Ardyn POV

The basin of Rhel’s ashes no longer stayed still. At night, the fragments stirred like teeth grinding in a dream. Wolves whispered the sound was a summons.

By the third night, they answered.

I felt it before I saw it, the pull in my belly, the stirring of the unborn. My fire guttered, pulled marrow-ward.

From the high chamber window, I saw them: wolves slipping into the hall in twos and threes, no torches lit, only the faint glow of ash. They bared their wrists, their throats, ...