The clearing held its breath.
My gaze found Rheda. She gave me nothing. No nod, no signal, no hint. The lesson was the support of guidance. Make the decision, carry the weight.
A queen who needs permission isn’t a queen.
I turned back to the kneeling women.
“Annora Vael. Your nobility in Veyndral is permanently revoked. Your family’s titles, your registry, every stone that bears the Vael crest. Gone.”
The words came out with a steadiness I didn’t feel. Borrowed authority, maybe. The echo of every queen who’d ever stood in a clearing and decided someone’s future.
Annora whimpered. The sound was small and ugly.
“Giselle Dravon. You are dishonorably discharged. Your rank, your commendations, your decade of service. None of it exists anymore.”
Giselle’s spine buckled. The rigid posture that defined her finally collapsed and she crumpled forward, hands catching the dirt.
“Both of you are sentenced to the Barrows.”
The lycan audience reacted as one. A collective flinch, a murmur of horror rippling through soldiers and representatives. They knew the Barrows and they feared it.
Giselle screamed. Guttural, from somewhere deeper than pride. Annora made no sound. Her eyes went vacant, her mind already in the forest that would hold her forever.
Altun stepped forward. Not to override but to reinforce.
“The sentence stands,” he said. “Sanctioned by the current queen and witnessed by the former crown.”
Queen. The word landed differently when Altun said it. A title, granted by the man who’d held it before his son.
Soldiers hauled Annora and Giselle to the edge of the clearing. Altun raised his hand and the perimeter opened.
The converted hunters filed in after they called for them. Wyatt first, followed by Kaia, Damon, Reese. They took positions alongside the lycan soldiers with an uncertainty that hadn’t been there during training drills.
This time, I stepped back.
Altun surveyed the combined force. Lycans and humans, side by side.
“This alliance is unprecedented,” he said. “The history between our species is not a misunderstanding to be corrected. It is a wound. Generations of it. Neither side is innocent and I won’t insult you by pretending mine is.”
The clearing held.
“But the women bleeding in that corner did not act because they are lycans. They acted because they were cowards. And the hunters standing among you did not defect because they arehuman. They defected because they are brave. Species didn’t make those choices. Character did.”
Rheda stepped beside him. “The compound behind those walls is manufacturing a weapon that will destroy lycan and human alike. The Order does not discriminate in cruelty. Neither should we discriminate in our resistance.”
“This alliance has the full sanction of the Veyndral crown,” Altun said. “Former and current. Any lycan who undermines it will join those two in the Barrows. Any challenge to the next queen’s authority will be treated as treason.”
Voss stepped forward. His jaw worked, his posture stiff, and whatever internal battle he’d been fighting since arriving resolved itself in a single nod directed at Altun.
The converted hunters straightened. Kaia’s hand left her blade. Damon uncrossed his arms.
An alliance held together by grudging respect and two retired monarchs who could still command a room without raising their voices.
The evening unwound slowly and I was finally able to sigh in relief.
Farmon adjusted my supplements while Altun commandeered Solomon and the compound maps. Rheda cornered Percy near the fire pit.
“Did your guardians feed you properly as a child?” she asked, inspecting his arms as if she was assessing livestock.
