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ELEVEN: Sapphire Necklace

MINTHESapphire Necklace* * *The first thing I realize is that Pierre is still holding my wrist. He’s gripping it tight enough that I can feel the heat of his palm pressing against the bruise already forming beneath my skin.The hallway has gone completely silent around us. Servants stand frozen beside overturned trunks and shattered perfume bottles, pretending not to stare while absolutely fucking staring. Sweet floral perfume clings thickly to the air. Glass crunches beneath somebody’s shoe before they immediately step back again.Lyria’s breathing trembles softly behind Pierre. A performance worthy of applause. My mother’s sapphire rests against her throat, gleaming beneath the candlelight. And Pierre is looking at me as if I’m the problem.“Apologize,” he repeats coldly.I look at him for a long second, and this time, I really look at him. His dark hair is slightly disheveled from rushing here, his jaw tight, protective, angry—not because I’m hurt, not because I fell hard

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TWELVE: The Villain

MINTHEThe Villain* * *The sight of my mother’s necklace around another woman’s throat almost makes me forget how to breathe. It’s not even because of the sapphire, or because of the gold clasp I spent an hour trying to fix with shaking fingers and swollen hands. But because she looks comfortable wearing it.It’s as if it belongs there. Like she belongs here.The fire snaps softly beside her, orange light sliding across the cream silk of her nightdress while she sits curled neatly against the chair. Her hair spills over one shoulder.She looks calm and delicate while I’m standing in the doorway barefoot with a swollen ankle, wrinkled clothes, and enough humiliation sitting in my chest to make me feel physically sick.For a second, neither of us speaks. Then Lyria lifts one hand to the necklace lightly. “Oh,” she says softly, as if realizing what I was asking for.“Pierre gave it back to me earlier.”The words sinks into my stomach heavily. Pierre gave it back. I stare at her throa

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THIRTEEN: Letters

MINTHELetters* * *The moment Pierre calls me a villain, something inside me goes terrifyingly quiet.The fire crackles beside us. Water from the overturned vase creeps slowly across the carpet, soaking the hem of my dress. One of the white flowers lies crushed near my shoe, petals flattened into the rug beneath Pierre’s boot.My ankle throbs. My palms are still scraped open from earlier. My chest feels like someone reached inside and squeezed until something cracked.And he doesn’t even notice.His body is still angled toward Lyria protectively, shoulders tense, eyes hard on mine like I’m the threat in the room.Three years.Three fucking years, and this is where we end up.I stare at him so long the silence starts making Lyria nervous. I can hear her uneven breathing behind him. “Ever since Lyria came back,” he says, voice low and controlled in that particular way that means he’s furious but performing restraint, “you’ve become someone I don’t recognize.”I look at him. Real

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FOURTEEN: The Meeting

MINTHEThe Meeting* * *I sleep badly and wake up in a room that doesn’t smell like anything I recognize.My old chambers always carried the smell of wood smoke and candle wax, some combination of cedar and the particular wool of the heavy curtains I’d chosen myself during the second winter when the old ones finally rotted through.Three years of accumulated smell, accumulated me, in every corner of that room.Right I was relocated for Lyria.This room smells like dust and cold stone and the ghost of whoever slept here last, which based on the age of the mattress was probably sometime before I arrived at Ashbourne.I stare at the ceiling. Gray morning light presses thin through a window that faces the wrong direction—north-facing, which means almost no direct sun until midwinter, which explains why nobody had been using this room to begin with.Nobody comes to light the fire.I lie there for a while waiting, purely out of habit, before I accept that nobody is going to. The firewood s

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FIFTEEN: The Soup

MINTHEThe Soup* * *The heavy oak door of the accounting hall clicks shut behind me, the sound final and hollow in the drafty corridor. My boots thud against the stone floor, each step sending a dull, radiating ache up my left ankle. I don’t limp. I refuse to give the walls the satisfaction of seeing me hobble.I reach into the inner pocket of my heavy woolen coat, my fingers brushing against the thick, expensive paper of the five black envelopes. The imperial wolf pressed into the dark wax seals feels sharp against my skin. I stop by the narrow slit window overlooking the courtyard, the gray northern light doing nothing to warm the chill freezing my marrow. My hands are dirty, the skin rough from three years of actual fucking work, and my left palm still stings from a minor burn I got fixing the hearth piping last week.I break the seal of the top envelope. The wax cracks like a dry bone.“I want you here soon, Lady Minthe. Do not make me send a detachment to drag you out of

