Thirty: Lucian

It takes less than an hour for the verdict to mutate, as all verdicts do in Nightwind.

We haven’t even made it to the foyer before a second councilor corners me, face shiny with anticipation and breath close enough to count the nights he skipped brushing his teeth. “Alpha,” he says, “did you really mean it—containment? Are we to keep her locked away forever, or—” He looks at Tessa, then at Luka, then back at me. “Or is there a plan?”

Tessa shows her teeth, no humor in it. “The plan is what you heard in session,” she says. “Try listening, next time.”

Luka steps forward, shouldering the councilor aside with a grunt. “I’ll see to the post,” he mutters. Tessa and I exchange a look, and he’s gone before either of us can second-guess the move. That’s Luka: not just the blade, but the shadow the blade casts.

The corridor is a cold tunnel, every word from the council chamber bouncing back at us in strange new forms—questions, accusations, the first echoes of future coups. Wren’s been escorted elsewhere, the guard detail handpicked by me: none of Soren’s loyalists, no one with a taste for old vengeance. Still, I know that won’t last. Nothing in Nightwind ever does.

We reach the main hall and find the pack already divided into visible factions. Soren at the front, chest puffed and arms crossed, flanked by his usual cadre of yes-men and inherited muscle. Behind, Mira with her own loyalists—smaller, but sharper, like a cluster of needles hidden inside a velvet pouch. The rest of the pack loiters in knots, eyes shifting, already gauging which side will rise if this goes to blood.

I take my place at the foot of the stairs, posture set to broadcast command. Tessa stands just behind, her presence a second layer of threat. The crowd hushes, anticipation crawling up the walls.

Soren doesn’t let the silence grow. He steps forward and, in a voice meant to reach the upper balcony, intones: “The Alpha’s decision contradicts the spirit of the old law. Containment is weakness. You all know it.”

The words are a test. A challenge to see if anyone else is hungry enough to bite. A few of the older wolves nod, but most hold back, uncertain.

Mira doesn’t step up; she lets her words fly from the second row, a soft missile meant to wound without visible force. “The seer’s prophecy is clear. If the Stray Moon dies outside these walls, Nightwind collapses. To kill her would be to invite the very curse Soren fears.”

A crackle of energy runs through the room. Soren’s mouth twists, but before he can bark again, someone at the back—too young to know better—calls out, “If we keep her here, what stops her from infecting the pack?”

That’s what they really care about: not the law, not the prophecy, but the possibility of being changed. Of becoming something less.

I let the question linger. I want them to feel it. Then I raise my hand, a small motion amplified by years of authority.

“Nightwind,” I say, voice pitched to the space. “The Stray Moon stays. Not as pack, not as prisoner, but under guard. She’s our insurance against the prophecy, and my responsibility. Any wolf who touches her without order answers to me.”

The room shudders under the weight of it. Even Tessa shifts her stance, as if bracing for the aftershock.

Soren bares his teeth. “You put the pack at risk for a single—”

I cut him off, cold and final. “I put the pack above all. That’s the law. Unless you wish to challenge?”

It’s a razor blade, that offer. Soren knows he’d lose, at least for now.

He bows his head, barely. “For now,” he says. The threat is explicit, and it’s the closest I’ll get to peace.

I let my gaze sweep the room, locking eyes with every potential traitor, every uncertain ally. Mira’s face is unreadable, but her shoulders drop a fraction—a release of tension I choose to interpret as support. Or at least, as relief that Soren hasn’t won.

The hall empties in ripples, the first wave of loyalists moving out to spread the new rumor, then the rest trailing after, all of them eager to rewrite tonight’s events for their own ends. Only when the echoes die and the marble floor is empty do I let my hand fall from the hilt of my dagger.

Tessa stands beside me in the silence. “You made the right call,” she says.

“Doesn’t feel like it,” I answer.

She nods, eyes on the far door. “That’s how you know.”

We walk the corridor together, our steps echoing in the emptiness. I feel the bond, dead and alive, straining somewhere far away in the east wing. I think of Wren, the way she met my stare, the way her defiance burned even when every wolf in the room wanted her gone.

Tessa stops at the split in the hall. “She’ll make it through the night,” she says, “if you don’t go soft.”

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

She almost smiles. “Good.”

I head for my office, but I pause at the door, hand on the wood, and listen to the silence for just a second longer. The echo of the prophecy is still there, in the walls, in the blood, in the air.

If the Stray Moon dies outside these walls, Nightwind will fall from within.

I close the door behind me and lock it, as if that will keep the future out.

But nothing in Nightwind is ever that simple.