Chapter Fifty-Two
Calista
Neris left me at the door of the adjacent chamber as if she were depositing a sacred relic. Her hand hovered near my shoulder for half a heartbeat, not quite touching me. Her eyes searched mine with a sharpness that had nothing to do with ceremony.
“This is the queen’s chamber,” she explained. “Your ladies will prepare you for the marriage and Moon Crown rituals. We will perform both at the same time. There is much I must attend to, but I will return soon.”
I swallowed against the tightness in my throat. “Soon,” I echoed, because the word felt like a lifeline and a threat all at once.
Neris’s mouth softened, just barely. It wasn’t quite a smile, it was something rarer.
“You did what no one thought you could,” she murmured, so low it felt like it belonged only to us.
“Do not let anyone steal that from you.” Then she stepped back, chin lifting as her priestess mask slid into place.
Didn’t we all wear some sort of mask in the end?
“Stay in your rooms,” she added. “No wandering around the halls. Not today, Moon Crowned.”
The last words carried an edge, and for a sick moment I wondered if she knew.
If she could smell the lies threaded through the stone.
And what of Trystan? Would Savage go to meet him?
I’d been hurried away before I could ask, before I could get answers to the dozens of questions that swirled through my mind.
Neris turned and strode away, returning my attention to the present, her silver robes whispering down the corridor.
With a grunt of frustration, I pushed into my new room and shut the door behind me, squeezing my eyes closed for only an instant. The warmth hit me first, then a scent, familiar and safe.
Suri launched herself at me like a storm.
“Cali!” Her arms wrapped around my waist so tightly my bruises protested, but I didn’t care.
I squeezed her back harder, burying my face in her hair like I could finally anchor myself to something real.
“I couldn’t believe it when I first heard you’d invoked the Blood Hunt.
” She held me out to arm’s length. “How could you do something so reckless?”
“It was the only way to save you, little fish. To save Ma, to save all of Hollowcrest.” I dragged her into my chest again.
For a second, I wasn’t the Moon Crowned. I wasn’t wolfless. I wasn’t the female who’d crawled through snow and blood to reach a throne. I was just her big sister.
“Oh, Suri.” I breathed her in, burying my nose in the crook of her neck.
Her shoulders shook. “I thought you were dead,” she choked out. “I thought— when the moon rose and the horns started, and they said the Hunt was turning—”
“Shh.” My own throat burned. “I’m here. I’m here, little fish.”
We broke apart enough to look at each other, both of us crying without caring. Suri’s cheeks were blotched red, her eyes swollen from worry. She tried to smile through it anyway, because that was my sister. Bright even when the world tried to dim her light.
“What are you doing here?” I croaked.
“The king sent for me.” Then she leaned close, lips almost pressed to my ear. “Ma too, but Aunt Mara insisted the voyage would be too much for her.”
I nodded, unexpected warmth filling my chest. Sav—Everest, oh gods, whatever his name was, had sent for my sister. Before I’d claimed the throne.
“You did it,” she whispered, as if she couldn’t say it too loudly or fate might snatch it back. “You won.”
The word landed like a stone in my chest. Won.
I still hadn’t quite processed it, hadn’t accepted the ramifications of what I’d done. She was right. I won.
I turned my head, as if the throne hall might still be behind me. As if I might still see Rhosyn limping away. Savage standing at my side. The strength of his hand lifting me as if I belonged somewhere higher than pain.
“I did.” My voice was suddenly rough. “Suri, I did.”
She squeezed my hands, then her gaze scanned over every battered and bruised inch of me, before finally dropping to my ankle. “Oh, moon’s curses, Cali, you’re hurt. Everywhere.”
“It doesn’t matter.” I lied because today was not for pain. Today was for change. I pulled her closer, forehead pressing to hers. “Listen to me. Everything is going to be different now. I spoke the Edicts and the Conclave heard them. They accepted them.”
Her eyes widened.
I nodded, tears spilling faster. “Everything I risked… the Blood Hunt… it was all worth it. The Hollows won’t be outcasts forever.
You’ll never be whipped or branded if your Wolvryn doesn’t emerge.
We won’t be left to starve and patch our roofs with driftwood and prayers.
We won’t be dismissed for being wolfless. Not anymore.”
Suri’s mouth trembled. “And Ma…”
“I’ll be sending for her as soon as the ceremony is done.” My voice caught at the name. “As soon as I’m crowned properly, you can both stay here with me in Frostcrag. Or I’ll bring Frostcrag’s protection to Hollowcrest. But you won’t be alone with her again.”
