(Daciana POV)
Otsana’s words stayed in the courtyard after Ashina escaped, colder than the smoke and heavier than the broken stones beneath my feet.
Adolphus did not need Ashina’s child.
He needed me.
The thought crawled under my skin like a hidden blade, because my life had become the missing piece in too many dead men’s plans.
Blackfang wolves stood around me in silence, no longer kneeling to Ashina but not brave enough to look fully at me either.
They had bowed to the maid who stole my place, believed her tears, chanted her name, and called her the mother of their future.
Now they stared at me as if my survival could forgive what their fear had helped destroy.
It could not.
I looked at the burned black feathers hanging above the courtyard and felt my old mate mark pulse beneath
