The gates of Silverthorn had new iron on them.

I noticed that first. Twelve years ago they were oak, carved with my moon and Damon's wolf, side by side. Now the moon had been chiseled off.

Two spears crossed in front of me.

"Halt."

The guard was young. Too young to have ever bowed to me. His gaze dropped to the small body in my arms, and his lip curled.

"Is that the girl?"

I said nothing. Snow gathered on Elowen's hair. I brushed it away with my thumb.

"Elowen was cast out of the family by the Alpha himself," he snapped. "Who gave you leave to bring her back here?"

I lifted my eyes to him.

He stopped talking. For one second his mouth hung open, and I watched him see it. The silver. The same silver he must have seen in a little girl's face a hundred times while he walked past her.

Then he laughed.

"Oh, I get it. You're some relative of the dead brat, aren't you? Some poor cousin from the border come to beg." He leaned closer. "Let me save you the trouble. There's only one princess in Silverthorn now. Lady Vivienne's daughter. Nobody here wants this one back."

Behind him, the others snickered.

"Look at her clothes," one said. "Tomb rags."

"Maybe she's come to bury the kid in the courtyard."

"Let's see if it's really her." A third guard, red-bearded and grinning, reached out. His fingers were an inch from Elowen's cheek. "Bet she still smells like the cells—"

I caught his wrist.

I didn't squeeze. I turned.

The crack was loud in the cold air. He dropped to his knees, howling, his hand flopping wrong at the end of his arm.

"Who gave you permission," I asked quietly, "to touch my daughter?"

Nobody laughed now.

The gate opened wider. A big man in a captain's cloak shoved through, face purple with rage.

"What the hell is this? Grab her! Drag her to the cells, let her rot down there like the—"

He never finished.

I shifted Elowen to my left arm. My right hand closed around his throat and drove him back into the castle wall. Stone cracked behind his skull.

My nails were already changing. Silver. Long. Curved like crescent moons.

"Like the what?" I asked.

His boots kicked against the wall. "Let... me..."

"You were going to say *like the girl.* Weren't you?"

His eyes bulged. He didn't deny it.

I pushed my claws into his chest.

It was easier than it should have been. His blood hit the snow in hot, steaming spatters. He made a small wet sound, almost surprised, and then he slid down the wall and stopped moving.

The guards stared at me. One dropped his spear.

"What are you?" the young one whispered.

I wiped my hand on the captain's cloak.

"Late," I said. "I'm late."

I walked through the gate. Nobody tried to stop me again.

---

The east hall still smelled of cedar. My feet remembered the way before I did. Third door. The one I'd painted with stars when Elowen was born.

The stars were gone. A gold plaque hung there now.

*Princess Lyra.*

I read it twice. Then I pushed the door open.

Silk gowns filled the room. Pink, cream, pale blue, hanging in rows like little ghosts. Jewel boxes lay open on the dresser. Porcelain dolls watched me from every shelf, glass eyes shining.

Elowen's bed was gone. So were her drawings.

Something glinted near the hearth, kicked half under a rug.

I knelt.

A moonstone pendant. The one I put around her neck on her fifth birthday. *So I'm always with you, baby.* The chain was snapped in two places, the stone scratched and dull.

"My... my Luna?"

An old woman stood in the doorway with a stack of folded linens. Gray braid. Shaking hands.

Marta. She used to sing Elowen to sleep when I was at council.

The linens hit the floor. So did she.

"Oh, Goddess. Oh, Goddess, it's you." She crawled toward me, then saw what I held, and pressed both fists to her mouth. "My little lady. My little lady."

"Tell me what they did to her."

"My Luna—"

"Every year, Marta. Start at the beginning."

She sobbed into her hands. Then she started talking, and she didn't stop.

"The second year after you went under, the Alpha moved Vivienne into your chambers. Into your bed. The third year, Lyra was born. They took all of Elowen's dresses. Her jewelry. Gave everything to the baby. Said she wouldn't need them."

My grip tightened on the pendant.

"The fifth year, they moved her to the servants' wing. A room with no window. She asked me why. Every night she asked me what she did wrong."

"Go on."

"The seventh year..." Marta's voice broke. "Young Master Kieran pulled the heir's crest off her collar. In front of the whole court. He said she shamed the family. She just stood there. She didn't cry until he walked away."

My son. My son did that.

"And the tenth year?"

"Lady Vivienne wanted Lyra to be the only heir. So she arranged a Goddess betrothal for Elowen. A *betrothal*, my Luna, at that age. The elders went along with it. The Alpha signed it." She grabbed my sleeve. "I begged him. I begged."

I waited for the tears to come.

