Chapter 95

Arianna didn't sleep that night. She spent the hours before dawn walking through Ravenwood's compound, observing her wolves in the quiet moments before the world woke—guards changing shifts, bakers preparing morning bread, healers tending wolves who couldn't sleep.

Normal life continuing despite the war she was leading.

By sunrise, she'd made her decision.

The council reconvened to find Arianna standing at the head of the chamber, looking more exhausted than they'd ever seen her but also somehow resolved.

"I'm not authorizing the assassination mission," she announced without preamble. "Not because targeted strikes are morally wrong—we've been conducting offensive operations for months. But because this particular mission has such...