Aysel's POV A murmur swept through the grand hall of Moonvale Citadel-half awe, half fear. None dared speak too loudly under the weight of the Shadowbane Alpha's gaze. Magnus stood beside me like a storm barely contained. Every motion-the way he served me wine, brushed his fingers across my wrist, adjusted the cloak around my shoulders-felt both reverent and possessive. He didn't need words. His presence alone told the entire court what they had refused to see: the cast-out daughter of Moonvale now stood beneath his protection. I could smell it-the shift in the air, the mingling of shock and submission. Every wolf who once pitied or scorned me now bowed their heads. At first, some of the younger Alphas laughed nervously, thinking it a jest, a gesture of flattery. Others whispered of politics, of alliances. But the way Magnus looked at me-like I was his equal, his chosen-silenced even the most arrogant of them. He was the storm made flesh, and I was the calm within it. Once, they mocked me. Aysel Vale-the daughter who was betrayed by her own blood, replaced by her sister in the mating vows. A ghost in her own pack. But when Magnus poured my wine before the nobles and called me his little wolf, the air itself seemed to tremble. I saw it in their faces: the moment they realized I would never be small again. The whispers reached me like the rustle of dead leaves. Even Damon Blackwood, the Alpha who once promised me eternity, had gone pale. His knuckles whitened around his cup. He couldn't meet my gaze. Once he had called me his Luna-now he looked like prey cornered by a predator far beyond his reach. In our world, nothing burned worse than losing what you once owned to someone stronger. I let him look. Let him choke on his regret. The fireworks outside bled color across the marble floor. Magnus had lit them for me-each burst spelling my name across the sky. My reflection shimmered in his glass, gold eyes glowing beneath the light. Once they called my gaze "tainted." Now those same eyes made kings flinch. At the head of the table, my father sat stiff and pale, jaw clenched so tightly I could almost hear his teeth grind. He could smell it too-the danger thickening in the air. To see the Shadowbane Alpha seated beside his forgotten daughter was to watch a wolf god feast among mortals. Then Magnus spoke, voice low and deceptively mild. "I heard the Moonvale Pack gathered to honor its true-born daughter's birthday," he said, the words rolling like thunder wrapped in silk. "And yet... I see no mother, no brother. Tell me, Alpha Remus-does the Vale bloodline no longer value kinship?" The hall went deathly still. My father's face darkened. "Lord Magnus jests," he said stiffly. "The Moonvale household remains united. My Luna simply had... matters to attend." Magnus leaned back, fingers tapping the armrest, his gaze sliding to me as if asking whether he should believe such a lie. I met his eyes and tilted my head. "I wouldn't know," I said lightly, spooning a piece of cake. "Perhaps the Moonvale Pack prefers empty seats to awkward faces." My voice was calm, but the energy in the hall crackled. I could feel their shock, their unease. For the first time in my life, they didn't see a disgraced daughter-they saw a wolf who could bite. Whispers rippled again, sharper now, cutting like knives. "I heard young Lykos hasn't been seen since the fireworks began." "And didn't someone say he was with Knox Draven?" "Draven? That rogue pup? Then where was Celestine?" "Upstairs, perhaps. The scent trails mingled. Moon save us." I said nothing. I didn't need to. The chaos had already begun. Magnus let it build until the shame in the room was heavy enough to suffocate. Then, with that same terrible calm, he said, "Then I see why the Moonvale Alpha would rather light fireworks for a stranger than look upon his own blood." The silence that followed could have cut bone. My father's hands trembled. The weight of truth pressed down on him like iron. I looked up at Magnus and smiled faintly. "It's all right," I murmured, though my voice carried through the hall. "I'm used to being the forgotten one." His eyes softened. But when he spoke, his tone was still that of a god passing judgment. "Not anymore," he said. Outside, the last firework faded into ash. The sigil of Shadowbane-a silver wolf crowned in flame-flared against the clouds, sealing a promise between us that the world would soon remember.