Chapter 5

When Father returned from the southern tribes, I met him at the moon altar.

Aldric Silvercrest had aged greatly in three years. When he saw the unhealed cut at my lip, his fingers clenched white inside his sleeves. His first words were, "Elara, your father failed you."

Three years earlier, the Silvercrest clan had also urged me to endure for the greater good. Father had not taken my children himself, but he had placed my hand in this marriage bond. I had resented him. For a long time, I met him only during rites and refused to let him know my true plans.

The fact that he could now apologize meant that he had stopped calling my sacrifice necessary.

I shook my head and laid out the matching metal bead Willow had passed me, the obsidian powder, and three years of guard rosters in front of him.

"I did not come today to complain."

"Then what do you intend to do?"

"Leave the court. Recover my children. Restore the ancient law to the council."

I spread out a map of the Wolf Keep. A red line traced the route by which black-obsidian powder entered the fortress. Silver lines connected seven potential witnesses. A final black line ran from my chambers to the northern cliff.

"If I remain here, I will always be only the Moon-Bound woman of the inner court. Every word I speak can be twisted into a struggle over a mate, and witnesses will retreat for fear that I am losing favor. Only after I leave the marriage bond and stand outside the court as heir to the Silver Moon priesthood will this stop being a domestic quarrel and become a public crime."

Father understood the black line. "You mean to fake your death."

"Seraphine Voss is already preparing to kill me. Her people have recently drawn wolf fat and fire arrows from the storehouse, claiming they are repairing winter-hunt equipment. I intend to let her strike. Let her believe I am dead, and let Kael Blackthorn see with his own eyes how far the woman he calls harmless will go."

The danger was calculated rather than blind. I had inspected the tunnel, arranged a false body, prepared two escape routes, and stationed merchant caravans at three points along the border. If the east-gate ritual fire did not go out, I would abandon the attempt. If the tunnel was blocked, I would take the cellar watercourse. If Seraphine Voss did not set a fire, I would not create an uncontrollable disaster myself.

I wrote down every point at which the plan could fail. Once the risks had names, fear became something I could work around.

Father stared at me in shock. "You mean to rebel against the king?"

"I do not want his throne, and I will kill no innocent person. I am taking back what was mine from the beginning." I tapped the ancient law. "If Kael Blackthorn admits his wrongs and reforms the law, he may remain Wolf King. If he refuses, the Hundred Clans can decide whether a man who breaks even the Moon Goddess marriage bond deserves to hold their totem."

I told Father that Seraphine Voss had begun destroying evidence. The lunar-eclipse festival would take place in seven days. The Wolf Keep's guards would concentrate at the main altar, giving me my only chance to leave without a sound.

"If you go, what happens to Rowan and the newborn?"

"They remain at the court for now."

Father's brows drew tight.

Of course I wanted to take them immediately. But both children had been affected by Black Moon magic, and a forced move could damage their moon-breath. More important, as royal heirs, Kael Blackthorn was obligated to protect them. Hidden outside the court, I could use the status they had been given to pry open the ancient law.

"I am not abandoning my children." I covered Father's hand with mine. "I must cut the lock that imprisons their mother before I can take them safely away."

Father still disagreed. He proposed using the priestly guard to storm Moonlight Hall and seize both children.

I asked what would happen afterward. Kael Blackthorn would accuse the Silvercrest clan of abducting royal heirs and hunt us down. Rowan and his sister would lose their medicine while fleeing, and Black Moon backlash might shatter the mother-child bonds. We would possess love but no legal identity, fury but too few allies.

"Father, I have not waited for one moment of satisfaction," I said. "I want my children to live without hiding anywhere ever again."

Aldric Silvercrest remained silent for a long time. Moonfire lit the white at his temples, like frost that had fallen in the space of three years.

"You see farther than I did." He sighed. "If I had looked beyond the Silvercrest clan's safety then, I would not have pushed you to this day."

I did not tell him it did not matter. Some injuries cannot be erased by saying there is no need for father and daughter to keep account. But I was willing to receive his remorse, and willing to watch what he chose to do next.

After another long silence, Father took out the High Priest's moon-mark seal and set it before me.

"The Silvercrest clan has three old tunnels beneath the court known only to the priesthood's heirs. On the night of the eclipse, I will extinguish the east-gate ritual fire for fifteen minutes."

Father summoned two clanspeople I knew well. One was my cousin Cassian Silvercrest, who managed the merchant caravans and could carry a message across a hundred miles of snow within three days. The other was Freya, a priestess who guarded the moon altar and whose wolf form could conceal its scent.

We made no blood oath. Such an oath would leave a traceable thread of moon-breath. I allowed each of them to decide freely whether to join me. Cassian Silvercrest silently burned the trade contract the Voss clan had just sent him. Freya placed the tunnel's key-stone beside my hand.

"We are not helping the court's Moon-Bound mate," she said. "We are helping Elara Silvercrest, and every woman who may one day have her cub taken from her."

That was when my plan passed beyond private grievance. It still began in my pain, but it did not have to end there.

I closed my hand around the moon-mark seal, and my throat tightened.

"Father, are you not going to ask whether I still love Kael Blackthorn?"

"When you came before me, you offered evidence first, not tears." He smiled wearily. "That told me the answer no longer mattered."

It did not matter.

Loving someone was not a crime. But knowing he saw me as a tool and still surrendering the rest of my life to him would be cruelty toward myself.