Kael POV

I dragged her beneath the keep again, through the tunnels no wolf, but a king should tread. The shrine smelled of iron, ash, and burned marrow. Old gods slept on these walls older than wolf, older than crown.

Ardyn sagged against me, her skin fever-hot, her belly glowing faintly with the child that was no longer just a child. She clutched the Bone Crown even though I had wrenched it from her hands hours before; she clutched it in her mind, her body yearning for it even as it lay ...