The silence after battle was never quiet.
It hummed.
Stone dust drifted through the shattered council chamber like gray snow, settling on broken banners and fallen bodies. The air tasted sharp, metallic, alive with magic that had not yet decided where to rest.
Aria stood at the center of it all, breathing slowly, deliberately, as if each inhale anchored her to the ground beneath her feet.
They were still kneeling.
Elders. Alphas. Wolves who had once looked through her as if she were mist.
None of them dared rise.
The shattered crown lay scattered at her feet, its ancient authority reduced to glittering fragments. And yet the power it had tried to contain now coiled comfortably inside her chest, warm and steady, like a fire that finally recognized its hearth.
Damien watched her from a step away.
Not as a shield.
Not as a commander.
As something closer. Something dangerous in a different way.