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SIXTEEN: Pick You Up

MINTHEPick You Up* * *The Great Hall is suffocatingly loud by mid-afternoon. The heat from two massive roaring hearths hits my face, carrying the scent of roasted meat, cheap ale, and the heavy, earthy musk of ninety pack warriors packed into wooden benches.Usually, there are two high chairs placed on the dais at the end of the hall. Today, there is only one for Pierre, and a smaller, cushioned seat placed tightly beside his right flank. Lyria sits there, looking like a delicate forest spirit in her green silk, while the pack fills the room.I stand at the very back, near the heavy iron-reinforced doors where the draft from the courtyard keeps the sweat from sticking to my neck. My ankle is throbbing a steady, rhythmic pulse now.“Alright, settle down!” Pierre’s Beta calls out, banging a metal chalice against the table.The room goes quiet, save for the crackle of the pine logs. Pierre stands up, his broad shoulders throwing a long shadow across the center aisle.“We’ve surv

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SEVENTEEN: Allergies

MINTHEAllergies* * *How much longer, Minthe? Should I pick you up in that ruined pack myself? Wow. What a bastard.The arrogance of it is suffocating, a direct reminder of the monster waiting for me in the imperial capital.I let out a slow, ragged breath, my lungs burning against the stagnant chill of the west wing. Fuck him. Seriously, fuck his royal, terrifying, impatient highness. I pull a blunt charcoal pencil from the drawer of the rickety nightstand, flip his high-and-mighty letter over, and press the tip to the back of the parchment. I pick up the letter again. Read it a fifth time. Then I sit down on the edge of the narrow bed, pull the small writing kit from the bottom of my trunk.My handwriting is not as elegant as his. It never was. But it’s legible and it’s fast and right now that’s what matters.‘Your Majesty,Do not come to Ashbourne. I mean this with every fiber of my being. If you appear at these gates in that carriage I will walk directly into the moun

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EIGHTEEN: The Memo

MINTHEThe Memo* * *I look at the plate. Then at the kitchen maid standing near the serving sideboard.She looks away immediately. Eyes to the floor, the wall, anywhere that isn’t my face.And there it is.I look past Lyria, my eyes finding Mira, the head cook, standing near the kitchen entrance. The older woman looks away immediately, her face flushed with deep, agonizing guilt. She knows. The entire kitchen staff knows my medical history. They wouldn’t have let Lyria touch a single piece of shellfish unless Lyria specifically demanded it—unless Lyria explicitly went out of her way to put this exact poison on the menu.She knows about the allergy. She did this on purpose.“I said I don’t want to eat it,” I say, my voice dropping an octave, the first hint of my old fighting spirit cracking through the humble, pathetic exterior I’ve been wearing like a shroud.“Minthe, sit down. You are making a scene over a simple gesture of kindness,” Pierre snaps, his alpha aura flaring jus

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NINETEEN: Ally Discovered

MINTHEAlly Discovered* * *I have packed exactly one bag in my entire life before tonight, and that was when I transmigrated into this world with nothing but the clothes on someone else’s back and absolutely zero plan.This time I have a bag. A plan. And a horse I’ve been bribing with sugar cubes for three days specifically for this moment.That’s definitely progress.The west wing corridor is completely dark past midnight, the Omegas never did replace the torches out here, and at this point I’ve stopped expecting them to. Sure feels as if they’ve forgotten who spent three years with them here.I move through it by memory, coat buttoned to the throat, my family documents folded flat against my ribs inside the inner pocket, the five black envelopes from Hades tucked beside them. The dark necklace sits against my collarbone. Maybe I can sell this on the way to the Imperial Pack. Screw him.My wrapped ankle holds. My bag is light enough that it doesn’t throw my balance. I packe

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TWENTY: Did You Steal It?

MINTHEDid You Steal It?* * *[ALLY INTEGRATION EVENT TRIGGERED. THIS UNIT WILL BE ESSENTIAL TO NARRATIVE PROGRESSION. DO NOT LEAVE.]“I wasn’t—I was literally trying to leave—“[ALLY STATUS: CRITICAL. HEAL TO ACTIVATE BOND.]“I don’t want a bond,” I hiss at the text, which is floating in my vision with complete indifference to my feelings about it. “I want to go to the capital. I want to draft a contract. I want to leave this pack before Lyria engineers another situation where I accidentally look like I’m committing crimes.”[ALLY BOND WILL PROVIDE SIGNIFICANT ADVANTAGE IN LATER STAGES. RECOMMEND IMMEDIATE ACTION.]“I am not taking a wolf with me to the imperial palace—“The wolf on the ground makes the small sound again.I look at him. He looks at me. His breathing is shallow and uneven and the dark matting on his flank is definitely not mud.“I hate this story,” I say, to no one in particular. “I want to be very clear about that.”Then I take off my coat, spread it on the ground b

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