The coronation itself was held not in the Hall of Ash, but back at Liora's fortress — a deliberate choice, the Council conceded, honoring the place where Jasmine had actually built the life now being formally recognized, rather than the mountain where she'd merely been tested for it. Word had gone out weeks in advance, and by the appointed evening the fortress grounds overflowed with banners and travelers in numbers the ancient walls hadn't seen since Liora's own coronation, centuries past.

The great hall overflowed with representatives from every bloodline that had touched her story — Blood Moon pack members who remembered her as the discarded breeder now standing to...