"There is more," Kira said, pulling a worn leather satchel from beneath the stable floorboards she had clearly marked for exactly this purpose.
Logan watched her carefully as she withdrew a collection of documents, older than anything they had found in the royal archive, their edges soft with age and careful handling across what looked like generations of preservation.
"My people carried these north with us when the Ashwood pack fell," Kira said, spreading the documents carefully across the table. "I did not reveal them sooner because I needed certainty, Logan, the same certainty your wolf provided the night I tested you. I was not willing to hand you a kingdom's full weight until I knew you could survive carrying it."
Logan studied the first document carefully, an elaborate genealogy c