They didn't. Something in me had gone smooth and still, like a lake freezing over.

"She wrote to you," Marta whispered. "Every year. Every birthday. She'd give me the letters and say *put them by Mama's tomb.* But the Alpha found out. He said you would never wake up. He made us burn every one."

"All of them?"

She hesitated.

"Marta."

She reached into her apron and pulled out a scrap of paper. Brown at the edges. Half of it eaten by fire.

"I pulled this one out of the grate. I'm sorry. It's all I saved."

I unfolded it.

The letters were crooked, pressed hard into the paper like she'd gripped the pen with her whole fist.

*Mommy, I was good today. Can you please come home?*

My fingers shook so hard the paper rattled. I folded it once. Twice. My hands wouldn't steady.

Then, down the hall, a roar of cheering went up.

Marta flinched. "That's the ceremony. They're naming Lyra heir tonight."

I tucked the letter and the pendant into Elowen's hands, beside the felt wolf.

"Then I'd hate to miss it."

---

The great hall blazed with candles. Music. Wine. Hundreds of wolves in their finest furs.

At the head of the room, under my old banner, stood Damon.

He was fixing a shawl on Vivienne's shoulders. Gently. Tugging it straight, smoothing the fur with his palm, the way he used to do for me before every winter feast.

Beside them, a tall young man laughed and held out a goblet.

"You look beautiful, Mom."

Kieran.

My feet stopped.

Vivienne turned first. She saw me across the hall, and every drop of color left her face.

Then her eyes filled. Her lip trembled. She lifted her skirts and ran.

"Seraphina? Is it really you?" Her voice rang through the hall, bright and broken. "You came back! You finally came back!"

The music stuttered out.

Damon spun around.

He went still. Completely still. Like a man who'd seen a ghost walk through his door.

"Sera..."

He took one step. Then another. His voice cracked open. "Sera, you're awake. You're—"

His gaze fell to what I was holding.

And his brow creased. Not in grief. In irritation.

"Why did you bring Elowen here?" he said. "Today is Vivienne's daughter's ceremony."

I looked up at him.

And I smiled.

"Our daughter is dead, Damon." My voice carried to every corner of that bright, warm room. "And you're worried about a ceremony?"

The hall went silent.

Somewhere behind me, a goblet slipped from someone's hand and shattered on the stone.

Deep beneath my ribs, the old thing stirred, and laughed.

Damon's face darkened. For one second I saw something crack behind his eyes.

Then it sealed over, smooth and hard, like ice over a well.

He stepped close and lowered his voice. "Sera. Not here. We have guests."

"Guests."

"Half the northern packs are watching you." His jaw worked. "Whatever you're feeling, we'll handle it in private."

"Whatever I'm feeling," I repeated.

"Elowen's death was an accident. A terrible one. But Vivienne has carried this pack for twelve years. She fed the sick wolves through two famines. She kept the elders from tearing each other apart." He glanced at the woman trembling behind him. "Don't punish her because you're jealous."

Jealous.

I almost laughed again. It sat right there in my throat.

Twelve years ago, this same man had held my face in both hands on our mating night. *You're my only Luna, Sera. There will never be another.*

Now I stood in front of him with our child's body, and he thought I'd come back for him.

Vivienne dropped to her knees on the stone.

"Seraphina, please." Tears slid down her cheeks, perfect and silver in the candlelight. "I loved her like my own. I swear it. But she was so wild. She kept hurting Lyra. Pushing her. Biting her during lessons. I didn't know what else to do."

"She bit her," I said.

"I tried everything—"

"Elowen cried when she stepped on a beetle."

Vivienne's mouth opened. Nothing came out.

Footsteps cut through the crowd. Kieran shouldered his way to the front, goblet still in hand.

He saw me.

His grip on the cup loosened. For a heartbeat he was eight again, standing at the tomb gate with his fists balled at his sides, refusing to cry.

Then Vivienne's fingers brushed his sleeve.

Just a touch. Light as a moth.

His face shut.

"Mother," he said coldly, "you disappeared for twelve years. You have no right to come back and blame the people who raised me."

I studied him. He was taller than Damon now. Broad through the shoulders. A young Alpha with my mouth and his father's eyes.

He hadn't glanced at his sister once.

"Kieran," I said. "Do you remember what Elowen was most afraid of when she was little?"

He scoffed. "What does that have to do with anything?"

I lowered my gaze to her wrists. To the raw grooves the chains had chewed into her skin.

"She was afraid of the dark," I said softly. "She used to sleep with the lights on."

I raised my head.

"And you locked her in the cells for three months."

