جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 30

We reached the outer edge of Blackthorn territory by mid-morning, exhausted, filthy, and carrying more unanswered questions than any of us had slept enough to properly hold. Ronan sent word ahead the moment we crossed the border, and by the time we walked through the main gate, half the pack had already gathered, drawn by rumor and worry in equal measure."You look like you fought a war," one of the older guards said, relief plain on his face at the sight of his Alpha returning at all."We might be about to," Ronan said, and didn't elaborate further, moving through the gathering crowd with the kind of controlled urgency that told everyone watching this wasn't a homecoming worth celebrating yet.He called the council together within the hour, no time wasted on rest before the harder work of holding his own pack together began. I stood at the back of the chamber this time, not as a suspect on trial but as something closer to an ally, watching Ronan lay out the truth in front of the same

I didn't tell Ronan right away. Not because I wanted to hide it from him, but because I'd learned enough in four days to know that accusing someone based on a single initial, hours after the council had just voted to trust him with everything, would do more damage than good if I turned out to be wrong.Instead, I found Kael in the training yard, overseeing the guard rotation with the same steady focus he'd shown since the moment I met him, and I did the only thing I could think to do. I tested him, carefully, the way he'd once tested me."You're sure you're ready for this," I said, watching him direct two younger wolves through a defensive drill. "Full command. Every decision resting on you while we're gone.""I'm ready," he said, not looking away from the drill. "Why does that sound like a question with a second question hiding inside it?""Because it is." I kept my voice light, testing the ground carefully. "I found something in Corwin's office this afternoon. A second ledger. A nam

"We don't have time to do both," Ronan said, pacing a tight line across the small clearing where we'd stopped to regroup, the scout's revelation about House Thorne still hanging heavy over all of us. "The coast road and Thornecrest are two full days apart in opposite directions. If we chase Selene, we lose the window before the full moon. If we push on to Thornecrest, we leave her in the hands of people we know nothing about.""Then we split up," I said, the idea forming even as I said it out loud, the shape of it settling into place with a certainty that scared me. "You take the guards and go after Selene. I go on to Thornecrest with whoever's left.""Absolutely not." His voice came out sharper than I'd heard it since the council chamber, the fear underneath it plain despite the authority he tried to wrap around it. "I already told you, I am not sending you into that mountain alone.""You wouldn't be sending me anywhere," I said. "I'd be choosing it. There's a difference, and you kno

The soldier who'd spoken, the one who'd called me a prize for someone named Lord Thorne, moved fast enough that I barely got my hands up before his blade would have opened my throat. I caught the strike on my forearm instead, pain screaming white hot up to my shoulder, and drove my knee into his ribs hard enough to buy myself half a second of space.Half a second was enough. I let the heat gathering in my chest finally break loose, catching him square in the sternum with a burst of light that threw him backward into the underbrush hard enough that he didn't get up again.I didn't have time to feel relief. Two more were already closing from either side, moving with the same disciplined coordination I'd come to expect from every trained force we'd faced since the raven first landed at Blackthorn's gate, and somewhere behind me, through the trees, Bram's voice cut off mid-shout in a way that turned my blood to ice."Bram!" I threw the nearest attacker aside and sprinted toward the sound,

The smoke thickened as we climbed the last ridge before the village came into view, and what we found in the shallow valley below stopped all of us cold.It hadn't been a full massacre. That was the first thing I understood, taking in the scene with the same grim, practiced assessment I'd learned to apply to violence over the last several days. A handful of homes still stood untouched at the valley's edges, while others burned or smoldered in the center, chosen with a deliberateness that made my skin crawl once I understood the pattern. This hadn't been random destruction. It had been a message, precise and calculated, aimed at whoever survived to read it."Blackthorn colors," Bram said quietly, crouching beside a scrap of torn cloth caught on a fence post at the village's edge. "Or something close enough to pass for them at a distance.""That's not possible," Ronan said, though his voice carried none of the certainty the words demanded. "This is a Blackthorn tribute village. My fathe