QUICK LINKS: Chapter Summary 1–12 | 13–24 | 25–38 | 54–58
Chapter 39
For the first time, Meryn gets the better of Stark in training, sweeping his legs and pinning him. He concedes and ends the session.
Back in Meryn’s quarters, Killian tends to her injuries as usual. Once Anassa gives them privacy, they spend the night together for the first time in weeks. Afterward, Meryn asks about the arena’s layout. He brushes it off as drainage but admits the old castle holds secrets even he cannot access.
That admission settles something in Meryn. The king is keeping things from his own heir. She brings Venna in after Killian leaves, and Venna tells her she has already noticed suspicious staff activity and inexplicably locked doors. Before they can go further, an urgent letter arrives from Egith suggesting the military may have found the abducted children.
Chapter 40
A message from Egith about possible child sightings at the front sends Meryn straight into departure preparations. Stark refuses to let her go alone, Anassa sides with him, and Meryn has no choice. Meryn leaves a note for Killian, and they set out toward Linsfall.
Their direwolves cover the distance in a fraction of normal travel time, and they reach the city by nightfall despite a blizzard. In the town square, Meryn stops at a monument known as the Faceless Goddess and offers a quiet plea for guidance and her sister’s safety while Stark waits with little patience for it.
The storm has packed the inn, and they’re left sharing the only available room. Over their meal, Meryn notices Stark’s sharp reaction to a bard’s performance. The innkeeper tells her it’s a tribute to a battle where Stark held off a massive Siphon force alone and saved the city, a legacy he clearly has no interest in revisiting.
Chapter 41
Before they sleep, Stark notices the scarring on Meryn’s legs. His anger shifts to distress when she admits the injuries were self-inflicted.
They reach the Grunfall military camp by the following evening. It’s harsh and utilitarian, a world away from the palace, and Stark seems entirely at home in a way he never was there.
Egith briefs them. Scouts have tracked three children to a repurposed temple just across the Siphon border. Going through the mission files, Meryn comes across a portrait of the Siphon King, Lucien Brightbane, and feels an unsettling sense of recognition she cannot place. The mission is set for that night, timed to hit when enemy defenses are at their lowest.
Chapter 42
Under the cover of night, Meryn and Stark raid the temple. Stark cuts through the guards silently before any alarm can be raised. Inside, the team walks into a six-person ambush. Stark unleashes a level of Daemos magic Meryn has never seen from him, and he and Cratos tear through the attackers while Meryn fights her way through three of them herself.
The basement is empty. The cells are cleared out, though scattered toys and clothing make it clear the children were there recently. Someone tipped off the Siphons. The mission shifts from rescue to interrogation as Meryn turns to the one survivor they kept alive.
Chapter 43
Back at Grunfall, Meryn interrogates the captive. He claims to know nothing, but she pushes, using a poisoned blade to stop his supernatural healing. He stays defiant, and her frustration turns dark. The session becomes slow and brutal, and she feels hollowed out by the end.
At dawn, Stark comes to apply the tattoos marking Meryn’s first Siphon kills. Meryn admits she’s troubled by how far she went the night before. Stark tells her war pushes people into things they regret and urges her to focus on what she came for. The closeness of the tattooing pulls something taut between them until Egith arrives to prepare them for the return journey.
Chapter 44
Back in Sturmfrost, Meryn finds her childhood home empty. Igor tells her that her mother suffered a relapse and was killed in a confrontation with city guards. The guilt hits hard, and she goes to Killian, who tells her it couldn’t have been helped and has already begun funeral arrangements.
In that grief, Killian proposes. He says he had Meryn’s mother’s blessing and promises they’ll find Saela and change how the kingdom is run together. Anassa warns her she’s too broken to think clearly, but Meryn shuts her out and says yes. Killian slides an ornate gold and ruby bracelet onto her wrist, and the dark shadows that have haunted her vision finally fade.
Chapter 45
Killian handles the funeral arrangements and secures a plot in an exclusive cemetery. At the service, Meryn finds the entire Strategos pack there. Stark told them himself to make sure she had their support.
Afterward, Meryn and Killian go to her childhood home to collect her mother’s things. Alone in the bedroom, Meryn finds a hidden stash of journals filled with repetitive sketches of a wolf-themed crown and cryptic names from her mother’s old ramblings. Anassa tells her urgently to hide them before Killian sees. Meryn tucks them away, though something about his presence unsettles her.
That evening, Meryn pushes Anassa for answers. The wolf nudges her toward Stark’s private library, and Meryn takes the journals and goes to his office to start looking.
Chapter 46
In the dead of night, Meryn slips into Stark’s office and finds an ancient handwritten volume describing a matrilineal dynasty of Bonded warrior queens who ruled Nocturna for centuries, directly contradicting the official history crediting King Cyril’s line.