A muscle jumped in his cheek. The goblet tipped, and wine splashed his boots.

"She earned that," he said. "She lost control during her shift. She could have killed someone."

"She was eleven."

"She was dangerous!"

"She was your sister."

He opened his mouth, then closed it. His knuckles went white around the cup.

Vivienne rose, wiping her eyes. "I'll go." Her voice shook beautifully. "I'll leave Silverthorn tonight. Only please, Seraphina, don't hurt my daughter. She's just a baby. She's done nothing to you."

Damon moved before she finished. He swept her behind him, one arm out like a shield.

"Enough." His Alpha voice rolled across the hall. Wolves along the walls lowered their heads. "Apologize to her, Seraphina."

The room held its breath.

I remembered a different winter. A storm so thick you couldn't see your own hand. Damon kneeling in the snow outside the temple for three days and three nights, lips cracked and bleeding, begging the Moon Goddess for the right to take me as his mate.

*I will never let her shed a single tear. I swear it on my blood.*

The same man. The same voice.

Ordering me to bow.

I opened my mouth.

"Seraphina?"

The voice came from the back of the crowd. Rough. Familiar. I knew it before I turned.

Gareth Hale.

My old captain of the guard. Elowen's godfather. The man who once knelt at her cradle and pressed his sword hilt to her tiny palm. *Nothing touches her while I breathe, my Luna.*

He stood at Vivienne's side now. A brooch glittered on his chest. Her family's crest, a twisted vine of gold.

His eyes went to the body in my arms. Panic flickered across his face. He swallowed it down.

"Elowen's death is a tragedy," he said stiffly. "No one denies that. But you can't tear the pack apart over a child who's already gone."

I looked at him for a long moment.

Fifteen years ago, a silver arrow had come out of the trees at the southern border. Aimed straight at his heart. I'd stepped in front of it. The scar still puckered under my left collarbone.

"Gareth," I said quietly. "Do you remember what you promised me?"

He said nothing.

The silence stretched. Somebody coughed.

I smiled.

Then I ripped the crest off his chest and drove my boot into his knee.

He hit the floor hard. The gold brooch skidded across the stone and spun to a stop at Vivienne's feet.

"You swore to protect my daughter," I said. "Instead, you helped bury her."

"*Seraphina!*" Damon roared. "Stop this!"

Kieran lunged between us, arms spread over Gareth. "Are you insane? He's been loyal to this family for twenty years!"

"To this family," I echoed.

The crowd erupted.

"She's lost her mind—"

"The tomb broke her—"

"Did you see what she did at the gate? The captain's dead!"

"Monster. She's a monster."

Every voice in that hall had something to say about me.

Not one of them asked what Elowen had suffered.

Vivienne stepped up beside Damon. She leaned in, so close only I could hear her, her breath warm and sweet with wine.

"Seraphina. Even if you kill every one of us, what then?" Her lips curved, just barely. "Elowen still won't come back."

I turned my head slowly.

Something shifted behind my eyes. The candlelight sharpened. Every heartbeat in the room grew loud and wet and close.

Vivienne staggered back a step.

I knew what she saw. My pupils had narrowed into slits. Moon-wolf eyes. Eyes no one in Silverthorn had ever seen on me.

"You're right," I said. "She won't."

I lifted my bloody hand and pointed. Damon. Kieran. Vivienne.

"But neither will the protection I gave this pack."

For one breath, nobody understood.

Then the high windows went red.

Light poured through the glass, thick and crimson. Outside, the moon hung swollen over the towers, dripping color like an open wound.

Damon grunted. He clutched his chest. Under his shirt, the Alpha mark glowed, then split with a sound like ice breaking on a river.

Kieran dropped to his knees with a strangled cry, nails scraping the stone.

The doors banged open. A priest stumbled in, robes torn, face gray.

"The Luna bond is breaking!" he screamed. "If she leaves, the entire bloodline will fall!"

Panic tore through the hall. Wolves bolted for the doors. Tables overturned.

Damon's hand shot out and clamped around my wrist.

His fingers were shaking.

"Sera." For the first time all night, his voice sounded small. "Don't do this. Please. We can talk."

I looked down at his hand on my skin. The same hand that had fixed Vivienne's shawl so tenderly ten minutes ago.

"Damon," I said. "When Elowen begged you to save her, did you listen?"

He froze.

His lips parted. No sound came.

I slid my wrist free of his grip and gave him a smile with nothing behind it.

"Then why should I listen to you?"

The red moon pulsed. Somewhere deep under the castle, stone began to groan.

And inside me, the ancient thing whispered, almost fond:

*Good. Now let them see what they buried you to keep asleep.*