises as though they were childish mistakes, insignificant words spoken by a boy who had since discovered something better.

"And now?" I asked.

"Now I understand what ruling requires."

"No." I swallowed the ache in my throat. "Now you understand what you can get away with."

His eyes hardened.

The guards tightened their grip on my arms.

I forced myself to stand straight. If this was the last time Lucien Ashford ever saw me, I would not give him the satisfaction of watching me beg.

"One day," I whispered, "you will regret this."

He sighed as though I had disappointed him.

"That would require you to survive the night."

The guards forced me into the carriage.

The door slammed shut, plunging me into darkness.

For several moments, I sat motionless, listening to the muffled voices outside. Then the wheels began to turn.

I pressed my bleeding palms against the floor and stared through the narrow window.

The palace gates stood open behind us.

Evelyne was beneath the stone archway, her white dress bright against the darkness. She watched the carriage depart without moving, her face pale and unreadable.

Then she lifted one hand to her throat.

A silver moonstone pendant rested against her skin.

My mother's necklace.

The necklace our grandmother had left to the eldest daughter of our family.

Mine by birth.

Hers by theft.

I pressed my forehead against the cold glass.

I wondered whether she would wear it when Lucien married her. Whether she would stand beside him in the royal hall, smiling beneath the chandeliers while the court congratulated her on becoming queen.

I wondered whether she would ever think of me.

Or whether she would tell herself that I had died so she could live, and that made everything acceptable.

The carriage rolled onward.

The road grew rougher as we left the capital behind. The familiar sounds of the city faded into the distance, replaced by the rhythmic creaking of the wheels and the howl of the wind.

I tried to count the passing minutes.

I lost track after the first hour.

My body ached from the cold, and my chest still hurt where the mate bond had broken. Every so often, a wave of pain passed through me so suddenly that I had to bite my lip to keep from crying out.

I refused to give them another tear.

Not Lucien.

Not Evelyne.

Not my parents.

If I was going to die, I would die remembering exactly what they had done.

Eventually, the carriage slowed.

I lifted my head.

Through the window, I saw a row of ancient stones rising from the snow. Strange symbols had been carved into their surfaces, though the frost made them difficult to distinguish.

Beyond them stood the forest.

The trees crowded together so densely that the morning light barely reached the ground beneath their branches. Their trunks were black and twisted, and their roots coiled across the earth like sleeping serpents.

Even from inside the carriage, I felt something wrong about the place.

It wasn't simply fear.

It was recognition.

My wolf stirred for the first time since Lucien's rejection. She raised her head inside me, her ears flattening against her skull.

No, she whispered.

I had never heard her sound so frightened.

The carriage door opened.

Cold air rushed inside.

One guard stood outside, his face drawn and tired. The other remained behind him, staring at the trees.

"Out."

I climbed down unsteadily.

The snow reached my ankles. My thin dress offered little protection against the biting wind, and my fingers had already begun to lose their feeling.

I looked back at the carriage.

"Where are you taking me?"

The guard's gaze shifted toward the forest.

"Nowhere. This is where you stay."

I stared at him.

"You can't leave me here."

"Those are the orders."

"Then give me a knife. A blanket. Anything."

He looked away.

For the first time, I noticed the faint tremor in his hands.

"You shouldn't have been born into this," he muttered.

Before I could ask what he meant, he climbed back into the carriage.

I grabbed the doorframe.

"Wait!"

He pulled free.

"Please!"

The door slammed.

The horses turned, and the carriage began its journey back toward the kingdom, leaving me behind all alone.