(Daciana POV)
I stand between my sister, my mother’s crown, and the terrifying truth that blood spilled before the ceremony may decide everything.
Tala’s blood touched Rudina’s crown, and the red stones answered like sleeping hearts waking beneath a grave full of unfinished prayers.
The courtyard froze as silver branches along the crown shivered, and every wolf watched the old metal drink the blood like rain.
My sister still held the black bone blade beneath Tala’s throat, but even she looked startled when the crown began to pulse.
Adolphus smiled from Bardolph’s old Alpha chair, and that smile told me the crown had done exactly what he had expected.
Conri stepped toward Tala, but marked servants tightened their blades around the old woman before he could cross the space.
Bardolph s
