Chapter 60: Chapter 60: Nightthorn Attacks!
Calder stared at me. His mouth opened, closed. He looked at the kings behind me, at the twins in the cradle, at Lila watching him without blinking. Then he sat down.
No one else spoke against it.
The hall stayed silent for a long moment. Then a woman in the back row stood up. She had trained with me in the yard for weeks. Her voice carried clear. "I stand with the queen."
Another voice joined. Then another. The sound grew until the entire hall was on its feet, the pack’s voices rising together in a single, steady wave.
I nodded once. The support settled in my chest like a new kind of armor. Garrick closed the ledger. Council moved on to patrol routes and spring planting. Voices stayed low. Eyes stayed on me. When it ended, the pack filed out with a different kind of quiet. Not fear. Not doubt. Something closer to resolve.
I stayed behind with the kings. The children fussed in the cradle. Thorne wanted to be held. Elara wanted to chew on everything. I picked them both up while Lila climbed onto Darius’s shoulders. The bond settled around us, warm and solid.
That night the chambers felt smaller with all of us inside. The children slept early, exhausted from the day, their small bodies tangled together in the big bed. I stood by the window for a long moment, looking out at the dark ridges, before turning to the kings.
Darius crossed the space first, his hands sliding under my tunic, palms flat against my skin. Kane came in from the side, scarred fingers tracing the line of my spine. Rylan pressed against my back, mouth on my neck, teeth grazing the spot that always made my breath catch.
We moved together without words, the bond flaring hot and bright between us. Clothes came off in a rush. Hands found skin. The four of us fell onto the furs, desperate for each other after the day’s tension.
Darius took my mouth while Kane’s hands mapped every inch of me.
Rylan’s teeth found the spot on my shoulder that always made me gasp. We moved in the rhythm we had learned through blood and war and birth, but tonight it felt different. Deeper. Like the argument from the night before had stripped away the last careful distance we kept between us.
It was raw. It was fierce. It was the kind of intimacy that came after too many nights of holding back fear. When it was over we stayed tangled on the furs, breathing hard, skin slick. I lay between them, heart still racing, the bond humming steady and warm in my chest.
Darius brushed damp hair from my forehead. "We hear you," he said quietly. "We will stand with you. Not over you."
Kane pressed a kiss to my shoulder. "But we will not pretend the east is not coming. We protect what is ours. That includes you."
Rylan’s hand rested low on my stomach. "And we fight beside you. Not behind you."
I closed my eyes and let their words settle. The keep was quiet outside the chamber door. The ridges lay dark beyond the windows. The east would push again, but tonight the four of us had drawn our own line.
I felt the bond settle deeper, stronger than it had been since the night I returned from Shadowpine. The children slept safe between us. The keep held. The wall I held inside myself was still standing.
The Nightthorn Triad would learn that this keep did not yield to anyone who reached for what was ours.
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The alarm bell tore through the keep at first light. I was already dressed and strapping on my blade when the runner burst into the chambers, breathing hard. "Nightthorn hit the southern village," he gasped. "They came in the dark. Torches and steel. The barns are burning."
I didn’t wait for the kings to finish pulling on their cloaks. I grabbed my cloak and headed for the stables. Darius caught up first, ice-blue eyes sharp in the gray dawn. Kane fell in on my left, knife already in his hand. Rylan took the rear, axe across his back. We rode out with twenty of our best, the horses’ hooves drumming on the frozen ground.
The village came into view over the last rise, smoke rising thick and black from the barns. Flames licked the thatch roofs. Bodies lay scattered in the mud. I counted at least twelve before we even reached the edge. Nightthorn warriors moved between the houses, torches in one hand, blades in the other. They were not here to raid supplies. They were here to destroy.
I drew my sword and kicked my mare forward. "With me," I called. The kings stayed tight at my sides as we charged down the slope.
The fight hit us like a wall. A Nightthorn warrior lunged at me from the side of a burning barn. I parried and drove my blade through his shoulder, twisting as I pulled free.
Darius cut down the man who came at him from the left, his sword moving with cold precision. Kane slipped between two attackers, knife flashing in short, lethal arcs. Rylan’s axe sang through the air, splitting a shield and the man behind it in one swing.
I pushed deeper into the village, the heat from the fires scorching my face. A woman screamed from inside a house as two warriors dragged her out by her hair. I rode straight at them, blade swinging low. One went down with a cut across the back of his knees. The other turned on me and I took his throat before he could raise his sword.
The bond between the four of us burned hot and steady, feeding me their focus, their rage, their determination to end this fast. I felt every strike they made as if it were my own. The Nightthorn warriors fought hard, but they were not prepared for us to hit back so quickly.
We cleared the center of the village in minutes. Bodies littered the ground. The surviving attackers broke and ran toward the tree line. I wheeled my mare and pursued the last group, the kings right behind me. One man lagged, a satchel slung across his chest. I rode him down and knocked him from his horse with the flat of my blade. He hit the ground hard, rolling in the mud.
Kane was off his horse before the man could rise. He pinned him with a knee on his chest and ripped the satchel free. Inside was a sealed scroll and a small iron box. Rylan dismounted and stood over the man, axe raised.
"Talk," I said, sliding from my saddle. "Or die here."
The man spat blood and glared up at me. "Vespera sends her demand. Your children. Alive. Their blood carries the broken curse. She will remake it into a weapon that will let her rule every kingdom from the western sea to the frozen north. Refuse, and we burn every village until you have nothing left to rule."
Darius took the scroll from Kane and broke the seal. His eyes scanned the words, jaw tightening. He handed it to me without a word. The message was short and clear. Vespera’s personal seal pressed into the wax at the bottom. She wanted the twins. She wanted them delivered to her camp within thirty days or she would start burning the outer farms one by one.
I looked at the man on the ground. "Tell her this. We do not deliver what is ours. If she wants my children, she will have to come and take them herself. And when she does, she will find every wolf in the North waiting for her."
Rylan’s axe came down. The man stopped moving.
We gathered the surviving villagers, helped put out the last fires, and loaded the dead onto horses for the ride back. The journey home was silent except for the creak of saddles and the soft crackle of the few torches we carried. My cloak smelled of smoke and blood. My arm ached from the fight. But the bond between the four of us felt stronger than it had in weeks.
We reached the gates as the sun climbed higher. Garrick met us in the bailey, his face grim as he saw the bodies we carried. The pack gathered quickly, eyes on the scroll I held in my hand.
I stood in the center of the bailey and read Vespera’s demand aloud. The words echoed off the stone walls. When I finished, the pack stayed quiet for a long moment. Then a woman stepped forward, the same one who had trained with me in the yard for weeks. She looked at the twins in the sling I had strapped on before we left and then at me.
"They will not take them," she said. "Not while we stand."
The rest of the pack echoed her words, voices rising until the bailey rang with them. I looked at the kings. Darius gave me a short nod. Kane’s hand rested on his knife. Rylan’s grin was small and sharp.
I turned back to the pack.
"Then we make sure they never get the chance," I said. "We train harder. We watch every road. We strike before they can burn another village. The Nightthorn Triad wants a war. We will give them one they cannot win."
The pack cheered this time, the sound raw and fierce. I stood there with the children warm against me and the kings at my back and felt the keep shift beneath my feet. The wall I held inside myself was still standing.
And the Nightthorn Triad was about to learn exactly how strong it was.
