At the Bloodline Ascension Rite, my Alpha shattered my Soul-Bonded Fang in front of the entire pack.

She withdrew her hand. "Without your Fang, let's see how you walk the Path of the Unfeeling."

But what I heard was the voice inside her head, sick and frenzied:

With the Fang gone, he's nothing. He'll have no choice but to cling to me, day and night. My little caged bird.

Descending from the Ritual Mound, her step faltered and she fell.

The voice surged again: Does it hurt him to see this? Hurry, come help me up! Just reach out your hand and I'll forgive everything. I'll even let you touch my face...

She pushed herself up, brushed off her robes twice, and didn't look at me.

Gabriel Foxglove came over with a training blade carved from dead oak and pressed it into my hands. "Senior brother, the Supreme Alpha is only doing this for your own good. Once you get used to a training blade, it's really no worse than a Soul-Bonded Fang."

I took the training blade and bowed. "The Alpha's correction is just. This wolf acknowledges his fault."

Back on Sovereign Peak, Seraphina Voss had my Rift-Tearing Array dismantled and reassigned the Pack Wellspring to Gabriel.

Cry. Just shed one tear. Beg me once, and I'd give you my life.

I packed my things into a travel satchel and moved to the Servants' Quarters.

Seraphina stood in the doorway. Her hand trembled once.

Why won't you beg me? Are you trying to make me die of heartbreak? Fine. Let's see how long that stubborn pride lasts. When you can't take it anymore, you'll come crawling back, crying for me to hold you.

She didn't know the Blood Severance Artifact had been repaired.

Seven more days, and I'd be free of this lunatic. Home for good.

What I didn't expect was that the moment I truly vanished, that lunatic would appear in my bedroom drenched in blood, her fingers locked around my ankle like a vice, laughing.

...

I set the medicine pot over the charcoal fire.

For a handful of hemostatic herbs, I'd dragged my wounded body through the Hinterlands for four hours, digging in the dirt.

The wooden door exploded inward, kicked off its hinges. Splinters rained down.

A brocade boot came down on the medicine pot.

The clay vessel cracked apart. Brown medicinal broth splashed across the floor.

Scalding dregs hit the back of my hand, raising angry red welts.

Gabriel Foxglove stood in the doorway, grinning.

"Senior brother, that herbal stench is unbearable. What if it upsets my spirit finch?"

Behind him trailed enforcers from the Hall of Judgment, every one of them wolves I'd once trained.

Now they stood with arms folded, hands resting on their blades, not sparing me a glance.

Gabriel plucked the half-boiled stalk of seven-leaf purple lingzhi from the floor.

"Perfect. My spirit finch has been off its feed. This herb is common trash, but it'll do as an appetizer for a pet."

That was seven-leaf purple lingzhi.

Five years ago, when Seraphina was gravely wounded in the Hidden Realm, I'd fought my way into the Beast's Lair and bled half my body dry to bring back that single stalk.

She'd glanced at it once and said, "Adequate."

Now I was on my hands and knees in the Hinterlands scrounging for herb scraps, and Gabriel was feeding them to a bird.

Before, I would have drawn my Fang and fought him over it. Now I just watched the panel hovering in my vision.

[Time remaining until extraction from this world: 6 days]

I stepped back, making room for Gabriel.

"If it pleases you, junior brother, take it."

Gabriel's smile froze. He hadn't expected compliance.

His eyes darted, and his fingers stroked the fur cloak draped over his shoulders.

That was Snowball.

My moonbound fox, raised for ten years, fed on my own lunar essence since she was a kit.

Yesterday Gabriel had mentioned he was cold. Seraphina skinned her alive.

Gabriel pulled the cloak tighter and nuzzled his face into the fur collar. The faint scent of dried foxglove and weak chamomile drifted off him, underlaid with something sour that my wolf registered before I could stop it.

"Senior brother, this pelt is so warm. I really must thank the Supreme Alpha for spoiling me. Don't blame her, though. An animal getting to keep me warm? That's the best fate a beast could hope for."

A stab of pain in my chest. Then nothing.

I stared at the muddy water on the ground.

A few more days. Then this would be over.

Seraphina appeared at the courtyard gate in her black ceremonial robes. The air shifted the instant she crossed the threshold, pressure settling against my skin like the promise of a storm. White frost and crushed moonflower, and beneath it something metallic and wrong.

She stepped into the small yard, a crease forming between her brows. The smell of mildew, probably.

She looked at me.

"It was just a beast."

