Emily Rosewood’s Point of View.
The ruins of the Ironfang stronghold – three dawns after the fall of the Crown fragment.
Ash coated the sky.
Not the delicate kind that whispered of old hearths and gentle endings, but the thick, choking remnants of battle, of torn earth, fallen kin, and the stench of raw magic. The Ironfang stronghold, once a proud bastion of stone and steel, now resembled a carcass. Its gates broken. Its banners stained.
I stood in the heart of it all, my boots soaked with blood, some mine, some Sebastian’s, some belonging to wolves who no longer had names.
Lyra lay motionless nearby.
“Lyra!” I dropped to my knees, pushing aside scorched rubble to cradle her. My sister’s eyes were closed, her skin pale, but her chest still rose and fell, ragged and faint.
“She’s ali
