Briar.
My sister’s eyes filled with magical light, a shimmering, vicious green. Briar’s expression was utterly vacant as she lifted her hand out to Sawyn.
A scream tore through my chest and I unsheathed my dagger, blindly running. Grae charged forward by my side. Sawyn looked over her shoulder, her thin brow arching into a peak. With a flick of her hand as if shooing a fly, we flew across the room. My stomach lurched. That iridescent magic circled my legs and wrists, slamming me into the unyielding stone wall and pinning me there. I thrashed against her bindings, but they did not budge.
Sawyn let out a throaty laugh. Her voice was elegant and deep, like the woody notes of a lute. “Ah, Prince Grae, I wondered where you’d scuttled off to. Such a heroic entrance, you should take notes, Nero.” She darted a glare between me and where the King hid behind his throne. “Even your servant has more spine than you.”
Servant. She didn’t know I was a Wolf, let alone the child of her sworn enemies. Her ghostly eyes scanned me from the muddied hem of my plain brown tunic to the amber stone hanging from my neck. “A protection stone.” Her eyebrows lifted in amusement. “We shall see.”
She turned her attention back to Briar, whose hand froze in midair, waiting for Sawyn to return. Desperately flailing, I tried to break my restraints as I bellowed my voiceless screams. Whatever magic held me to the wall had silenced me. The harder I strained, the more my eyes blackened.
I darted pleading glances around the room to the pack, but not a single one moved.
Cowards! I wanted to scream. If they all charged forward at once, they could overtake her. Her magic couldn’t keep them all at bay. Would they have fought if it was their king standing before the sorceress instead of my sister? But Briar wasn’t their leader, only a token, a symbol—and not even that, anymore, was she? Regardless, a symbol wasn’t worth dying for. I thrashed against my magical bindings. Why wasn’t the King giving orders? Why wasn’t he even trying to save her?
In that moment, I wondered if my father had felt the same way before he died. It was like a strange familiarity of a memory that wasn’t my own. We’d lived this moment before—Sawyn striking down the Gold Wolf line, and the other Wolf packs doing nothing to stop it. King Nero had been there the night of my birth. Had he cowered behind his throne then, too? I was certain I knew the answer. It highlighted all the lies he told, the facade of a life he built. Welcoming his new Gold Wolf daughter was nothing more than show. Once again, the Silver Wolves would not lift a finger to help my pack.
Sawyn ignored my voiceless screams as she took Briar’s hand and flipped her palm up. With one long, sharpened fingernail, she traced a symbol on Briar’s palm.
“Tell me,” Sawyn purred. “Who is your one true love?”
Without looking, Briar lifted her free hand and pointed into the darkness.
“Ha! Come.” The sorceress laughed as Maez walked forward, her eyes filled with that same hypnotic glow. “So not your prince, after all.” She grinned up at the empty throne and the king behind it. “I suppose my magic was wrong, Nero. I thought a Marriel princess was the mate of your son . . .” She sneered over her shoulder at Grae, who remained pinned to the stone beside me. She didn’t even bother to look back at me—the Marriel princess who was his fated mate.
“All the better for me.” Sawyn snickered. With a flick of her hand, the throne toppled over, revealing more of King Nero’s hunched figure. “You will never have a claim on Olmdere, Nero. Your lust for gold has made you too brash, but you’re nothing more than a weak, pathetic little puppy. Who was the last Wolf king who actually deserved his throne? I bet we’ve lost his name to time. This little Gold Wolf will serve as a reminder of who the true power on the continent is. If you do not wish to befall the same fate as her, you will stay out of my kingdom.”
With that promise, she pricked her fingernail into Briar’s finger and held up a single droplet of blood. Casting her glowing eyes to Briar, she commanded “Sleep, ” and Briar dropped like a stone.
My voice shredded as I watched my sister fall, blood vessels bursting in my eyes, and yet no one heard and no one saw.
Once again, I was just my sister’s shadow.
“I will be taking your niece with me,” Sawyn declared, grabbing Maez by the upper arm. “Just in case you get any ideas about breaking this curse.” Spots clouded my vision as the tendrils of magic retracted. “All that you have, Nero, is because I allow it. Remember that.”