Chapter Forty-Eight
Calista
An icy chill seeped into my bones. The Frostcrag throne was more frigid than any bed I’d ever slept in.
And after the Hunt, I knew cold intimately.
It was as if the cold of it lived deeper in the marrow of the fortress, in the weight of twelve Courts and a thousand years of law pressing down on my shoulders the moment I sat down.
I couldn’t move. Not even if I’d wanted to with the mighty Wolvryn king kneeling before me.
My body had reached its limit somewhere outside the gates, but I’d kept going anyway out of spite. Now the spite was gone, and all that was left was numbness, pain, and the strange, hollow ringing that followed survival.
Rhosyn limped backward down the steps, one hand pressed to her side where blood darkened her leathers. Her eyes flicked to me once, sharp and bright with hate, then to the king beside the throne.
She looked away first. That alone felt like a victory I didn’t know how to hold.
When the king threw her out and the heavy doors shut behind her, the sound echoed through the hall like a gavel. Final.
For a heartbeat, I stared at the empty doorway, not fully believing it. Then it truly hit me.
I won.
Not in the way they wanted me to win. Not as a bride delivered intact to a king’s feet.
I had invoked the Blood Hunt and survived it.
I had traversed the treacherous icy terrain of Lunaris.
I had outlasted daughters with stronger bodies and better ankles and whole lives of practice in Court games.
I had clawed my way here on pain and hunger and the memory of Ma’s hands shaking as she tried to remember my name.
And Savage had placed me on the throne. His throne.
Not beside it. On it.
The ramifications crashed through me in a wave so heavy my stomach turned.
I had earned a legitimate claim to the Moon Crown. Three Edicts. A real queen. I would not be a consort. Not a prize, not a soft ornament draped at the king’s shoulder.
And now, the Hollows would not have to beg for scraps of mercy anymore. Ma and Suri would not be left behind on an island bleeding nets and empty larders while the world decided whether we deserved to exist.
I could change our fate. Forever. My throat tightened so hard it hurt as I finally allowed myself to focus on the Three Edicts that would change everything.
I blinked fast, furious at the sting behind my eyes. I refused to cry in this hall. I refused to break in front of a king who could call it weakness and use it like a blade against me.
And yet, the relief was not gentle. It was more like a punch.
I sucked in a breath that trembled and tried to make my lungs obey. My ankle suddenly throbbed like a heartbeat gone wrong, the pain flaring anew. But for once it didn’t matter. For once, pain was only proof that I was still here. Still alive.
Savage knelt between my legs, close enough that I could feel the heat of him through my torn cloak.
The Frostcrag sigil he’d gifted me before I left felt heavy in my pocket.
His presence filled the space, not loud, just inevitable.
That damned mask may have hid his face but not the sudden pull of him.
That pull was a living thing. It curled under my ribs as familiar as hunger.
I hadn’t felt it before, not with him, not like this.
I should have been formulating the exact words for my Edicts. My Court. My mother and Suri. Instead, my mind wondered and betrayed me with a different name. Everest.
My heart clenched.
Guilt slid in like a knife between my ribs, quiet and cruel. The way his arms had felt around me. The way he had carried me when my ankle refused. The way his voice had gone rough when he’d said he was doomed either way.
The way he had looked at me in firelight like I was the one thing in this cursed Hunt he could not stop wanting.
How could I have… how could I have let myself feel so much for him in so little time?
How could my heart, which I’d spent my entire life guarding, have fallen so easily for my sworn protector?
I swallowed hard, forcing the spiraling thoughts down. My gaze lifted.
The king’s eyes were on me. An impossible silver. Deep and cold as the winter sky and bright as ice under dawn. They pinned me with the same steady weight I remembered, the same quiet intensity.
And suddenly, time did something strange again. It felt like an eternity since I’d last seen those eyes. And yet, it felt like yesterday.
