QUICK LINKS: Chapter Summary 1–12 | 13–24 | 39–53 | 54–58
Chapter 25
Meryn regains consciousness in Killian’s chambers after he found her collapsed in the secret tunnel. When she mentions the wolf-themed relief she discovered, Killian dismisses the claim, asserting that the utility passages contain no such artwork. He then reveals that a Nabber has been apprehended, prompting an immediate visit to the dungeons.
Through a brutal interrogation, they extract the location of a distribution warehouse and the names of other Nabbers. The prisoner confirms that children are moved out of the city alive, though he has no specific memory of Saela. Killian authorizes a raid on the warehouse and orders the prisoner’s execution.
Meryn intervenes, choosing to deliver the lethal blow herself. As Killian pulls her away from the body, Meryn feels a cold sense of justice rather than regret, a sentiment telepathically reinforced by Anassa’s approval of the execution.
Chapter 26
Back in Killian’s quarters, Meryn sets aside her anger. When he offers her a moment to wash in private, she invites him to stay. It’s the first time they’ve been truly together since she learned who he really is.
Afterward, Killian apologizes for still having no concrete lead on Saela. Meryn doesn’t let it break her. She tells him that shutting down the Nabber operation matters because it means other families won’t suffer the same fate. Killian vows to keep digging, and Meryn holds onto that.
By the end of the night, something has settled in Meryn. She’ll use every tool at her disposal, royal connections, her own strength, whatever it takes, to bring her sister home.
Chapter 27
During training, Egith explains that the Strategos pack can access advanced tactical foresight but only through full mental alignment between wolf and rider. Since Anassa has put her walls back up, Meryn fakes her way through the session while everyone else experiences vivid battle simulations.
Things get more tense when Egith announces the Purge Trial, a lethal event where packs cut their weakest members. Meryn pushes back publicly on the morality of it, only to learn the answer that stops her cold. The direwolves created these trials, not the king.
On the terrace, Anassa calls Meryn a hypocrite. The rift between them started with Meryn’s own need for privacy during her time with Killian. Anassa also reveals she has known her mate’s identity for years but won’t share it until Meryn earns her respect. They strike a deal. Meryn lowers her emotional walls, and Anassa ensures they both survive the Purge.
That night, Meryn dreams of her mother in the arena, crown soaked in blood and eyes like empty voids, while a voice speaks of a summons from Nocturn. Meryn jolts awake to find herself standing in the arena’s central drainage hub, the exact spot from her dream.
Chapter 28
Running on no sleep, Meryn pushes through a grueling day of training. For a brief moment during a complex maneuver, she feels a genuine connection with her packmates, but violent hallucinations tear through it. She sees walls bleeding, hears whispers, loses her balance, and takes the entire formation down with her. Stark watches every second of it.
Egith doesn’t mince words afterward. The Purge Trial won’t forgive that kind of vulnerability, and if Meryn can’t hold it together, she’s out.
On the way back to her room, Meryn turns to Anassa for answers. The wolf confirms she can sense the visions but won’t intervene, suggesting they might mean something rather than just being noise. Anassa’s advice to her is to use their mental link to stay grounded and stop getting pulled into her own head. Meryn takes it in. She doesn’t fully understand what’s happening to her, but she knows what’s at stake. She has to get her mind under control, for both their sakes.
Chapter 29
The night before the Purge Trial, Meryn sits in the common lounge and looks around at her fellow recruits, fully aware that some of them won’t make it through tomorrow. The fear of dying with things left unsaid drives her to Killian’s quarters.
They tell each other the truth. They’re in love. Killian wants to make it official before the court, but Meryn keeps her focus on what’s coming. She makes him swear that if she doesn’t survive, he’ll find Saela. He gives his word, and they spend the night together.
Before dawn, Meryn jolts awake to screaming. Killian hears nothing. The realization settles over her like a cold weight. The hallucinations are getting worse, and she watched her mother fall apart the same way.
Chapter 30
When the king activates the trial with the Diren Blæd, the wolves begin cutting riders they deem unfit. Meryn and Anassa fall into a seamless link and move as one.
The pack baits Perielle’s overconfidence, and her own mount unseats her. Anassa delivers the killing blow, and both rider and wolf die from the psychic shock. Meryn understands then that the wolves have been directing the cull all along.
When the wolves turn on Nevah, Meryn, Izabel, and Tomison step in. Their defense forces the others back, and Nevah survives. Strategos loses three members by the end. Meryn and Killian share a brief look across the arena, unaware that Stark is watching from the royal balcony.
Chapter 31
That night, Stark visits Meryn to apply ink for her recent kills. He tells her the markings are memorials for the fallen, not honors of war, and it shifts something in how she sees him. The closeness of the process stirs an attraction she pushes down quickly.
