The peace held for nearly a year — long enough that Jasmine began to trust it, long enough that the twins grew from watchful infants into curious, opinionated toddlers who filled the fortress halls with noise Liora pretended to find intolerable and clearly adored. Jasmine had allowed herself, in that year, to believe that the worst of her story might finally, truly be behind her.

It was Corin who first noticed the pattern in the reports trickling in from the pack's outer territories — livestock found drained rather than killed, wells running strange and bitter in villages that had never before reported such things, a low, persistent unease rippling through...