finish what it started. It didn't. The water stayed dark and quiet, giving up nothing else no matter how long I stared into it, and eventually my mother finally pu

uite believe her own sentence, testing the shap

't sound

dangerous than grief. Grief you can survive.

said it, turning it over the way you'd turn ove

hing me with an expression I was only beginning to learn how to read. When my mother stepped away to check

said. "You know that

n't pl

skin, paler than the rest of his arm. "That spell was placed on me when I was fifteen. I've carried it so long I forgot what my own strength felt

ogizing tonight? For thing

ry version of protecting you that I chose ended up costing

hat I can survive," I said, quieter

worth - you didn't just wake up a crown tonight. You walked into a fortress you'd never seen, found out your mother's alive, your father might be too, and you're still standing here asking better questions than the Counci

s shoulder instead, and for the first time since the ceremony, the silence b

dn't

leader alone, hands empty, expression grim in a way that put both of us back on our feet b

at me. "But Silverpine will. Word travels fast when a Council falls apart in front of a hundred witnesses. Whatever's left

ent tight. "How mu

han you

urning off into something sharper, an alertness that seemed

his arm. "Lila'

t on my other shoulder. "That choice only means something if you don't undo it by turning back for h

ress and whatever Lila had bought us with her own body standing in the way of it, and made mysel

rn nearly smooth from handling, the metal warm despite everything. "This was your father's," she said. "I've kept it twelve years for a day I wasn

th in the metal that had no business being there, like som

k the pendant beneath my collar next to my own. "We're going home to a pack that just

and surprised myself with how steady it came out, the words se

mething new, something he hadn't quit

olumns against a sky just beginning to lighten at its edges, and started south toward home - toward a fight none