The throne room, glittering in all its splendor, outshone in its beauty by...
The woman sitting on the throne. She’s pale, with long silver hair that falls in a shining waterfall over her shoulders and down to her hips.
Atop her silver hair sits the golden crown with its twin wolves. At her throat, my opal necklace. At her hip, the wolf-pommel sword. And at her feet, the largest direwolf I’ve ever seen, with glossy silver-white fur.
I know this woman. I’ve seen her before, carved into a hidden wall in the tunnel that joins the royal wing to the Bonded side of the castle. And again, drawn in Stark’s ancient book.
She has a calm expression on her face as she leans forward, readjusting the weight in her arms. An infant, swaddled in a fluffy fur blanket. She nurses the baby at her breast, smiling up at a servant when they ask her something before turning back to her child.
Everything about her radiates power. Her beauty. The crown. The sword. But her child, too.
The precious, compassionate, unashamed way she holds them. I can sense their connection in the air, warm and quiet. The same peaceful atmosphere from before infiltrates my heart, looking at them. Mother and child.
And then it all shatters. There’s a distant sound, like the crack of magic shattering the air.
The doors burst open. A woman rushes to the throne, wearing some sort of military uniform. Her dark eyes are wild. “Queen Chiara, Siphons have infiltrated the palace!”
The queen hastily tucks her breast away, her infant immediately letting out a needy wail at being denied. She rises quickly, clutching her child in her arms and descending the dais. The direwolf follows, looming over the scene.
“Take her,” Queen Chiara orders, handing the breathless woman her child. “Protect my child with your life. Get her out of the castle andhide her.”
“M-My queen,” the second woman sputters out. Her eyes widen as Queen Chiara rips the opal necklace from her neck and presses it into her hands.
“This will safeguard you,” she says, then turns without hesitation and grips the enormous direwolf’s fur.
She mounts the beast effortlessly, finding her seat with unearthly grace as her silver hair falls against her back. She looks like she belongs there.
She looks powerful.
Her eyes linger for one painfully short moment on her child before she turns her head and urges her direwolf onward. I’m dragged with them, my perspective shifting between my own eyes, the queen’s, and the keener vision of her wolf’s. I look back at the child one last time as she’s hurried away, a lonely ache in my heart.
She’s gone. The queen must fight.
We fly through the hallways, moving at impossible speed. The weight of her crown presses down on my head, too, as the wolf’s powerful muscles propel us forward. My essence flies weightlessly alongside them, spurring them on.
We reach a segment of the castle that’s in chaos. Wolves fight and die. Siphons flood the hallway, obvious due to their unnatural speed and beauty. Flashes of magic explode, causing the air to shiver with energy.
The queen rides past it all. She’s hunting.
Eventually, she finds her prey. A tall Siphon man who…
My entire being shudders. He looks unsettlingly like both Killian and his father, with piercing blue eyes and the same sharp features.
The queen doesn’t hesitate. She draws the wolf blade and attacks, streaking through the hallway on her wolf and slashing at the Siphon’s head, aiming to decapitate him. But her blade clangs against his, and he manages to redirect the force of her blow and duck.
A terrible laugh echoes all around us. “Chiara Sturmfrost, finally come to play!” he bellows, opening his arms wide. Then a heinous darkness glints in his eyes. Pure malice. He leans in likehe’s sharing a secret. “Did you know that I slit your husband’s throat already?”
Queen Chiara’s fury and grief fill my veins, like a mountain’s given way and crushed my soul. She swings messily in a rage, and the Siphon parries. She uses her direwolf’s power well, the two moving as one.
But the Siphon is fast.Strong. His eyes see everything, long before her blows can land.
“What is your endgame, Brightbane?!” the queen screams.
Brightbane. Like Lucien Brightbane, the Siphon king of Astreona. But this man isn’t him—a relative or ancestor, perhaps?
There’s another flurry of blows. One of them clips his shoulder, but the wound doesn’t even begin to slow him down.
“Nocturna willneverbow to the Siphons!” Queen Chiara shouts. Her direwolf snaps at Brightbane, whose eyes widen as he rolls out of the way.
