Lenora's POV
The blood-moon ceremony began at dusk.
The pack assembled in the courtyard first — four hundred wolves in their formal colors, the silver and black of Ironbridge running through scarves and sashes and ceremonial armor. Torches burned along the walls. The sky above was still pale, the moon not yet risen, the sun bleeding out at the horizon.
I stood in the elders' gallery above the council chamber, dressed in the gray of a traveling merchant. The name on the guest list was Maren Voss — Harlan's suggestion, delivered with the small rueful look of a man making the kind of joke that isn't quite a joke.
From the gallery, I could see everything.
Marcelline arrived with her guard — twelve soldiers in her personal colors, positioned at intervals around the chamber. I counted them
