The ride back up the mountain was suffocatingly quiet. The freezing fog had returned, clinging to the jagged black rocks and dusting the heavy coats of our horses with a layer of pale frost. Lochlan rode ahead, his massive silhouette cutting through the mist, the heavy iron chain trailing behind him to where Seraphina stumbled. She did not weep anymore. The brutal beating from her mother in the ruins of Terracotta Village had stripped the last remnants of her perfectly crafted illusions away, leaving only a hollow, shivering shell wrapped in a filthy bear fur.
When we passed the heavily guarded gates of the Lycan war camp, the weretigers and armored guards dropped to one knee, their heads bowed in absolute reverence. But I did not feel like a Queen, not in that moment. I felt like a grave
