Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Ahowl rose from far beyond the outer wall, long and low and full of something that made my throat tighten. Not grief. Not triumph. The note wolves use when the old order cracks and a new one yawns in the dark.
Kaelric.
I turned from the window and wiped Valkaryn clean on my cloak.
The blood came away in a dark streak that looked like old ink.
The sun was coming up on the horizon, and I needed to see Kaelric.
I sheathed Val and took one last look at the broken sword and the fallen king with bright blood beneath his nose, then I left the balcony the way I had come.
I ran down the steps, hearing the castle come alive with murmurs and footfalls.
Servants pressed themselves to the walls as I passed. Some stared at the blood on my hands and cloak and clutched their chests with wide eyes. A pair of guards stood at the front door with spears lifted as I passed, then lowered them behind me once I was through. It seemed word had traveled fast.
Out front, a young man in a stable apron pointed at my hip. “Queen Valkaryn has redeemed us!” he cried.
I nodded. She had.
I took the steps three at a time as the air grew colder. The smell of horses and iron reached me. A horn sounded three short bursts from the front gate, and I wondered if it was a horn of surrender.
I burst into the covered passage that opened to the inner court. Torches wavered along the walls, their smoke clinging to the stone. Harrow’s black sun banners hung on their poles, and I wanted to stop and rip them down, but I wanted to see Kaelric more.
The front gate held a thin line of loyalists in silver helmets.
Their hands trembled on spear shafts as they faced the gates.
Beside them, tied up, were the two messenger guards I had sent to deliver word.
Outside the iron gates, shapes filled the darkness.
Wolves first. Then Wolfkin with metal armor.
Kaelric and his army.
There was someone in charge, a captain on the wall who pulled his shoulders high. “Hold,” he shouted at his men, voice cracking. “In King Harrow’s name.”
“In the true king’s name,” answered Kaelric from the center of the wolf army. The men and wolves moved as my love stepped closer. “Open them now.”
The captain flinched, and I unsheathed Valkaryn, stepping into the yard. “Open the gate,” I growled. “Harrow is dead.”
The captain spun, looking down at me in shock. His mouth pulled tight, but his hands stayed on the lever that controlled the gate.
“By whose order?” he asked hoarsely.
‘Mine,’ Valkaryn said.
“By Queen Valkaryn Morvain,” I said and thrust her into the sky. A bolt of purple flew from the tip of her steel and shot up into the sky, breaking apart like a firecracker. Gasps and screams rang out around me, and I pierced the man with a look.
My display struck the courtyard like an arrow.
The captain peered closer at the sword in my hand, a little gasp of surprise leaving him.
Valkaryn’s blade glowed a bright purple hue.
The loyal guards shifted as if their armor had grown too heavy, and over half of them dropped to their knees.
A young man in a dented breastplate bowed his head.
“I won’t ask again. I’ll just kill you,” I told him, aiming Valkaryn’s glowing sword tip right at his chest.
He pulled the lever, dropping his sword in surrender.
The chains rattled, and the gates opened.
The first shapes through were Wolfkin in their wolf form.
Steam curled from their mouths in the cool morning air.
Behind them came men and women in their finest uniforms. A few of Harrow’s courtyard guards threw down their spears as the first wolf crossed the threshold.
Others lifted blades to fight and were taken by the wrist and disarmed with clean efficiency.
Kaelric walked in last.
He had no crown on his head, no blood on his clothes, just a family crest stitched into his cloak, and his father’s signet ring on his finger. It had the same wolf that was on the hilt of the sword I carried. His eyes were locked on mine.
“Kaelric Morvain? He lives?” people whispered.
The whispers became a shout: “The true king, he lives!”
His gaze took in the cut at my thigh, the blood that had dried on my cloak.
I crossed the space to him, and he grasped the sides of my face.
“My queen.” He breathed the words like a prayer before capturing my mouth in a kiss.
This was not a stolen moment in a tent.
Not a shy brush of lips or a secret promise shared in the dark
This kiss was a declaration.
It was deep and hungry, reverent and possessive all at once.
His hand cradled my face, his other arm drawing me flush to him as if he would never let me go again.
Heat rolled through me, fierce enough to make my knees tremble.
I felt every heartbeat, every gasp, every unspoken vow threaded between our mouths as the world around us fell away.
My queen.
The words thrummed through my blood.
