I’m desperate. You can’t let some fool take a throne our brothers and sisters died to topple. Abergenny can't have another emperor. We’ve lost too much. You’ve lost too much. I’ll be there in just over a moon. I’ll take over. But he cannot be allowed to live. It’s the only way to stop this madness.
Nero let the parchment drop to the dirt. He knew what Eryken wanted. What it meant. What that bow was for.
To kill a boy. A boy whose only crime was being born.
He stared at the bricks in the corner. He'd vowed he was done, but his legs moved almost unbidden and he walked towards them.
He didn’t want to open it a second time. Wanted less to use his bow and arrows, but if the boy truly bore the mark—Nero might be the only one who knew how to kill a king.
Chapter Two
The collar chafed againstCasteel's neck, its metal edges digging into tender skin rubbed raw over the past two lunar cycles. Casteel kept his eyes lowered as the priests led him through the marble corridors, their sandaled feet slapping against the polished floor in perfect rhythm. The sound echoed in his skull like a death knell.
"Head up," hissed a guard, yanking on the chain. "You are a blessing to these people. Act like it."
Casteel wanted to laugh. A blessing. As if being dragged from the stables where he'd lived contentedly among animals had been some divine favor. As if the weeks of "preparation" that followed had been anything but torture.
Torture that had broken him.
Sunlight slashed through the high windows, illuminating the dust motes that swirled in their passage. Just beyond those walls, he could hear them—thousands of people gathered in the courtyard, their excited murmurs rising like the buzzing ofinsects. All of them waiting to see the miracle. The prophesied one. The Silver Wolf.
"Remember what happens if you fail us today," High Priest Doran whispered, his breath hot against Casteel's ear. "The people need their savior. You will shift. You will display your mark. Or tonight's session will make the previous ones seem like gentle caresses."
Casteel's back burned at the memory—the lash, the brands, the strange herbs they'd forced down his throat that made his blood feel like liquid fire. All to make him shift again. All to make him become what they needed.
"I can't," he said, the words barely audible. "Not since that first time."
Doran's face twisted with contempt. "You will. Or we'll find someone who can."
The threat hung between them. Casteel knew what it meant. They'd find someone else to torture. Someone else to break. His failure would simply condemn another. Guilt swirled in his insides sickly.
Two palace guards pulled open the heavy oak doors that led to the balcony. The roar of the crowd hit him like a physical blow. Casteel stumbled, only to be roughly hauled forward by the chain.
"Smile," Father Enoch commanded through clenched teeth, his own face a rictus of false benevolence as they emerged into the sunlight as he quickly removed the collar before it was seen, then arranged Casteel's robes so no one would see the mark.
The crowd erupted at the sight of him. Faces—thousands of them—turned upward, eyes hungry, hands reaching as if to touch a piece of divinity. Casteel fought the urge to recoil.
"Citizens of Abergenny!" Doran’s voice boomed across the courtyard. "Behold your hope! The Silver Wolf has returned to us in our desperate time!"
Casteel's gaze swept over the sea of faces. Some wept openly. Others looked skeptical. Many bore crude marks on their foreheads—desperate attempts to mimic the crown-shaped birthmark that would supposedly match his own when in wolf form. The animal that had appeared only once, that first terrifying day when his body had betrayed him, transforming before the farmhands and the guards.
"The time has come," Doran announced, his hand gripping Casteel's shoulder with bruising force. "Today, we seek the one who bears the matching mark—the one destined to complete our savior's power!"
The crowd roared again. Casteel's vision swam. The sun was too bright, the noise too much after weeks in the darkness of the preparation chambers.
Casteel closed his eyes, trying to summon the wolf within, even if only to save another from this torture. He'd done it once before, unwittingly, when startled by a snake in the hay. The shift had been effortless then—a ripple of energy, a moment of disorientation, and suddenly he'd been standing on four paws, his senses heightened, his body light and powerful.
Andfamiliar.As if the wolf had been in him all his life.
Now, nothing happened. His body remained stubbornly human, despite the commands, despite the expectant silence that had fallen over the crowd. Despite the growing pressure of Father Enoch's fingers digging into his flesh.
Casteel tried again, desperately searching for that elusive thread of magic that had transformed him before. He thought of the pain that awaited him if he failed—the dark room, the smell of burning herbs, and worse the smell of his own burning flesh. The priests' disappointment morphing into cruel determination. He thought of the innocent who would take his place if he couldn't perform.
Still nothing.
"And now we search for the Silver Wolf's mate. Come forward and receive your blessing."
The announcement seemed to spur everyone, their excitement building once more. But Casteel felt the subtle shift in the priests' demeanor, the tension in their bodies.