My chest tightened. Something in the look was familiar, so familiar it hurt. Not the color, not the cold-silver that belonged to Frostcrag’s king, but the way he held me in that gaze like he was counting my breaths.
Like he was making sure I was real. Like he was…
Relieved.
The realization struck sharp. He was relieved I survived. Not because the Hunt had ended properly. Because I had won.
Why did he want me to win?
His posture stayed composed, a king carved from discipline, but I could see past it now. The small tension in his shoulders. The way his hand flexed once at his side as if he had fought the urge to reach for me and lost by a hair.
Savage finally spoke, and the sound dragged me back to the present. “You’re hurt.” It was simple and controlled, almost casual. But underneath it, something frayed and raw pressed against the edges. “I’ve already called a healer to tend to your ankle.”
I tried to lift my chin, to look unbreakable. “I’ve been worse.”
Then his words registered. How had he already called a healer?
His eyes narrowed, and for a heartbeat I could swear the mask wasn’t enough to hide whatever storm lived behind it.
“You should not have been,” he whispered.
His words fell away and still, they landed in a place I hadn’t expected to be touched. Not by him. The same locked place Everest’s kindness and protection had found before, the place that did not know what to do with being cared for.
My ribs tightened until it was difficult to draw in a full breath. A part of me wanted to thank him for sending me the Black Wolf.
Savage leaned slightly closer, and the scent of him reached me. Frost and cedar. Cold smoke and frostmint. And that steady undercurrent of heat.
My pulse stumbled. Wait. Cedar, not pine. Frostmint oil, not steel. No. That scent…
My mind tried to reject it, to shove it away as coincidence, as exhaustion making monsters out of shadows.
But my body recognized it anyway.
Because I had breathed it in a hundred times these past five days.
Because I had slept wrapped in it.
Because I had wanted it.
Everest.
A cold shiver slid through me that had nothing to do with the throne.
Savage’s gaze held mine, unwavering. Distracting. “I watched you,” he murmured, his deep voice disrupting my unraveling thoughts. “Long before you crossed the river.”
My breath caught. He’d watched me? He knew.
My thoughts tangled, frantic, trying to make sense of it all. The throne room felt like it was tilting, the torchlight too bright, and the stone too hard beneath me.
Was I delirious from exhaustion, from pain?
Savage didn’t move closer. He didn’t touch me. But the air between us tightened until it felt like a live wire about to snap.
His voice remained even. “Have you made your decision?”
The question should have been about the crown. About the marriage. About the choice I had fought for. But the way he asked it made my skin prickle. Like he meant more than law. Like he was bracing for something.
For an instant, my thoughts slid to Everest, to the way he had stood beside me when no one else could, to the impossible place he had carved for himself beneath my ribs.
I wanted him more than I wanted safety. More than I wanted certainty.
But I could not choose him. My family and my Court needed me more.
Even if the choice felt like breaking something in myself that would never mend.
I swallowed, tasting blood, smoke and snow. My hands curled around the arms of the throne, fingers numb. “Yes.” There was no more hesitation.
Because I could not afford to falter. Because Ma’s face lived behind my eyes. Because Hollowcrest was counting on me to be cruel enough to do what needed to be done.
His gaze didn’t leave mine. “Good girl.”
The words hit like a spark. A strange, rough approval that made my breath hitch and my stomach twist. Then he stood, straightening, all the Savage Wolvryn King again, the emotion pressed back beneath ice.
“I will summon the Conclave,” he said. “And the high priestesses. They will witness your claim and hear your Edicts.”
He turned as if it were only procedure, only law, only the next step. As if he hadn’t just split something open inside me. Then he walked toward the doors with measured calm. When he reached the threshold he paused, head angling just enough that his voice carried back to me.
“Rest,” he whispered. A pause. Then, softer, almost too soft for this enormous hall. “Little wolf.”
The doors shut.
But his words boomed through the throne room.
And the truth slammed into me so hard I nearly gagged. Little wolf.