The snow that night had not been white.
It had been red.
Not soft, powdery, or silent. It had fallen like ash—soot-dusted, metallic, and thick with the stench of iron and smoke. Magdalene Rivers—then only a girl with gold-touched curls and a name that meant everything—had crawled through blood in bare feet, the scent of death burned into her lungs before her innocence even had a chance to shatter.
She remembered the sound of it first.
Not screams. Not howls.
But bells.
They tolled from the north tower of Ravenglade Keep—her family's ancestral home. Bells that only rang for two reasons.
Coronation.
Or massacre.
It had been neither.
It had been betrayal.
Magdalene, twelve years old and barefoot in her nightgown, had followed the echo of those bells through corridors glazed with frost, her breath forming terrified clouds. Firelight flickered against the black stone walls. And shadows—so many shadows—had moved with purpose down the grand hall.
She hadn't known their names.
But she'd known the crest on their cloaks: three wolf fangs around a broken sun.
Vale.
Not House Vale itself—at least not openly. But Maddox's uncle, Malrick, and his war-hungry faction. Envious. Power-drunk. Waiting for the day House Rivers, the last Moon-Blessed bloodline, fell.
They didn't wait long enough.
They made it happen.
She remembered her mother first.
Queen Elira Rivers had been grace wrapped in fury. A priestess, a ruler, a wolf-bonded oracle whose visions bled between worlds. Magdalene found her at the altar, the moonstone crown split at her feet, her once-glorious white robes drenched in crimson.
"Hide," her mother whispered, blood bubbling at the edge of her mouth. "They'll come for you next."
"But—Mama—"
"Hide. Now."
And Magdalene had run.
Down into the undercellars. Past the crypts. Into the ancient wolves' tunnels her father once told her were for escaping the gods.
She never saw her mother's body again.
But she still dreamed of her eyes—open, unblinking, and full of the storm.
That night, everything that made her Magdalene Rivers was buried. Every coronation rite. Every vision-marked prayer. Every memory of dancing beneath the full moon on the palace balconies.
The wolves did not mourn her.
They erased her.
The story was rewritten within days.
House Rivers had been purged for treason. The bloodline extinct. Maddox's father had seized control, declaring martial rule under the pretext of divine sanction.
And Maddox… he had been away. At war. Fighting rebellions in the north.
He hadn't touched the blade.
But the throne had crowned him all the same.
Magdalene, hidden by loyalists and cloaked in magic, became Selene. A ghost. A whisper. A curse wrapped in skin. Raised in the south by survivors and seers, trained by shadow-priests to wield beauty as a blade and seduction as armor.
But not to forgive.
Never that.
And when the time was right, she returned to the capital not as a girl seeking justice—
—but as a woman come to burn it all down.
She jolted awake.
Her chest heaved. Her hands trembled.
But her face—ice. Blank. A mask sculpted from years of survival.
Beside her, Maddox stirred, the warmth of his body grounding her in the now.
"You were dreaming," he murmured.
"I was remembering," she corrected, voice flat.
He opened his eyes. Still golden. Still watching her like he'd always known her—even before he knew her.
"You never told me what they did," he said quietly.
"Would it have changed anything?"
"Yes."
She rose from the furs they'd laid near the ruins of the Echo Throne. The moon was high above them, a silver shard in the sky. They were in hiding now—Cassian had led them through the northern pass into the old ruins. A sanctuary for the moment.
Magdalene paced to the edge of the ruined arch, her arms wrapped tight around herself. "They came in the night. Killed everyone. My mother. My uncle. The wolfguard. Every soul loyal to House Rivers."
Maddox was silent.
"They wore your colors," she added. Her voice cracked—only slightly, but it was enough to betray her. "They screamed your name as they murdered my blood."
He stood. Walked to her.
"I wasn't there."
"I know."
"But you carry me like I was."
She didn't respond.
"I would have stopped it."
"You were just a boy," she whispered. "Like I was just a girl. But your name… your name sat on the tongue of every man who put a blade through my past."
His hand reached for hers. Tentative. Not claiming.
"I'm not asking for forgiveness," he said. "But I want you to understand something."
She glanced up. "What?"
He leaned close. His breath was warm against her skin. "You were the moon they tried to silence. And I… I was the wolf who never howled at it, because I didn't know it still existed."
Her breath caught.
"I would've died for you then," he added. "And I still would."
"You're a king," she whispered.
"I'd rather be your ruin."
And suddenly, the weight of the past pressed into her bones—but this time, she wasn't holding it alone.
Her bloodline was still gone.
But she wasn't.
And maybe… just maybe… neither was he.