Victory tasted bitter with betrayal lingering.

The rival pack fled as dawn broke over the Academy walls. I watched them go from the infirmary window, too exhausted to feel triumph. Behind me, the healer's assistants moved between cots filled with our wounded.

We'd won. Technically.

But Elder Thorne was dead. Elder Cassandra clung to life by threads the healers kept desperately stitching. A third council member, one I barely knew, had stopped breathing before I'd even reached the ...