I held court at dawn, two days after the battle.
The great hall had been cleared and set with tables in a horseshoe formation. Aaron stood at my right, Atlas at my left. Every wolf who could walk had come, filling the gallery benches and lining the walls three deep.
Three prisoners and three fates.
"Bring in Damian," I said.
The doors opened. Two guards escorted the former Nightmaw Alpha in iron chains, a silver-threaded muzzle locked across his jaw. He'd been stripped of his regalia, and the indignity burned in his eyes as he was forced to his knees.
I rose and let the silence stretch.
"Alpha Damian of Nightmaw. You stand accused of unprovoked aggression against Crimson Fang, resulting in eleven deaths and thirty-two wounded. Conspiracy with Dominic Nightshade to destroy this pack."
I paused.
"And the murder of Annabeth Cole, my former mate, four years ago."
A murmur rippled through the hall.
"Do you have anything to say in your defense?" I asked.
The muzzle was removed. Damian lifted his chin, defiant even in chains, and spat on the floor at my feet.
"I'd do it again," he said, his voice a ruined snarl. "Crimson Fang was always too powerful for one pack to hold. You were a target the moment you inherited that chair, boy. Annabeth was collateral—wrong place, wrong time, wearing the wrong Alpha's mark."
Wolves surged forward, snarling. I raised one hand and the noise died instantly.
"Collateral," I repeated, and the word came out quiet enough that every wolf had to strain to hear it. "You murdered the woman I loved and you call her collateral."
"She was weak, you were weak for loving her. And you're weak now, playing judge in a borrowed hall while your packhouse is still—"
"The sentence is death," I said, cutting through his words with a finality that silenced the room. "For the murder of Annabeth Cole. For the eleven wolves who died defending their home. For every life you've destroyed in your pursuit of territory you were never strong enough to hold."
I walked around the table and drew the execution blade from the sheath Aaron offered. The crowd parted in silence.
"Any final words?"
Damian's lip curled. "Make it clean, at least. I'm still an Alpha."
"You stopped being him the moment you chained yourself to a coward's war."
I drove the blade through his heart. The steel pierced his chest and Damian's eyes went wide, then empty. His body slumped forward against the chains.
I withdrew the blade with my hands still steady.
Four years of grief and nightmares where Annabeth's face dissolved into shadow—the wound didn't close. Wounds like that never fully closed, but the man who'd carved it open was dead, and that meant something.
"Remove the body," I said. "Bring in Talia."
She entered with her head high, defiant to the last, though her eyes darted across the crowd searching for allies she would never find.
"Talia Voss. You betrayed this pack, mapping our defenses, feeding intelligence to Dominic, facilitating the curse on my mate. You sold your loyalty for a promised position in an enemy regime."
"I did what I had to for advancement," she said, chin lifted. "This pack never valued me, never saw my potential. Dominic offered what you refused to give."
"Then you'll appreciate the symmetry of your sentence. You are permanently banished from Crimson Fang. Your pack bond is severed. Your name is struck from the registry. From this moment, you are a lone wolf."
The color drained from her face. Among wolves, banishment was a living death—severed from the shared consciousness that defined their existence. For a wolf who craved status above everything, it was the cruelest possible sentence.
"You can't—" she started, her composure cracking.
"It's done. Take her to the border and release her. If she sets foot on Crimson Fang territory again, kill her on sight."
Talia was dragged from the hall screaming. The silence that followed was heavier. Every wolf knew what came next.
"Bring in Dominic Nightshade," I said.
He entered looking nothing like the man who'd terrorized us. The shadow magic was gone, the confidence stripped away. Dominic walked in chains with his head down, and he knelt without being forced.
"Conspiracy to commit war, deployment of dark magic against a bonded wolf, attempted theft of ancestral power, and the murder of your own parents. The evidence requires no deliberation. The only question is the nature of your sentence."
I looked at Atlas. He was already rising from his chair, and the silver light of his crescent mark cast long shadows across the hall.
"I'd like to speak," Atlas said, his voice carrying clearly through the silence.
"The floor is yours."
Atlas stepped forward and stood beside Dominic's kneeling form, close enough for every wolf to see the twin resemblance.
"Dominic committed terrible acts. That truth doesn't need defending or softening."
Atlas's voice was measured, deliberate.
"But I stood in a destroyed room with him and heard the full prophecy. Two brothers meant to balance each other. One assigned the light, one assigned the dark, by parents too afraid to let the prophecy unfold on its own."
He paused, letting the words settle across the gathered wolves.
Atlas's jaw tightened.
"That doesn't excuse what he's done, nothing excuses it. But executing a man whose power has been stripped, whose magic has been burned away, whose capacity for harm has been reduced to nothing—that isn't justice. That's finishing our parents' work for them."
"What do you propose?" I asked, though I already knew.
"Exile. Permanent banishment to the far territories under armed watch. He lives, but he lives removed from everything he tried to destroy, with nothing but time to decide whether the choice I gave him means anything."
The hall murmured. I felt the weight of every gaze: Aaron's measured assessment, Kobe's quiet acceptance, the pack's divided loyalty pulling in both directions.
It cost me. The mercy tasted like ash in my mouth, because Sirius wanted Dominic's blood the way he'd wanted Damian's, and every tactical instinct I possessed said leaving an enemy alive was a risk.
But Atlas was asking. And Atlas had earned this.
"The court accepts the Alpha-Mate's recommendation," I said, each word carefully placed. "Dominic Nightshade is sentenced to permanent exile in the far territories under armed guard. He will carry no pack bond, no power, no name."
The guards lifted Dominic to his feet. He stood unsteadily, chains rattling, his body diminished and hollow. They turned him toward the doors and began leading him out.
At the threshold, he stopped. The guards paused, uncertain, and Dominic looked back over his shoulder.
His eyes found Atlas across the length of the hall. They were wet—tears tracking down his cheeks in silent, steady lines, the first real tears I'd ever seen from a man who'd made cruelty into an art form.
His lips moved, shaping a word that carried no sound, and Atlas's hand pressed hard against his own chest as though absorbing an impact.
Then the doors closed, and Dominic Nightshade was gone.