LOGINKenna’s POVI wasn’t going to wait outside while a room full of people decided my future without me in it.“You don’t have to do this,” Jace said quietly, catching me before I reached the chamber doors.“If I hide, they’ll believe I have something to hide.” I straightened my shoulders. “I’m going in.”The chamber went quiet the moment I stepped through the doors, every elder’s eyes finding me at once. I didn’t let myself falter.“I understand you’re discussing my future,” I said. “I’d like to be part of that discussion, if the council permits it.”Roland’s jaw tightened, but he gestured for me to remain. Nobody objected outright, though the discomfort in the room was obvious enough.“The failed harvest,” Whitmore began, listing it off like he’d rehearsed the order.“The withered g
Jace’s POVI knew before I stepped inside the chamber that this wouldn’t be routine. The guards outside wouldn’t meet my eyes.“Alpha.” Elder Whitmore rose the moment I entered, not bothering with formalities. “We’ve reached a decision the council believes is necessary.”“Then let’s hear it.”“Kenna steps aside as Luna,” he said, flat and final, “until this pack recovers from whatever is causing these disasters.”“Based on what evidence?”“The harvest. The garden. The wolves are losing control during the full moon. Jenna’s dreams predicting each disaster before it happened.” He counted them off like they proved themselves simply by existing together.“Every incident traces back to her presence in this house.”“The crop failures existed before her coronation,” I said. “I have
Kenna’s POVI couldn’t shake the name all morning.Moberly. It sat behind everything I did, following me through helping the servants, checking on the children still recovering from the full moon, refusing to let go no matter how hard I tried to focus on anything else.I finally caught Jace alone near his study.“Tell me what you found.”He hesitated, and that hesitation told me more than I wanted to know before he even opened his mouth. “An old pack,” he said f
Jace’s POVI found the drawing by accident, left on her desk while she’d stepped out to help with the evening meal. I hadn’t meant to look at it. But the shape caught my eye the moment I passed, and something about it stopped me cold.I recognized it. I couldn’t place where from, not immediately, but the recognition sat there anyway, stubborn and certain.I studied it without touching the paper, comparing the curves against every marking I could remember from the archives, the tree carving near the temple, the relic that had gone missing, the crest stitched into that dying guardian’s cloak. Close, maybe. Not quite the same arrangement.Kenna returned before I’d finished looking, and I straightened quickly, though not quickly enough to hide what I’d been doing.“You found it,” she said, more resigned than surprised.“I wasn’t searching for anything. It was on the desk.&rd
Kenna’s POVI woke before sunrise and stayed still for a long time, staring at the ceiling, trying to sort what I actually remembered from what my exhausted mind might have invented on its own.Most dreams faded the moment I woke, dissolving into fragments I could barely hold onto by the time I dressed. This one didn’t fade at all.I could still see the settlement clearly, wooden buildings, unfamiliar in their construction, nothing like the stone and timber of Babcock’s villages. The people running through the streets wore clothes cut differently from anything I’d ever seen, fabrics I couldn’t name, styles that felt like they belonged to a different time entirely. Their fear had been unmistakable, etched into every face, and beneath it something else, like they’d been waiting, searching the horizon for whatever finally arrived to destroy them.I sat up and tried to recall the symbol carved into that one building’s entrance. I knew I’d seen it before. I just couldn’t remember where.Th
Kenna’s POVI couldn’t outrun it anymore. Everywhere I turned, the same conversations trailed after me, the failed harvest, the withered garden, the wolves losing control, Jenna’s dreams that had somehow predicted every disaster before it happened. Nobody said my name to my face most of the time. They didn’t have to. I felt it in the way rooms went quiet when I entered, in the way eyes followed me and then quickly looked away.I kept working anyway, helping the healers, checking on the children, staying busy at Elaine’s side. I told myself that if I just kept moving, none of it would catch up to me.It caught up to me anyway.“You’ve barely said a word all morning,” Elaine said, pulling me aside once the kitchen had emptied. “Sit.”“I’m just tired.”“Kenna.” She said my name the way she used to when I was small, firm but not unkind. “Stop telling me you’re fine.”I opened my mouth to insist again, and something in me simply gave out instead. “I’m exhausted,” I admitted, my voice crac