Seraphina's voice was frigid. "Gabriel has a frail constitution. That the creature's pelt could keep him warm was its good fortune. If you harbor resentment over this, it only proves your heart is corrupt." Then came the manic thoughts, bleeding into my ears through the damaged bond. Cry. Go on, cry. The moment a single tear falls, I can collect it in the Jade Reliquary. A blood-tear from you. The pelt of your beloved moonbound fox is right here. Surely it hurts? Kneel and beg me. Once you're sobbing so hard you can't breathe, I'll reward you with a few tinctures and stroke your head. Her fingers rubbed something hidden inside her sleeve. I knew what it was: a scrap of bloodstained fabric torn from my tunic yesterday when it snagged on the doorframe. Deranged. Seraphina leaned forward, eyes locked on me. The air in the room thickened, her Alpha aura pressing against my skin like the flat of a cold blade. She was waiting for me to break. Waiting for me to grab her sleeve and weep. I picked up the broom from the corner, bent down, and swept the dried herb dregs out the door. "If it pleases my pack protégé, then so be it." My voice was flat. "I wouldn't want to offend the Supreme Alpha's sight. I'll have this cleaned up right away." Seraphina's expression froze. Something ignited behind her eyes. No pleading. No tears. She flicked her wrist, and a surge of lunar essence shattered the broom in my hands. Wooden splinters drove into my palms. Blood welled up between my fingers. I didn't flinch. Seraphina closed the distance. Her scent hit me full force, white frost and crushed moonflower over that metallic wrongness underneath, and my dormant wolf stirred once, weakly, then went still again. "Insolent wretch! It seems the Servants' Quarters have made you too comfortable. You haven't shown a shred of remorse!" I kept my gaze on the tips of my boots. "This wolf acknowledges his fault." "Acknowledges his fault?" Seraphina let out a cold laugh. "If you truly know your fault, then go kneel beneath Glacial Dominance in the Hinterlands! You will remain there until you've reflected properly. Only then may you crawl back!" Glacial Dominance was where the Greyfang Pack punished its gravest offenders. A waterfall infused with the Supreme Alpha's own killing cold, pouring endlessly from the high cliff into a stone basin. Wolves sent there either submitted or died. Before, I could have endured it with my own wolf aura. But my Soul-Bonded Fang was shattered now, my bloodline power in ruins. Going there was a death sentence in all but name. I raised my head and looked at Seraphina the way one looks at a stranger. "Yes, Alpha." I turned and walked away. Behind me came the ragged sound of her breathing, then the sharp crack of a teacup crushed to powder in her grip.

The wind in the Hinterlands cut like a blade.

The waterfall plunged from the high cliff and hammered into my back. It carried her dominance in every drop, a cold that didn't just freeze the body but pressed against the wolf inside, demanding submission.

Cold bored through every crack in my bones. I knelt on the stone at the center of the pool, my knees long since numb.

The pain in my meridians was excruciating.

Three years ago, Seraphina had attempted her Bloodline Ascension. Her ritual artifact shattered, and I threw myself behind her to take the backlash.

It had cracked my heart meridian. Cold made it flare, every time.

Now the freezing water hammered the old wound wide open.

My vision blurred white with pain, but I made no sound.

Seraphina was watching through her scrying pool.

She was waiting for me to cry out, waiting for me to beg her for mercy.

She would be waiting a long time.

Severance Countdown: 5 days.

Gabriel strolled over carrying a white jade bowl, steam curling from its rim. The scent of dried foxglove and weak chamomile drifted ahead of him, that faintly sour undertone clinging beneath.

It was a heart-warming tonic. A single sip would have been enough to ward off the cold.

He stopped at the bank, boots crunching through the snow.

"Senior Brother. How does it feel?"

Gabriel looked me up and down. "The Alpha says all you have to do is bow your head, and this bowl is yours."

I closed my eyes and circulated what little wolf aura remained inside me. I didn't acknowledge him.

Gabriel turned his wrist. The dark medicinal broth spilled across the snow, seeping into an ugly stain.

"Oops. Butterfingers."

The grin slid off his face, replaced by open satisfaction. "Take a good look at yourself. You're lower than a dog. You used to be the Bonded Omega. And now?"

I opened my eyes. "You're done pouring. Leave. You're blocking the light."

Gabriel's expression curdled.

A crushing pressure descended from above. Seraphina landed on the frozen bank with a grim face and swept Gabriel behind her. The temperature around the pool dropped another degree. Not the water. Her.

Her gaze fixed on me.

"Incorrigible."

She extended one finger and sealed every meridian point in my body.

Without wolf aura to resist, the cold tore through my organs in an instant. I coughed up a mouthful of blood. It hit the water and dissolved, a thread of red carried away by the current.

"Since you refuse to learn, you can go to the Serpent Abyss."

It was the pack's Forbidden Grounds. The chasm below was writhing with venomous snakes.