“But Ma’s secret…” She lowered her voice around the last word.
“It doesn’t matter anymore, Suri. I’ve found a way around it. A way to protect her despite everything. With the king’s resources, maybe we can even find a way to cure her.”
She broke on a sob and threw her arms around me again. “Thank Selraya,” she whispered into my shoulder. “Thank Sel. Thank Raya. Thank—”
I clung to her so hard my ribs ached because it felt like if I let go, I might fall apart completely.
A soft throat-clearing interrupted us. I lifted my head and found Tamsin and Brynja standing near the hearth.
Brynja grinned, the crown of blonde hair atop her head just as I remembered it. “Well,” she declared, breezing forward like she hadn’t just witnessed my soul spill onto the floor. “Look at that. A Hollow on the throne.”
Tamsin, the redhead, elbowed her. “Brynja.”
“What?” The younger female lifted her brows innocently. “It’s impressive.”
Suri sniffed, swiping at her face. “My sister is terrifying when she wants to be.”
“That’s how you survive Frostcrag.” Brynja broke into a wider grin. “Also, congratulations. We all like our queens with teeth in this Court.”
“Thank you,” I murmured awkwardly.
I’d spent little time with these Frostcrag females before the Hunt, but apparently, they were to be my ladies. They didn’t seem as awful as I’d imagined.
Tamsin stepped in. “How do you feel?”
I almost laughed. How did I feel? Like I’d been cracked open and remade by snow and blood and a male’s hands that had carried me even when I didn’t deserve the mercy. Like I’d won everything I’d ever wanted and still didn’t understand what it would truly cost.
“I don’t know,” I finally admitted.
Tamsin’s eyes softened. “That’s honest, at least.”
Suri’s gaze flicked between them and me. “They’ve been waiting for you.” Her voice was quieter now. “Everyone. Dorian, Eira, the priestesses. Even… even the king.”
The word king sent my stomach pitching. Who had played the role of king while Everest raced across Lunaris by my side? He must have had a stand in. Had it been the real Black Wolf?
My mind flashed, unbidden, to iron. To blue eyes. To silver eyes. To that storm-lit hut and Everest’s mouth on my lips, on my throat…everywhere. Then Savage’s voice calling me little wolf like he’d never stopped being the same male.
I forced my expression to still. Tamsin and Brynja watched me with the careful innocence of two females who knew well how to survive court politics.
Did they know? Had they always known?
My pulse went hard. I couldn’t ask. Not even if it burned holes through my tongue. If they knew and said so, it would mean they had been part of the lie, accomplices to a treasonous act. And if they didn’t know, I’d give away something I couldn’t afford to speak aloud.
“Wait, who’s Eira?” Suri’s words finally registered.
She smiled. “The king’s sister. I met her yesterday when I arrived. She’s lovely, not at all frightening like him.”
A real laugh tumbled out. And goddess, it felt good, even for just a moment. My chest loosened a fraction. For a second, the room almost felt like Hollowcrest. Like gossip, warmth and sisters and the small ordinary ways we all survived.
Suri brightened, leaning closer as if she couldn’t hold it in anymore. “Eira showed me the wolf kennels while you were gone.”
My brows rose. “She did?”
My thoughts immediately flitted to Frost.
Suri nodded rapidly. “Did you know Frostcrag keeps wolves as pets?”
Was that where our wolf lived now? But surely Suri would have recognized him if he’d been there…
“I did not,” I finally replied. I’d file it under the many things Savage failed to mention.
“And there’s an armory and a training ring,” she continued. “Eira said if I stayed in the halls and didn’t wander, she’d show me how to throw an axe.”
“An axe?” My voice rose a few octaves.
“She assured me it’s perfectly safe.”
I exhaled slowly. “I’m so relieved you were okay while—” My words fell away.
Suri’s gaze softened as she looked back at me.
“We got updates at the fortress during the hunt,” she said, quieter.
“Not many, but enough. A runner would come or a sentinel would bring a message to the high priestess, and Eira would tell me what she could. Every time your name was spoken, I felt like I could breathe again.”
I swallowed hard.
“I want to hear every detail, when you’re up for it.” Then her voice dropped. “They kept saying the Black Wolf stayed at your side. That he didn’t let anyone touch you. That he… he kept you alive.”
My fingers went numb, breath catching. “He did.”
Suri squeezed my hand. “I’m grateful to him and to the king for sending you a guard. To everyone who dragged you back to us.”
Another laugh threatened to break out of me. It came out as a breath instead. I nodded. “So am I.” The words were true. And still, they tasted so complicated.