Dawn breaks gray and cold. Guards come for me before I'm fully awake, pulling me from bed and dressing me in formal Luna robes.
Rhys waits outside my door, already dressed in full Alpha regalia. Black and silver, his father's ceremonial blade at his hip.
"Let's go." He takes my arm, his grip too firm. "The pack is waiting."
"For what?"
"Justice."
He leads me out into the central square. The entire pack is assembled, hundreds of wolves in a massive circle around a raised platform. Every face turns toward us as we approach.
The platform stands in the center. Three guards kneel on it in chains, wrists bound behind their backs. I recognize them immediately.
The ones on duty the night I escaped.
My stomach drops.
"No," I whisper. "Rhys, they didn't—"
"Silence." His grip on my arm tightens. He guides me to a position at the front of the crowd. "Watch."
Elder Maren steps onto the platform. She holds a scroll, unrolling it with deliberate slowness. Her voice carries across the silent square.
"These three guards stand accused of negligence that enabled the escape of a prisoner sentenced to death. Of treason by incompetence that endangered this pack and brought shame to our Alpha."
One of the guards—the youngest, barely twenty—lifts his head. "Alpha, please—"
"Silence!" Maren's voice cracks. "You do not speak unless spoken to."
"The sentence," Rhys calls out, his voice carrying absolute authority, "is death."
Gasps ripple through the crowd. The young guard's mother screams from somewhere behind me.
An executioner steps onto the platform. Massive, hooded, carrying an axe that gleams in the morning light. The blade is huge, designed for clean kills.
The first guard—the oldest of the three, a veteran with gray in his beard—bows his head. Accepting. The executioner positions himself. Raises the axe.
"Rhys, stop this!" I try to move forward. His grip becomes iron, holding me in place.
"Watch," he says quietly. "This is what failure costs in my pack."
The axe falls.
Blood sprays across the platform. The guard's body slumps sideways, head rolling. The crowd makes no sound.
The executioner moves to the second guard. A woman in her thirties who trained me in tracking. She's shaking, tears streaming down her face.
"Please," she whispers. "I have children. Please, Alpha."
The axe falls.
More blood. More silence.
The young guard is last. He's crying openly now, his whole body trembling. "I didn't mean—I was just—Alpha, mercy—"
The axe falls.
Three bodies. Blood pooling across ancient stones, dripping between cracks. The iron smell of it is thick in the air.
I stare at the platform. The young guard's mother is still screaming somewhere behind me, her cries echoing across the square.
I turn to look at Rhys. Really look at him.
His face is calm. Composed. There's no regret in his eyes. No remorse. Just cold calculation and absolute authority.
I don't recognize him. The man I married is gone. Or maybe he was never really there. Maybe this is who he's always been, and I just never had reason to see it.
"Dismissed," Rhys announces to the crowd. "Return to your duties."
The pack disperses quietly. No one speaks. The young guard's mother collapses, held up by friends who lead her away.
Rhys releases my arm. "That was necessary."
"They were innocent."
"They failed in their duty. Failure has consequences." He turns to face me fully. "You need to understand that, Ardena. Every action has a cost. Your escape cost three lives today. How many more are you willing to sacrifice?"
I want to argue. But the words stick in my throat.
"Back to your chambers," he says. "You'll stay there until I decide otherwise."
Guards escort me back through the silent pack house. No one meets my eyes. No one speaks.
They lock me in my room again. I collapse onto the bed, staring at blood-stained hands that aren't really stained but feel like they are.
Three wolves are dead because of me.
***
Night falls slowly. I don't eat the food they bring. Don't move from the bed. Just lie there, replaying the executions over and over.
A sound makes me turn. Soft scratching at the wall behind my bed.
A panel I didn't know existed slides open. Sera squeezes through. She's dressed in servant's clothes, dirt smudged on her face.
"The old servant passages," she whispers. "They think I'm in the kitchens."
"Sera, you shouldn't be here. If they catch you—"
"I need you to trust me." She moves closer, her eyes urgent. "What happened? Where did you go? Everyone's saying you ran off with that prisoner, but that's insane."
The words pour out of me in a rush. Everything. The mate bond. The truth about Bloodfang. Kieran. The escape. Nightshade. The attack.
Sera listens without interrupting, her face growing paler with each revelation.
"Gods," she breathes when I finish. "Ardena, this is—I don't know what to say."
"Say you believe me."
She grips my hands. "I believe you. I've always known something was wrong with the official histories. My grandmother used to hint at things before she died, about the old wars, about what really happened."
Relief floods through me. "I thought I was losing my mind."
"You're not." She pulls a folded paper from her sleeve. "This came yesterday. Through the wine merchant who trades between territories."
My hands shake as I take it. Unfold it carefully.
The handwriting is rough but clear.
I'm alive. Tell me you are too. Reply through the merchant. Code: starving wolf.
It's not signed. But I know it’s from Kieran.
"He's alive," I whisper.
"Can you write back?" Sera asks.
"Yes." I grab paper and ink from the desk, my hands still shaking. "How do I get it to the merchant?"
"I can do it. Tomorrow at the market." She watches me write. "What will you say?"
I write quickly: Alive. Trapped. Need to know his troop movements, supply lines, anything. Wait for my signal.
I fold it, hand it to Sera. "The code is starving wolf. Make sure he knows."
She tucks it into her sleeve. "I'll get it to him. I promise."
"If they catch you—"
"They won't." She squeezes my shoulder. "We're going to fix this, Ardena. Somehow."
She slips back through the panel, closing it silently behind her.
I lie back on the bed, clutching Kieran's note to my chest one last time before I burn it. He's alive. The bond wasn't lying.
Hope burns in my chest like a small, fierce flame.