Aysel's POV Dariusz could only give me one line-just a single fragment of truth. Yet for someone who knew the history of the Moonvale Pack, that line carried claws enough to rend imagination. After all, everything began with Yuna's death. I knew he had once thought to investigate further, but time had dulled his strength, and Celestine Ward was always too wary. He feared that knowing too much might tip the scales in the wrong way. So he locked the words deep in his mind and never pursued them. It didn't matter. If Celestine carried guilt in her heart, that one line alone would be enough to make her tremble. Dariusz looked at me with eyes full of desperate hope. "Miss Vale, if her mother's death was truly orchestrated, this clue can free you from the shadow of taking a life. I don't ask for your mercy-but at least... make them pause." I clenched my fists, feeling the steel beneath my skin. My jaw set tight. The cold moonlight outside caught in my amber eyes as I said nothing for a long moment. Finally, I murmured, "Just... don't let him die," and turned away, leaving the room. Behind me, I heard Dariusz's stunned roar. But all I felt was the emptiness of a void stretching wider than the forests of Moonvale, a darkness swallowing my senses. In my memory, Yuna Ward had always been kind to me. Perhaps even more tender than she had been with her own daughter, Celestine. The day she died, she had spoken to me softly, her voice coaxing, almost hypnotic. I was only six, feverish from the storm and the trauma, and when I awoke, the details were already blurred-what had been real, what had been nightmare, I could no longer tell. The only certainty was the adults' unwavering condemnation. The verdict handed down with no hesitation. And above all, Yuna Ward had truly died. Not vanished, not unconscious. Dead. I can still feel the warmth of her blood spattered across my face, the sticky, visceral proof of life snatched away. Would any creature believe that someone who loved a child as fiercely as Yuna, a wolf-mother with her own daughter to protect, could design a child's fate with her own living body? Even I struggle to. The so-called accident had every mark of inevitability-witnesses, evidence, the bowing driver who confessed without hesitation. Not a single shadow of doubt remained. No one would suspect, had Dariusz not overheard Celestine's muttering. I carried the weight of those years of sin, only to realize it had been a trap, a life's path predestined by a beloved elder, a chessboard where I had been the pawn. How cruel, how absurd. There was no exhilaration in the truth, no liberation from shadow. Only numbness. I felt the world slip away, senses dulled, as if walking through dense fog beneath a blood-red moon. Then, a warm hand found mine. Skylar's presence anchored me, her wolfish strength radiating through the touch. She looked at me with eyes wide, worry brimming, sensing my hollowed state. This world is cruel, I thought. How can any creature be so relentless? Had I not resisted taming, had I not fought against submission, my life would have been nothing but a stepping stone, carefully laid by Yuna Ward for her daughter's designs.The matter needed investigation. Evidence, details-truth enough to clear the shadow that had haunted me for over a decade. Yuna Ward may have died, but she had set my life ablaze. But that was for another time. Now, I only wanted sleep. A deep, wolf-deep sleep. And in dreams, the chaos bled through: I heard, for the first time, Yuna Ward's last whisper as she was struck, dissolving in the wind: "I'm sorry..." I saw the fury of Alpha Remus and Luna Evelyn at my bedside, their growls sharp and accusing. Countless faces leered, twisted, unrecognizable, pointing claws at me. And beneath it all, the plaintive mewl of the orange cat, the one who had taken my place under the wheel, echoing in the storm.