Chapter 5: The Grand Hall

"You're shaking."

Rowan's voice was barely a whisper, his lips close to my ear as he fell into step beside me in the corridor. I hadn't heard him approach. I never did.

"I'm not shaking," I said. "I'm vibrating with bridal joy."

"Your hands are clenched so tight your knuckles are white."

I forced my fingers to uncurl. We were walking toward the grand hall, Ivy trailing three steps behind, my silk train whispering against the marble. Every guard we passed bowed their heads. Every servant pressed themselves against the wall. The princess was preparing for her wedding, and the whole palace was watching.

"My father summoned me," I said through my fixed smile. "He requests my presence before the ceremony. Any idea why?"

"None that you'll like." Rowan's arm brushed mine, a casual contact that looked accidental to any observer. It wasn't. "Victor stopped me in the barracks this morning. Told me the Blackmane delegation has been moved to the front of the ceremony seating, directly facing the Ninefold Platform. He said there are more warriors among them than we counted last night. At least forty."

"Forty." My smile didn't waver. "In a delegation of thirty-five."

"Exactly. Some of the servants are Blackmane wolves who've been in the palace for months. They're armed and positioned at every exit."

I thought of the serving girl who'd brought my breakfast this morning—a quiet northern wolf with a scar across her collarbone. She'd lingered at my door longer than necessary. I'd thought she was starstruck by the princess on her wedding day.

I'd been wrong about so many things.

"Kael's going to attack during the ceremony," I said. "He's going to use the platform where my father killed his family."

"That's my assessment." Rowan's voice was steady, but I could feel the tension radiating from him. "The question is whether your father knows and is letting it happen, or whether he's truly been outmaneuvered."

"Both. Neither." I paused at the entrance to the grand hall, the massive silver doors looming before us. "My father always has a backup plan. If he's letting Kael think he has the upper hand, there's a reason. And that reason is probably standing on the platform with a knife at my back."

Rowan's hand caught my wrist. His grip was warm, grounding, the first real thing I'd felt all morning.

"Selene." He rarely used my name without the title. It hit differently—intimate, urgent. "If something goes wrong in there—if the ceremony turns and I can't reach you—"

"You'll reach me. You always do."

"I'm serious. The eastern path is still open. Ivy knows the way. If I give the signal—"

"What's the signal?"

He hesitated. "I'll howl. Three times. Like a wolf calling for its mate."

The words landed somewhere deep in my chest. Like a wolf calling for its mate. Rowan had never claimed me. Never pushed. Never even admitted his feelings until circumstances forced them out. But he'd just told me, in front of the grand hall and the guards and the watching court, that he would call for me like a mate.

"Why three times?" I heard myself ask.

"Because once is a warning. Twice is a greeting." His brown eyes held mine, steady and fierce. "Three times is a promise. That I'm coming for you. That I won't stop until you're safe."

"Your Highness." A guard's voice cut through the moment. "The Alpha King is waiting."

I pulled my wrist free of Rowan's grip, but my skin stayed warm where he'd touched me. "Stay close to the platform. Whatever happens."

"I'm not going anywhere."

The silver doors swung open.

The grand hall had been transformed.

Silver banners hung from every rafter, embroidered with the Ashbourne wolf and the Blackmane bear. White flowers cascaded down the pillars. The court had gathered in their finest silks, nobles packed shoulder to shoulder, their whispered excitement filling the air like bees in a hive. At the far end of the hall, my father stood on the dais with the Council of Elders arranged behind him like vultures waiting for a feast.

And at the base of the dais, alone in a pool of colored light from the stained-glass windows, stood Kael.

He was wearing black. Not the silver-and-black formal tunic I'd expected—just black, unrelieved by any Ashbourne color. His hair was pulled back from his face, and the scar through his eyebrow looked sharper than it had yesterday. When he saw me enter, his expression didn't change. He looked at me the way a wolf looks at a trap he's already figured out how to escape.

"Princess Selene!" My father's voice boomed across the hall, warm and welcoming and utterly false. "Come, come. Join us. We were just discussing the final details of the ceremony."

