QUICK LINKS: Chapter Summary 1–12 | 13–24 | 25–38 | 39–53
Chapter 54
Meryn comes to in a dungeon with Anassa beside her. A crimson band around the wolf’s neck has cut her off from the other Strategos, though her bond with Meryn holds. Anassa tends to her head wound.
Killian visits alone and gaslights Meryn, insisting the plot was a hallucination brought on by grief and the Trials. He blames her memory on inherited instability and frames her arrest as protection. He’s warm throughout, but Meryn catches one unguarded moment of cold calculation behind his eyes.
Once Killian’s gone, Meryn confronts Anassa about her long silence regarding her mate. Anassa admits she held back because of Meryn’s closeness to Killian, then explains that while the collar blocks the pack link, it cannot touch the bond she shares with her mate. Meryn tells her to use it, sending word through Anassa’s mate to Venna to recover the hidden crown and bring it to the cell. Anassa confirms the message has been sent.
Chapter 55
Stark and Cratos arrive at the dungeon. The moment the two direwolves reunite, Anassa’s barriers drop, and Meryn is hit by the full force of their mate bond. The attraction toward Stark is immediate and overwhelming, and she has to fight to keep it from showing.
When Stark hands her the ancient crown and she puts it on, she’s pulled into a vision of Nocturna as it once was, a unified kingdom where Bonded and commoners lived side by side. Queen Chiara Sturmfrost is nursing her daughter when Siphons stormed the palace. She passes the infant and the opal necklace to an attendant, then mounts her wolf to face the Siphon leader, Brightbane. He taunts her with the news that her husband and older children are already dead. The grief breaks her concentration, Brightbane kills her wolf, and the psychic shock takes Chiara with it.
Meryn surfaces with everything falling into place. The necklace is a royal heirloom passed down through her family, explaining the visions she and her mother have always had. Anassa was waiting for a Sturmfrost heir. Meryn asks Stark if she’s the true queen. He kneels and confirms it.
Chapter 56
Stark explains that a Siphon blood curse has blocked the Bonded from remembering or speaking of the Sturmfrost royalty for five centuries. His family kept the true history alive through hidden texts, and one of his ancestors hid Meryn’s royal forebear after the original coup.
He tells Meryn the rest. The private quarters, the grueling training, the gown at the Forging Ball, all protection. He also admits to killing the man who threatened her after her street fight. The resentment she saw in him was never real. He was bound by a curse that forced him to stay silent, while the true heir fell in love with a man descended from the people who stole her throne.
Meryn has already made up her mind. She sends Stark and Venna to retrieve the crown and free Saela and the other children while she handles Killian herself, playing along until she gets the truth. Stark tells her she’s the one who should be feared.
Chapter 57
Meryn fakes a mental breakdown to get the guards to take her to Killian’s quarters. She uses seduction to get him onto the bed, overpowers him, and takes the Diren Blæd.
Killian drops the act. He targeted Meryn from the start, her lineage always the goal. Her mother’s death was deliberate, meant to ensure Meryn inherited the family’s magical potential. An ancient presence surfaces in him, Alistair Brightbane, who has been using the royal bloodline as vessels for five centuries through transference sorcery. Killian became a Siphon at graduation, sustaining the ritual through Henrey’s body and the children beneath the castle.
Meryn moves to strike, but magical shadows pin her in place. Stark arrives with the direwolves, throws Killian back, and returns the crown to Meryn. Killian escapes into the shadows before she can finish it.
Stark notices the ruby in Meryn’s engagement bracelet swirling with darkness. When she tries to remove it, it tightens and holds. Anassa tells her it’s a Siphon-bound drain that lets Killian pull from her magic remotely, and it cannot be removed by ordinary means.
Chapter 58
Stark tells Meryn the children are out and Saela is safe in his office. Their reunion is emotional. Meryn tells her about their royal lineage, their mother’s fate, and the truth about their family’s suppressed magic. Saela is devastated but finds some comfort in Anassa, who lets her come close.
Anassa then reveals that the direwolves never created the brutal Bonding Trials. The monarchy fabricated them to keep the Bonded population small and prevent an uprising. Meryn has Anassa broadcast the truth to every Bonded in the castle. Several members of the Daemos pack pledge loyalty to her immediately.
The victory doesn’t last. Saela convulses and attacks Helene, killing her with her fangs. Killian turned her into a Siphon. Stark holds Meryn back from her sister. Shaken but resolute, Meryn vows to find a cure and hunt Killian down no matter where he runs.
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