The illustrations match the crown Meryn’s mother drew obsessively, and she recognizes it from a carving in a servant’s passage. The pieces click into place. The metal object she spotted in the arena drain during her sleepwalking episodes is the lost Sturmfrost crown.
Stark catches Meryn with the book and tells her nothing, deflecting with a mention of her engagement and a vague warning. Anassa shuts her down in almost the same words. The shared secrecy stings, and Meryn takes the book and walks out more determined than ever.
Chapter 47
Izabel reacts to the engagement with unbridled enthusiasm and pulls together an informal celebration. That evening, Meryn joins the twins, Tomison, and Nevah in the kitchens to share wine and bake. Nevah opens up about the partner she lost in the early trials and says the pack’s support during the Purge Trial gave her a reason to keep going. They burn the cake but eat the middle anyway.
Once the others leave, Venna updates Meryn on her investigation into the king. No hard evidence yet, but Venna is certain something is being hidden. The final trial is three days away. Meryn tells her to keep looking.
Chapter 48
At breakfast, Jonah makes a public threat about those without noble blood, making his intentions for the simulation plain.
In the arena, each pack is assigned a role from offense and defense to intelligence gathering, with Meryn overseeing everything as Alpha. When the trial begins, she finds herself connected to her packmates in a way she never has before, processing a flood of sensory information at once. Her street-fighting instincts let her see through a distraction on the eastern side and anticipate a major push from the north.
The northern advance isn’t tactical. It’s personal. Jonah’s wolf goes straight for Henrey, the only other commoner, with clear intent to kill. It brings down Henrey’s mount, the bond between Henrey and his wolf shatters from the psychic shock, and the wolf turns on him.
Chapter 49
Meryn sees no way to save Henrey. She orders her pack to hold and goes to him herself. When he gives her a silent plea, she ends it quickly. The direwolf dies in the same instant, its life severed by the broken bond.
The Strategos pack holds and wins against Daemos. The survivors are told they’ll graduate the following day. As the arena clears, Meryn notices Henrey’s remains being carried toward a reinforced door on the perimeter rather than the main exit, disappearing down a staircase into the basement level where she believes the crown is hidden.
Chapter 50
After the Trial, Meryn asks Venna to look into whatever is beneath the arena and to find out what happened to Henrey’s remains. Later, Killian surprises her by stepping out of her wardrobe while she’s alone in her quarters. They don’t get long to themselves before Izabel interrupts and pulls them both into the graduation celebrations in the common lounge.
At the party, Stark insists Meryn receive a commemorative tattoo for her recent kill. To avoid his hands on her, Meryn has Gamma Elinor do it instead, the new ink completing the pattern that circles her neck.
Meryn goes back to her room to be with Killian, but late in the night, Venna wakes her, anxious and urgent, and tells her she needs to come see something.
Chapter 51
Venna leads Meryn through a disorienting maze of tunnels beneath the castle to a pristine marble hallway lined with ornate holding cells. Dozens of children are kept inside, well-fed but pale from months without sunlight. Meryn is shocked to find Saela among them.
Through the bars, Saela tells Meryn that she was never taken from the city. Her kidnappers handed her straight to the royal guards, and she has been locked below the castle for four months. Saela says that the king comes periodically to choose certain children, and those children never come back. She has been passed over six times, but she’s certain her luck is running out.
The guard rotation gives Meryn no time. She promises Saela she’ll come back with help and leaves. Anassa warns Meryn to stay quiet about what she has found, but Meryn cuts her off and goes straight to Killian, the one person she trusts most.
Chapter 52
Meryn wakes Killian and tells him everything. Saela is alive, locked beneath the castle alongside dozens of other children caught up in whatever the king has been selecting them for.
They plan to move during the graduation ceremony. Meryn will go for the king during the royal benediction, while Killian uses his authority to pull the children out. By the next day, the crown changes hands.
At the arena, the seventy-six surviving Rawbonds gather for their promotion. King Cyril takes over, makes clear he’s unhappy with the survival rate, and without warning, calls for a final unscripted skirmish, ordering the packs to cut anyone they deem unfit.
Across the arena, Killian finds Meryn in the crowd. His face is pure terror. The king brings his sword down against the dais, and the violence begins.
Chapter 53
When the king raises the Diren Blæd, the direwolves are driven into a bloodlust. Meryn breaks the compulsion through the pack bond and directs her allies into a defensive formation, telling them to hide the coordination.
Meryn moves her pack toward the royal dais under the appearance of a retreat. She and Anassa vault onto the platform. Meryn disarms the king, and the moment the wolf-pommel blade is in her hands, a rush of primal energy floods through her. She kills him in Saela’s name.
Turning to Killian, Meryn expects the next part of the plan. Instead, he betrays her, accusing her of regicide in front of everyone and ordering the guards to take her. A projectile brings Anassa down. Meryn catches a flicker of triumph on Killian’s face before something strikes her from behind, and everything goes dark.