The recruits are given a reprieve before the Forging Ball. Meryn rides Anassa back to her childhood neighborhood and sees it differently than before. The distance between who she was and what she has become feels wider with every street, and something sharpens in her. The crown treats commoners and Bonded alike as tools.
At her mother’s home, Meryn finds Killian has arranged for repairs. She stands at the door, dreading what she might find inside.
Chapter 32
Meryn finds her mother in unexpectedly good spirits, the house tidied and something baking. Anassa shocks Meryn by bowing to the older woman. Meryn’s mother tells her the clarity came back on its own weeks ago with no change to her medication. Meryn recommits to finding Saela, and her mother breaks down with an apology for everything she couldn’t give the family.
Igor brings bad news. The abductions have gotten worse despite what Meryn did against the Nabbers, and she makes a note to confront Killian about it. Before Meryn leaves, her mother gives her an ancient opal pendant to wear to the ball. The moment Meryn puts it on, it pulses with strange heat, and Anassa watches it with unsettling intensity.
Riding away, Meryn knows that place can never truly be her home again.
Chapter 33
Back at the castle, Meryn finds an emerald silk gown waiting in her room, takes it as a gift from Killian, and wears it to the ball with her mother’s opal pendant. A nobleman and his wife corner her and look her over with open contempt. Stark steps in, sends them retreating, and pulls Meryn into a dance.
During the dance, Stark notices the opal and tells Meryn quietly to look into the history of such stones before wearing one in public. When Killian arrives to cut in, Stark moves to block him. Meryn pushes Stark back and declares her loyalty to the Crown Prince loud enough for the room to hear.
Chapter 34
Meryn and Killian spend the rest of the evening dancing before he brings her to meet the king. King Cyril’s reaction to what she did during the Purge feels wrong in a way she cannot name, and she’s repulsed even as he gives his blessing to their relationship.
She tells Killian how disturbed she was. He opens up about his desire to dismantle the monarchy’s cruelty and the kingdom they could build together. They slip away to his quarters, and Meryn finds herself thinking his rule would be nothing like his father’s.
Chapter 35
After spending the night with Killian, Meryn returns to find the Strategos pack in mourning. Alpha Markos fell during an enemy raid while she had her connection to the pack deliberately cut off. Izabel and the others make clear they believe she chose her romance over her duties, and the pack goes cold on her for days. Anassa is no gentler.
Egith warns Meryn that Sovereign Alpha Siegrid, Stark’s mother, is coming to oversee the transition. She has a reputation for cutting anyone who threatens pack unity, and Meryn is already on thin ice. She repairs things with the twins by finally telling them the full story of her relationship with Killian.
A summons brings Meryn before Siegrid. Meryn expects a reprimand. Instead, she learns the direwolves have chosen Anassa as their new alpha, raising Meryn to the rank of Strategos Alpha.
Chapter 36
The promotion hits Meryn like a wave, ancestral wolf lore flooding through her link with Anassa all at once. She tries to push back, citing her inexperience and common birth, but Siegrid makes clear the wolves’ judgment isn’t up for debate.
Egith arrives, and her disappointment at being passed over is plain. On Anassa’s prompting, Meryn offers a compromise. Egith handles front-line operations, while Meryn stays to finish her training. Siegrid accepts.
When Meryn brings the news to her pack, the room erupts. Anassa silences it with a psychic command, and Meryn tells them the direwolves have spoken. Stark shuts down the remaining dissenters and tells Meryn to report for leadership training the next morning.
Chapter 37
Meryn arrives at Stark’s office at daybreak to find it doubles as a vast library and training room. He comes at her immediately, using the sparring to quiz her on military theory, pack hierarchy, and Siphon vulnerabilities, then loads her with a new curriculum that crowds out most of her regular duties.
Before Meryn leaves, a collection of ancient family texts catches her eye. Stark implies he would look the other way if she took one, and Anassa urges her to start digging.
That night, Meryn sleepwalks to the arena but stays lucid this time. Beneath the drainage grates, she finds a golden wolf-shaped object set with an iridescent stone. Footsteps approach before she can do anything with it, and she slips back into the shadows.
Chapter 38
During a joint training session, Jonah hits Meryn with his full Daemos magic and breaks her nose. Stark slams him against a wall and tells him that if he touches Meryn again, he will kill him himself.
Stark calls Meryn to his office. She expects a reprimand, but he offers to reset the break instead. Anassa approves. Meryn lets Stark do it, and once Anassa heals the wound, something shifts between Meryn and Stark that neither knows what to do with.Stark tells Meryn to stop deferring to Gamma Daegan and start using her rank. Meryn realizes she already understands the dynamic from years of running the neighborhood laundry. On her way out, she thanks him, and it catches them both off guard.