Chapter 191
The North may have survived another rebellion, but the attack was only a small piece of a far deeper plot. Someone has been moving against Cassian and Atasha long before Matron Yara ever lifted a corrupted stone, and the whispers left behind point to an enemy who understands their weaknesses with unsettling precision.
Cassian’s collapse on the battlefield has already reached the King, and every neighboring territory is watching for the first sign that the Valemont rule is beginning to crack.
As political pressure mounts, Atasha faces a truth she can no longer ignore. The corrupted stones responded to her power in ways no healer or wolf should experience, and every encounter with witchcraft raises more questions about her birth and what she truly is.
To protect the North, Cassian and Atasha must trace the origin of her ability and uncover why witches were willing to risk everything to weaponized it. The answers may become the North’s salvation, or the final blow that destroys it.
Someone has been playing with their lives from the beginning, and what they uncover next will determine whether the North stands or falls.
CELESTE’S POV
“Are we almost there?” Celeste asked, her brows pulling together in irritation as she shifted against the stiff cushion of the carriage.
One of her servants, she couldn’t remember his name, only that he bowed too often, cleared his throat. “We should arrive in half a day, my lady. However…” His voice trailed off in a way that immediately annoyed her.
Celeste lifted her chin. “However… what?”
“The security at the border has increased. They inspected every wagon in the line, and they questioned us twice before they allowed us to proceed. Even after we announced your identity at the main gates-”
Celeste cut him off. “You told them who I am? That I am Atasha’s sister?”
“Yes, my lady,” he replied, swallowing. “We announced it clearly.”
“Then why are we still sitting here like peasants waiting for scraps?” she snapped. “I should have been escorted to the mansion the moment they heard my name. Atasha should have sent someone to receive me.” Unless of course, this has been instructed by that brute lord of them!
The servant shifted nervously. “That is the other problem, my lady. The kind of welcome we expected… never happened.”
Celeste stared at him. “What do you mean never happened? Do you mean no one came out to greet us? Not even a single guard from the mansion?”
He shook his head.
She scoffed and leaned back against the seat, crossing her arms. “Unbelievable. Truly unbelievable. I suppose I can forgive her for not running toward me the instant I arrived. It must be because of her husband, that beast. But she should at least welcome me once I reach the mansion. I am her sister, after all. She owes me that much.”
The servant hesitated, as if unsure whether to speak again. Celeste already felt her patience thinning. She closed her eyes and exhaled dramatically. “This place is too cold. Increase the heat inside the carriage. I refuse to freeze before even seeing her.”
“But, my lady…” he began carefully.
Celeste opened one eye, annoyed. “But what?”
“We were not able to obtain enough fae stones to heat the carriage,” he said. “The merchants along the border have been withholding them due to the recent conflict. The prices increased, and we lacked the-”
Celeste’s expression turned sour. “You lacked what? Money?” Her voice dripped disbelief, as if the very idea insulted her. “We have coin.”
“We used the last of it to pass through the final checkpoint,” he admitted, lowering his head. “The guards demanded payment from all southern carriages.”
Celeste clicked her tongue and looked away. If anyone had told her a year ago that she would be sitting in a cold carriage because her household couldn’t afford fae stones, she would have laughed. But after Atasha left, everything had shifted in the worst way possible. Her mother died, her father, the Alpha, was still in a coma, and the Demon Fangs kept attacking their borders and draining their resources.
Their pack had bled money in the past few months while she tried to maintain the image of stability.
And of course Atasha refused to answer any messages. Weeks of letters, requests, demands and pleas. Receive nothing.
Celeste’s jaw tightened as she thought about it. She was forced to leave the southern territories and travel all the way to the North herself. She wanted to see her sister’s situation with her own eyes, confirm what rumors claimed, and, most importantly, ask for the help she needed.
She needed Atasha to open the doors to the King for her. Celeste should have been the one with the privilege, the recognition, the favor of the royal family, but somehow she had been stuck in her pack, helpless and stressed. On the contrary, Atasha seemed to be striving. She expected Atasha not to survive this marriage, but she was wrong.
Celeste glared at the frost gathering along the window. “This entire place feels like it’s trying to freeze me on purpose,” she muttered under her breath.
But she had a reason to endure this miserable cold. A reason to smile politely at the guards. A reason to drag herself toward her sister’s new life.
Atasha had power now.
And Celeste intended to take what should have been hers from the beginning.
“Half a day…” she repeated with disdain as the carriage wheels hit another patch of frozen ground. “She better be grateful I even bothered to come.”
After what felt like an eternity of discomfort and miserable cold, the carriage finally lurched to a full stop. Celeste straightened so fast her neck almost cramped, her pulse lifting with the expectation that she was finally pushed aside the curtain with an annoyed flick of her wrist, ready to step down and demand proper treatment at last.
But instead of the mansion grounds she expected, she found herself staring at yet another line of guards.
Her face soured instantly.
Another checkpoint?
Of course the North would be obsessed with unnecessary rules and senseless examinations, wasting her time even further. She rolled her eyes hard enough that her head tilted slightly with the force of it. How many times did they need to confirm who she was? Did they not understand that people of her status were not meant to be held up like this?
Before she could snap at one of her servants, a guard approached the carriage. His posture was alert, his uniform stained with patches that might have been dirt, or soot, or something far worse. He bowed stiffly.
“My Lady,” he announced, “I am Lieutenant Rio. We have been instructed to welcome your party and escort you to the side
gates. The Consort is waiting there.”
Celeste felt irritation erupt inside her like a punch to the ribs.
The side gates?
The consort?
As if her sister were some noblewoman who could summon her at will, rather than the other way around.
She slammed her palm against the carriage door and pushed it open herself, nearly hitting the servant reaching for the handle. She stepped down with every intention of telling this Lieutenant Rio exactly what she thought of this ridiculous arrangement. Her sister should have come here. Her sister should have been waiting at the main entrance, greeting her properly, not shoving her toward some secondary door like an afterthought.
She opened her mouth-
Then she froze.
A thick, metallic scent hit her senses so hard it drowned her irritation in one heavy wave.
Blood.
Her head snapped toward the ground behind Rio before she could stop herself. It was faint, covered mostly by fresh snow, but she saw it. She saw the discoloration across the ground, the dark streaks and patches where the snow had been disturbed, stained, melted, and refrozen. Her breath caught in her throat as her vision sharpened.
It wasn’t a small spill. It was everywhere.
Now that she was paying attention, she could hear it in the air. She could smell it in the wind, clinging to the frozen ground like a warning. She could see faint trails leading toward the deeper parts of the estate, dragged patterns and uneven footprints that only told one story.
She stared at the snow, the faint red-brown tint spreading under the white, and for a moment her thoughts tripped over themselves.
How had she not seen it immediately? How could she have missed this?
The entire area reeked of blood, and not just from one body. This was a battlefield. She realized it in an instant, because no werewolf, no matter how pampered or willfully ignorant, could fail to recognize the smell of death once they bothered to pay attention.
Her irritation stumbled, caught between disbelief and a rising sense of unease she did not want to acknowledge.
“Is something wrong, my lady?” Rio asked, his tone polite as if he did not have the patience to entertain whatever tantrum she had been ready to unleash.
Celeste blinked, momentarily thrown off as she looked again at the stained snow surrounding them.
Thi
