Twenty-Seven: Lucian

The storm of voices comes all at once—a frenzy of old men and old wolves, the sound so dense it’s more vibration than noise. The prophecy hangs over the room, heavier than law, heavier than the threat of blood. I let the tumult roll, watch the council fracture into factions before my eyes.

“Heed the old rules!” This from Soren, the most senior of the elders, his beard dyed with the ash of a hundred executions. “A turned wolf is a curse. It cannot be permitted.”

Across the circle, Mira, the youngest councilor, raises her voice to cut him down: “But the seer’s words—what if she’s right? We risk all our necks for the pride of one?”

Luka hisses, “Send her away. Banishment solves both. She’s out, we’re safe.”

Someone else—old Griggs, whose left hand is three fingers short from a failed coup decades past—growls, “Better to kill the thing now, than let prophecy rot the pack from the inside.”

Wren sits perfectly still, but I can feel her pulse from here—fast, arrhythmic, bordering on collapse. She’s pretending to be made of stone, but the shaking in her legs is unmistakable, at least to me. The cuffs haven’t cut the spirit out of her, only concentrated it. She raises her chin, eyes level, as if she’s here for her own funeral and intends to judge the eulogies herself.

Elowen makes a circuit, never in a hurry, letting the councilors shout themselves hoarse. She holds her hands behind her back, but every so often, her fingers splay and twist as if casting invisible runes into the chamber air. She walks the room like she owns it, and, for now, she does.

The prophecy has worked its poison. Already the council is splitting—those who want to obey the letter of the law, and those who fear the cost of crossing the seer. I watch the lines shift, alliances forming and collapsing faster than the air can cool from the open doors.

Tessa leans in, voice low enough for only me: “They’re close to riot.”

I nod. “Let them.” It’s not confidence; it’s strategy. Better they show their teeth now, when I can count them.

Jace finally stands, using his full height for effect. “Enough!” His voice carries, a living thing that bullies the lesser councilors into brief silence. “You heard the warning. If we kill her, and Nightwind falls, it’s on all of you.” He points at Soren, then at Griggs, daring them to contradict him.

Soren isn’t cowed. “The Alpha decides,” he says, with a look designed to burn through my skull. “But the Alpha does not break the law for his own comfort.”

The bond stings at that. I want to say it’s not comfort, that it’s something harder, but the words tangle in my throat. Wren’s gaze finds me, not an appeal, not a plea—just a dare.

I take the time to let the silence build. I let my body language project what I need: immovability, focus, the cold of the northern wind. I want them to see the Alpha, not the man. But the mask is a bad fit tonight.

Elowen returns to the center, all eyes drawn by the gravity she exudes. She looks down at Wren, then up to me. The two of them are alike in one way: they both refuse to flinch.

“Will you accept the council’s judgment?” Elowen asks, not of the council, but of me.

I pace the boundary of the circle, hands behind my back, measuring every face. I can see where the vote would fall: five for execution, three for exile, two—maybe three, if I count Jace—for honoring the seer and finding a new solution. Not a majority for anything, but enough for blood if I let them have it.

The councilors are bristling, braced for a verdict. I stop in front of Wren, the bond a live wire between us. Up close, she smells of sweat, adrenaline, and the peculiar, bitter scent of new wolf—like pine needles crushed underfoot, but sharper, more volatile.

She looks up, a flicker of something like humor in her face. “Well?” she says, voice low, almost conversational. “Do I get a vote?”

Soren recoils as if the question is a sin. Mira tries to hide her smile behind her palm.

I keep my voice steady. “Not today.”

The council holds its breath.

“If the prophecy is true,” I say, “then Nightwind falls if she dies outside our walls. But if she lives—”

“Then we become the first pack in history to shelter a turned wolf!” Soren’s voice is a whip, lashing the rest back into line. “You’d risk all our blood for a myth?”

Elowen’s gaze is steady. “It’s your choice, Lucian.”

It is. That’s the hell of it.

The law is the law. But there’s never been a law for this.

The room expects a performance—an Alpha’s speech, the old words, a clean conclusion. I try to summon it, the muscle memory of generations, but all I get is the echo of the bond. I realize, with a sudden white-hot clarity, that if I give the kill order, I will never recover. I will never be Alpha again, not in the ways that matter.

“Nightwind stands,” I say, voice barely above a growl. “And she stands with us. For now.”

The council explodes again—shouts of betrayal, of outrage, of doom. Tessa moves to my side, Jace behind, and together we out-stare the rebellion. It takes two minutes—maybe less, but it feels like hours—before the council breaks into stunned, bitter silence.

Elowen smiles, almost imperceptible, and nods.

Wren sags, just for a heartbeat, then regathers herself. She doesn’t thank me. She doesn’t have to.

I signal to Tessa and Luka. “Secure her to the south tower,” I say. “No visitors but council. And none alone.”

They move to obey, the weight of my voice enough to make even Soren swallow his retort.

Elowen lingers at the center of the room, tracing a pattern on the air with her finger. The cold seems to deepen, and for a second, every breath is visible.

As Wren passes, Elowen catches her by the elbow—gentle, but unbreakable. “You changed more than your skin, tonight,” she says. “Don’t waste it.”

Wren gives her a look that could mean anything, but doesn’t flinch.

They drag her away, and the council chamber empties, the ghosts of argument lingering in the corners. I wait until the last voice is gone before I let myself collapse onto the cold bench, head in my hands.

I’ve bought us time. Maybe nothing else.

The future is uncertain.

But for the first time in my life, I want to see what it looks like.