He pants, grinning cruelly up at her. “What choice will they have when the queen and her progeny are alldead,” he spits.
That final word sends a cold snap of pain through the Queen.
“Your three older children werealarminglyeasy to kill, and my men have gone after the baby. By daybreak, the Sturmfrost line will be over.”
The direwolf lets out a long, low groan as if feeling its rider’s pain. Queen Chiara’s grip loosens on her sword. Her eyes cloud over. The agony only a parent could ever feel…
It gives him an opening. She manages to deflect a few merciless blows, but it isn’t enough. Her fight’s gone out of her.
My children,I can almost hear her whispering.My children.
Brightbane knocks her sword out of her hands, snatching it off the stone. The wolf attempts to stumble backward, but in one fluid movement, Brightbane spins and the sword slashes the beast’s throat.
Bright red blood spills over silver fur.
Queen Chiara screams. The direwolf staggers and falls, thudding thunderously to the floor. I watch in horror as an ocean of blood pours from the wolf’s throat.
Then the queen collapses next to her wolf, her silver hair floating on the surface of the ghastly red pool of blood.
Her gaze falls deathly still, her life taken by their severed bond.
Brightbane’s voice is the last thing I hear, ringing over the scene of her death. “Your Bonded will be my instruments of vengeance.”
It’s almost a blessing when the vision begins to fade. The light and color dissipate with the remnants of the queen’s energy.
Darkness finds me. And in that darkness, a familiar voice. The same one that echoes across my dreams.
“Chiara Sturmfrost is dead. Meryn Sturmfrost has returned. Long live Queen Sturmfrost.”
Waking from the vision is like a rapid, quiet dawn. Weak light pours over me, spreading slowly over the cell around me and my trembling hands. I’m back in my body, back where I began.
But everything feels different.
I lift my head. Stark is still standing there, staring at me on the other side of the bars. His eyes are searching mine. For what, I don’t know. But he’s pressed against the bars like he’s reaching for something.
My mind whirs, the ephemeral vision imprinted on me like an afterimage. The pieces click into place.
Queen Chiara’s opal necklace, given to her baby, then passed down my family line.
The visions my mother received, that I received—disjointed, overwhelming and eventually all-consuming, but containing truths.
Anassa, a direwolf of immeasurable power who had waited years for a rider, then forced a bond on someone unwilling.
The crown of leaping wolves on my brow that feels as if it’s meant to be there.
My tongue is thick in my mouth, but somehow I find a way to say words that sound implausible and, at the same time, absolutely right.
“I’m the rightful queen of Nocturna, aren’t I?” I ask.
Stark’s eyes spark, he takes a single step back, and he bows down on one knee, hand to his chest. “Welcome home, my queen.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Istare down at Stark, struggling to understand. Struggling through the bizarre wave of heat that flooded me the moment his knee hit the stone.
He’skneelingfor me.
My hand presses to the cell bars for support as I stare at him. The only thing I can manage is a strangled, “Why didn’t youtellme?”