I walked toward the dais. Every step felt like wading through water. Rowan had melted into the crowd behind me, but I could feel his eyes on my back. Ivy was somewhere near the servants' entrance, ready to move if I gave her any sign.

"Father." I curtsied at the base of the dais, my wedding gown pooling around me. "Kael. I trust I'm not interrupting."

"Not at all." My father descended from the dais, taking my hand in his. His grip was iron, his smile carved from stone. "I was just reminding Lord Blackthorne of the importance of today's ceremony. The unity of our packs. The end of old grudges. The beginning of a new era."

"Sounds lovely." I turned to Kael. "And what were you reminding my father of?"

The hall went very quiet.

Kael's mouth curved. Not a smile. Something sharper. "I was reminding him that the Ninefold Platform has a long memory. It remembers every wolf who bled on its stones. Every oath is spoken there. Every betrayal." He paused, and his winter-dark eyes flicked to my father. "Every execution."

My father's grip on my hand tightened. "The past is the past. Today we look to the future."

"Do we?" Kael tilted his head. "I wonder if the Moon Goddess agrees. She sees everything, doesn't she? Every bond. Every broken vow. Every king who mistakes cruelty for strength."

The Elders shifted behind my father. One of them—old, withered, with eyes like frozen mud—leaned forward and whispered something in my father's ear. My father's expression flickered. For just a moment, I saw something beneath the kingly mask. Not anger. Not fear.

Anticipation.

"The ceremony will proceed as planned," my father said, releasing my hand. "Kael, you will speak the binding vows. Selene, you will accept them. The packs will be united. And any wolf who objects—" He let the sentence hang, his eyes sweeping across the Blackmane wolves positioned at the front of the crowd. "—will be dealt with accordingly."

"Accordingly," Kael repeated. "What a versatile word."

He turned to me then, and for the first time all morning, he actually looked at me. Not through me. Not past me. At me. His eyes traced the pearls in my hair, the silk at my throat, the trembling hands I'd pressed flat against my gown.

"You look beautiful, Selene." His voice was quiet now, meant only for me. "You always did. Even when we were children, you'd bring me flowers from the garden, convinced you could make me smile."

My throat tightened. "I did make you smile. Once."

"Once." Something flickered in his expression. Grief, maybe. Or guilt. "You asked me what my mother was like. Do you remember?"

"I remember." I'd been twelve. He'd been fourteen. We'd sat in the garden under the full moon, and for one brief, fragile moment, the ice around him had cracked. He'd told me about his mother's singing voice, her stories of the northern lights, the way she'd braided his hair before battle ceremonies. Then he'd stopped mid-sentence, his face closing like a door slamming shut, and he'd never spoken of her again.

"You were the only one who ever asked." Kael's voice was barely audible now. The court was watching, but they couldn't hear. They only saw the princess and her betrothed, sharing a tender moment before their binding. "Everyone else pretended my family had never existed. But you asked."

"Kael—"

"Whatever happens today," he said, cutting me off, "remember that you asked. Remember that you were the only one."

He stepped back, and the moment shattered. My father was speaking again, announcing the procession to the Ninefold Platform. The court was stirring, preparing to follow us outside. The Elders were filing down from the dais, their robes rustling like dead leaves.

"Kael, wait." I caught his sleeve before he could turn away. "What's going to happen today?"

He looked down at my hand on his arm. For a heartbeat, I felt the mate bond pulse between us—hot and desperate and dying. Then he gently, deliberately, removed my fingers from his sleeve.

"The same thing that was always going to happen," he said. "The truth is finally going to speak."

He walked away.

The crowd parted for him. The Blackmane wolves fell into formation behind their Alpha heir, and I saw Lyra Voss among them—scarred, sharp-eyed, watching me with something that wasn't quite hatred. Pity, maybe. Or recognition.

"Smile, daughter." My father's hand landed on my shoulder, heavy as a chain. "The kingdom is watching."

I smiled.

The princess always smiled.

But beneath the silk and pearls, my silver wolf was howling.