Chapter 28
Jul 18, 2025
The crowd stretched farther than my eyes could follow.
Fifty thousand wolves. More. Packed into the Great Plaza, shoulder to shoulder, their faces turned toward the marble platform where banners snapped in the wind—deep crimson, silver-stitched, bearing the sigil of the new moon.
One year.
Three hundred and sixty-five days since the Virgin Games died in blood and fire.
My fingers tightened around the edge of the podium. The wind tugged at my braid. I did not reach for the magical amplifier—they deserved to hear my voice as it was. Raw. Unfiltered. Mortal.
“We gather not to celebrate a victory,” I said, “but to honor the fallen.”
A hush dropped over the world.
Even the wind stilled.
“Alira of House Corvain,” I continued. “Dead at seventeen. Drowned in the lake for refusing her Alpha’s claim.”
My voice cracked. I let it.
“My mother, Catherine Fowler. Murdered for carrying Luna blood… and daring to use it.”
I inhaled through my teeth and let the names spill from my lips. Dozens. Some I’d never met. Some I’d fought beside. Luna Brides who had screamed in silence—who had bled beneath silk and gold, who were sacrificed so we could stand here now.
“They died believing their daughters might live free,” I said. “Today… we prove them right.”
The eruption of sound stole the air from my lungs.
Roars. Howls. Cheers that cracked against the stone like thunder. The plaza trembled beneath the weight of it all, and I let the waves crash over me—grief and joy and something else.
Rebirth.
Behind me, the new sanctuary gleamed.
White marble. Silver etched names carved across the walls in looping moon-script. No more cells. No more drowning pools. This was no palace. No fortress. It was a place for healing.
Above its doors, moonlight blazed a single vow into the stone: The House of Ash and Silver.
I turned back to the people. “This sanctuary will shelter any she-wolf who chooses freedom over submission. Its doors will never close. Its fires will never die.”
Movement stirred at my side.
Hector stepped forward in formal black, gold-threaded sleeves brushing against his wrists. His presence was thunderous without speaking a word. But it wasn’t just him.
In his arms was our daughter.
Swaddled in pale silk, a soft lace bonnet over her ink-dark hair. Her fists stretched upward as if greeting the crowd—tiny and defiant already.
My throat closed.
Tears burned behind my eyes.
She was proof of what we’d made—not just destruction… but future.
The cheering quieted again when a voice called from the front.
An older woman, wrapped in ceremonial gray, her silver braid long enough to touch her belt. “What of leadership, Matriarch? Who will guide us forward?”
I glanced down at the crown beside me.
Not the lunar glass crown that shattered during the revolt. That had burned with the old world.
This one was forged from silver and wolf-gold, shaped not like a halo—but a circle of thorn and moon. Its edges bore no sigils of obedience, only freedom.
I picked it up, held it to the sky.
“Leadership was never about crowns,” I said. “It was about courage. To stand when others kneel. To choose pain if it meant freedom.”
The crowd moved again.
But this time… they knelt.
Not in submission.
In respect.
Wolves from all territories. Old, young. Dominants and Omegas. They bowed in a sweeping wave—an ocean of acknowledgment for what had been survived, what had been shattered, what had been rebuilt from ash.
“Rise,” I commanded, voice hard with fire.
They did. Every last one of them.
“This crown was never the goal,” I said. “Choice was. Power was. And now… it’s yours.”
I didn’t place the crown on my own head.
Instead, I stepped down from the platform and into the sea of people. They parted, quiet now, reverent. I walked with the crown in hand, its weight growing with every step.
Until I reached the sanctuary steps.
She stood there. Waiting.
Fifteen? Maybe sixteen. Thin as a sapling, burn scars stretching across her jaw and arms. Her tunic was torn, soot-stained. Her hair smelled of smoke and salt.
But her eyes—
Her eyes held the storm of every Luna before her.
I stopped in front of her.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Kira,” she rasped. “Kira Ashborn.”
