t," the Oracle said quietly, "

ething in her gaze made my stoma

omes anyth

ent silent

e gods have

ut throbbing in time with my pulse. Scrolls and star maps covered every surface. Portr

ry heavy with dust, revealing a w

she said. "The f

not a crescent. A six-pointed star, the same shape burned into

e she was handing m

between wolves, rogues, witches, and Lycans. The Moon Chosen. Each bore the star. Each aw

shed before her d

seen the

il

hat wouldn't stay still, and silver ink bled up out

ll you home, do n

never a

before destiny

it, for the first time in longer than I could remember ... not from grief this time, bu

nt, nobles packed shoulder to shoulder, some bowing as I passe

t, chin lifted, voice pitched to carry. "A wol

e in the room

the weight of him pressed down over the entire hall like a h

id, quiet, terrible, "...and yo

is head so fast

d an insult before. I didn't know w

ly stopped whispering, all of them ringing a circle of moonstones set into the floor. I stood baref

ised the cere

ers what the

cond time. Let it

at once, and outside, impossibly, a full moon bloomed in an af

ent to my

Every account, every legend, every

g across my skin like flame finding new fuel. Seraphine staggered back a

royal mark," s

r," anothe

lifted of

hed it hang above my own chest, reshaping itself into a constellation no one

n rev

f

ines. Moonstones shattered outward in bursts of white light. And somewhere past the walls, every

e knee on the floor of a hall he'd rejected me in three nig

d h

wolf. Silver light tore out of me in a wave that knocked priestesses off their feet,

ld. Then a white so total I

t ... a wolf built from neither silver nor snow, but from the space be

ugh the chaos, and everyone froze at o

ng over me like she was looking at the

lost princess,"

went utte

r face before the res

the right

oice somewhere near the back demanding my execution before the words had even finished landing. An elder n

into light and then into nothing, and the hall w

silver, a symbol I'd never seen and neither

at hadn't come from any mouth in the room. It landed inside

augh

hundreds of miles away, I would later learn ... every wolf in

seal has b

far end of the ha

ne whole side of his tunic, and collapsed to his kn

Maje

reath that sounded like it co

w King knows