Kaelric wasn’t just kissing me. He was showing every single person watching that he had come home for his crown, and he would wear it with me at his side.
No hiding.
No shame.
No doubt.
I loved him for it, for his boldness, for the way his soul called to mine, for the way he claimed me with his heart before anything else. I loved him more fiercely than I had ever loved anyone, in this life or any other.
When he finally pulled back, his breath fanned across my lips, and his eyes glowed a molten yellow, wild, tender, and wholly mine.
Cheers went up around us, and I looked around to see that fires had been kindled. Citizens were coming out of their homes and pulling down Harrow’s banners and tossing them into the flames.
The gate clanged fully open, and the last of Harrow’s loyalists were tested. Were they going to be brave or stupid?
A knot of guards near the barracks chose stupid.
They formed a tight ring around their sergeant and charged at Kaelric’s wolves with a ragged shout.
Kaelric’s men were quick and brutal, and the scuffle ended with the sergeant face down in the frost, and his men disarmed, not dead.
Kaelric’s wolves stood over them and bared their teeth.
The sergeant spat once, saw whose boots stood by his head, and went very still.
“Strip them of weapons and banish them. If I see you in my city again, I’ll kill you on sight,” Kaelric said.
The men peered at each other with confusion. They hadn’t expected mercy.
Kaelric’s eyes slid to Valkaryn at my hip and then to the castle beyond me.
I followed his gaze. A door opened on the second-floor gallery.
Someone had dragged one of Harrow’s great bronze statues to the balcony and pushed.
It hit the flagstones in the yard with a hollow crash that rang like a bell.
The head bounced and rolled, stopping at Kaelric’s feet. For a long breath, no one moved.
Kaelric stepped forward, picked up the bronze head with both hands, and flung it into the nearest bonfire.
The people of Lunaria cheered, hoisting their fists into the air. Two boys who could not have been more than twelve shouted, pulling a second statue down with a rope. When it hit the ground, the cheer that went up could be heard throughout the entire city.
“Long live the true wolf king,” a voice cried.
Others took it up, screaming with intensity because they could. They could finally do what they wanted without fear of being controlled.
“Long live the true wolf king. Long live the true wolf king.”
Old men wept without hiding their emotions, women bowed deeply before Kaelric, and children clung to their parents in confusion.
Kaelric did not smile. Although this was exciting, it had come at a cost. He lifted his hand once, and the crowd hushed.
“Anyone who lays down their steel tonight will live to see morning,” he said. “But if you raise a sword or tooth against my people, you will meet the Creator by sundown. Make your choice.”
One by one, blades clanged to the stones. Guards came out of alleyways and basements. All fell to their knees.
Through it all, I stood with my hand on Valkaryn and watched the city wake. It felt like standing in a forest after a fire when the first green shows through the ash. It felt like new life.
“Brynn,” a familiar voice called my name. Godric limped inside the gates with his sister’s arm threaded through his.
“Aunt Maelis!” Kaelric and I ran together, he into the arms of his aunt and me into the arms of Godric.
He squeezed me tightly. “You did it.”
“Thanks to you,” I told him honestly, pulling back.
“Little nephew,” Maelis said, stroking his cheek like a beloved child.
He bowed his head to her as tears built in his eyes, and I knew this woman was once like a mother to him without him having to tell me. “Elia is alive and well. She is on her way here now with her husband and children.”
Maelis’ mouth dropped open. “Husband and children? I’m a grandmother…?”
Kaelric grinned, nodding, but then his smile faltered. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get you out sooner.
She shook her head. “Let’s not look at the past.”
Sage advice.
Godric leaned into me while Kaelric and Maelis caught up on lost time.
“Where is Mind Render?” he asked.
“Broken,” I said. “Twenty pieces.”
“Good,” Godric said, and then put a hand on Kaelric’s shoulder and squeezed.
“There were innocents in the prison with me. Permission to set them free?” Godric asked his alpha.
Kaelric raised his head and looked across the crowd to some of the old guards who had dropped their weapons. “Where are the prisoners from the lower cells of the castle?” he called to them.
“Still locked up, Your Highness,” one of the men answered nervously.
“Release them. Release them all!” Kaelric demanded, and two of the men went running.
The last of Harrow’s black sun banners came down. Wolves dragged the iron crest to the fire and fed it in sections. The heat sent a film of sweat across my face.