Seraphina looked at me.

Scared now, aren't you?

You've always been terrified of these cold, wet creatures.

All you have to do is grab my sleeve and beg me to save you, and I'll pull you out.

She stood at the edge of the cliff, waiting for me to throw myself at her.

I wiped the blood off, braced myself against a rock, and straightened up. Then I walked to the edge.

"Thank you, Supreme Alpha."

I jumped.

The wind shrieked past my ears. In that brief fall, I heard her breathing stutter out of rhythm.

Countdown: 4 days.

The Serpent Abyss was pitch black.

Snakes crawled over my body. Fangs sank into flesh. The stench of venom and rot filled everything. My wolf, silent for so long I sometimes forgot it existed, pressed itself flat against the floor of my mind and would not rise.

I dragged myself through the mire.

Five years ago, I'd stayed down here for half a moon cycle to protect Seraphina, slaughtering wave after wave of serpents until the swarm finally retreated.

Now it was just me.

Three days and three nights, and I didn't make a sound. Whenever I couldn't bear it anymore, I stared at the panel.

Almost over.

I clawed my way to the top of the cliff at dawn.

Dried blood crusted every inch of me. The rags of my clothes hung in strips, and the wounds had turned black at the edges. The venom had seeped deep enough that my skin barely registered pain anymore, just a dull, wrong numbness.

Seraphina and Gabriel Foxglove were standing at the rim.

Gabriel shrieked and scrambled behind her.

Seraphina went rigid. She took half a step forward, her hand rising before it fell back to her side.

She raised a barrier of wolf aura, dense and pale as frost, and drifted further away, as though avoiding something filthy.

"You've dirtied the ground."

Her voice was raw. "Hand the serpent gall to Gabriel for his cultivation, then get yourself cleaned up."

I opened my hand. The serpent king's gallbladder sat in my palm.

Gabriel approached with a silk handkerchief, using it as a barrier between his fingers and mine as he reached for the gall. The faint sour-sweet smell of dried foxglove and weak chamomile drifted off him, underlaid with something that didn't sit right.

The instant he took it, his foot slipped. The thick sole of his brocade boot came down on my right hand.

My index finger had already been half-bitten off in the Abyss. Now it separated completely.

Cold sweat soaked through my back.

I pressed my lips together, pulled my hand back, and didn't make a sound.

Seraphina stared at the severed finger. Her own fingers trembled, just once.

She turned and walked away.

Her thoughts spilled over each other in a tangle, bleeding through the damaged bond whether she knew it or not:

Why didn't he cry out?

He used to come running to me over a paper cut, begging me to blow on it for ages.

Does he... not care about me anymore?

No. He's just being stubborn. Trying to punish me.

I watched her retreating figure. The scent of white frost and crushed moonflower trailed behind her, that metallic undercurrent threading through it like dissolved silver.

Who cares.

Countdown: 2 days.

The Servants' Quarters held nothing but straw.

I leaned against the corner and pulled out a tarnished silver-alloy locket. Inside, a lock of fur so old it had gone colorless, but I knew it had once been the warm brown of my mother's wolf.

It was the only thing my parents had left behind.

The year the plague swept through, they'd sent me up the mountain and hung this locket around my neck.

I rubbed the face of it with my sleeve.

Two more days.

I thought about home. Warm milk, flowers on the balcony, Mom and Dad nagging me about nothing. The scent of dried lavender and old wool. A door left unlocked.

The light dimmed.

Seraphina stood a few paces away.

Her hand flicked out. The heirloom locket ripped free and landed in her palm.

"Give it back!"

I lunged for it.

Seraphina raised her arm high, turning the locket over between her fingers as she examined it.

"So this is why your bloodline power has been regressing." Her voice was dangerously low. "The Path of the Unfeeling forbids mortal attachments, and you've been clinging to this thing."

I grabbed her sleeve, stretching for it.

"Please. Don't touch it."

The moment that word left my mouth, her grip tightened.

That familiar voice slithered into my ears, leaking through the bond-bleed:

He's finally begging.

Destroy what he cares about, and he'll break.

Mortal garbage. Why keep it? From now on, your world will have only me.

Seraphina looked at me. Lunar essence pulsed at her fingertips, cold and bright.

"Too late."

A sharp crack.

The silver-alloy locket shattered in her palm, crumbling to fine powder. The tiny lock of fur disintegrated with it, gone as though it had never been.

She opened her hand. Ash-grey dust drifted down over my face.

Cold. Bone-deep cold.

I didn't move. My arm stayed outstretched, reaching for something that no longer existed. The powder settled into my eyes. It stung.

I lowered my hand, sat back down in the straw, and closed my eyes.