(Daciana POV)
I return to Blackfang carrying my mother’s crown, my broken trust, and the terror of meeting the sister who was raised to hate me.
Blackfang waited beneath the fading moon like a wounded beast pretending it had not already begun eating itself from the inside.
I rode through the western gate with Conri on one side, Bardolph on the other, and my mother’s wrapped crown hidden against my chest.
Neither man spoke, because both understood that words could not soften the truth waiting inside Blackfang’s courtyard.
My lost sister was there.
Tala was there.
Ashina was there.
Adolphus was there, smiling somewhere in the shadows like every stolen life had been moving exactly as he planned.
The old mate bond pulsed beneath my collar, and I hated that Bardolph’s fear reached me b
