~DARIAN'S POV~

The healers kept me in bed for hours before they finally left. The weakness remains, but I push through it.

The scent in the room is wrong. Bitter herbs. Clean linen. Blood that has already been wiped away.

I sit at the edge of the bed with my forearms on my knees and try to make sense of what just happened.

While the healers worked on me, the council argued somewhere beyond the door. I never heard every word. I heard enough.

The rejection ritual was supposed to require emotional openness. That was what the council always said.

Saria gave it. I know she did. For one brief moment before everything collapsed, she looked hopeful. She trusted the ceremony. She trusted me.

And it failed anyway.

If she had resisted, there would be an explanation. But she did not. So why does it feel as though something deeper is still holding on?

I drag a hand down my face and breathe through my nose.

It does not help.

Rejected bonds are supposed to break cleanly. Permanently. They cut both wolves loose before the damage can spread.

This one did not.

A dull ache keeps building under my ribs, not sharp enough to call pain, but deep enough to feel wrong. It is the kind of ache that tells me something inside me is breaking instead of healing.

My fingers are trembling when I look down at them.

That irritates me more than I want to admit.

A knock sounds at the open doorway.

Moon-seer Morvaelis stands there.

His face is tight with concern he is trying not to show.

"My Alpha," he says carefully, "the healers say your strength is returning."

I almost laugh.

It does not feel like strength. It feels like my body is pretending to recover while something underneath keeps tearing.

"I am fine," I say.

He does not believe me, and neither do I.

I stand before he can argue. The room tilts for a second, but I force it back into place.

"I want the records," I say.

His brows draw together. "The records, Alpha?"

"All of them. Rejected mate bonds. I want the archive opened."

He hesitates. "Tonight?"

"Yes."

My own voice sounds harder than I feel.

Morvaelis gives a short nod and leaves. That alone tells me the situation is worse than anyone wants to say. Elders do not move quickly unless they are afraid of what comes next.

Night Crown's records room sits beneath the council chamber, behind iron doors carved with old pack marks. It smells like dust, stone, and parchment that has been handled too many times by too many careful hands.

Morvaelis is already there. Two elders and the archive keeper sit around the central table as the remaining council members file in behind me. Scrolls lie open before them.

"Stand aside," I say.

The archive keeper rises at once and steps away from the table without a word. I take his place and pull the nearest scroll toward me.

Records of rejected mate bonds.

They should have answers.

The first records are old but complete. Names. Dates. Bloodlines. Ceremonies that ended in rejection and nothing more. A few mention sickness. A few mention grief. One or two mention a wolf going quiet for weeks afterward.

But every one of them ends the same way.

The bond severs.

The mate recovers.

The pack moves on.

I read page after page until the words start to blur.

There should be no mystery here. Yet my body still aches, and the bond still feels like it has not finished dying.

"Nothing in the records suggests a bond remains intact after rejection," Morvaelis says quietly behind me.

"That much is obvious," I mutter.

I keep reading.

At last I reach a record older than the rest. The parchment is rough beneath my fingers, its edges brittle with age, the ink faded in places. The writing is clear enough to make my stomach tighten.

It describes a rejected mate bond from generations ago.

Not the same as mine.

Not exactly.

But close enough to make the room feel colder.

The account says the rejection did not end quietly. The wolves soon showed unusual symptoms. Their scent changed. Their wolves grew unstable. Tension spread between their packs. Then came accusations. Then retaliation.

I stop.

"The two packs went to war," I say.

High Elder Nykaros draws in a slow breath. "Not at once."

I look up.

He steps closer and taps the lower half of the page. "There were months of unrest first. The pair both suffered. Some believed it was a curse. Others believed it was punishment."

My eyes return to the page.

The last lines are harder to read. Some have been scratched away, as if someone wanted the rest gone for good. There is enough left to show that the record was destroyed on purpose.

The missing lines hold my attention longer than the story itself. I read them again, wishing the missing words would return.

"Why erase it?" I ask.

No one answers at first.

That silence says enough.

I look up and find most of the elders watching me with the same concern I have seen too many times tonight. Not the concern given to a healthy Alpha. The concern given to a wolf standing too close to something dangerous.

"Because the outcome was disastrous," Morvaelis says at last. "Because they did not want younger packs to know it could happen again."

"That does not explain the missing pages."

"No," he says. "It does not."

I turn the page again, though there is nothing more to see. Just fragments. A warning about the damage a failed rejection can cause.

A note that certain marks began changing before the records were sealed away.

A line about bloodshed that feels too dramatic until I notice how still the room has gone.

Solmira speaks before I can ask the question already forming in my head.

"The council has discussed this already."

I do not look up.

"That does not surprise me."

"They believe Saria should be removed from the pack before matters worsen."

That gets my attention.

I lift my head slowly. "Removed?"

"Exile," Nykaros says.

The word lands hard.

"For her safety and the safety of the pack," he adds.

My jaw tightens.

For her safety.

The excuse sounds too smooth. Too ready. Too much like mercy that has been dressed up to hide fear.

"She was rejected in front of the entire pack," I say. "You think exile is the answer?"

Nykaros does not blink. "We think her scent may provoke instability."

"That is not a reason."

"It is enough for some."

The words hang between us.

I know what they are really saying.

They are frightened. Not just of Saria. Of me too. Of whatever is happening between us now that the ritual has failed.

The gray-silver mark on my chest gives a dull throb, as if it hears them.

I press a hand there before I think better of it.

The ache has not left me since the courtyard. It is worse now, deep in the bone, as though the rejection never finished settling. I can feel the skin there going strangely numb beneath my palm, then burning a second later.

I close my hand into a fist.

"Who first recorded this?" I ask.

The archive keeper coughs softly. "No one living would remember."

"Then find someone who does."

No one moves.

Their caution is immediate. They can see I am not interested in the comforting version of events, or ready to accept what they want to give me.

Law Elder Selvaron lowers his gaze first.

"My Alpha," he says carefully, "if the council acts, they will expect your approval."

The scratching of parchment stops. Even the torches seem to burn more quietly.

There it is. The part no one wants to say out loud.

They want me to exile her.

Or they want me to stop them from doing it and take the blame when the pack turns on both of us.

Both leave the same bitter taste.

I look down again at the damaged record. Rejected bond. Bloodshed. Unstable scent. A story from the past that should have stayed buried.

And yet the longer I stare at it, the more I feel something in me pull toward the one person I should be keeping away from.

Saria.

The thought of her hits my chest like a blade turned sideways.

My wolf shifts uneasily, but not with anger.

I remember the look on her face when the guards dragged her away. The way she kept staring at me even as everyone else stepped back from her.

I should have stopped them. Instead I stood there while they took her away.

The mark throbs again, and this time the numbness spreads farther.

I exhale through my mouth and force myself not to react.

Someone erased these records on purpose. Not to preserve history, but to bury it.

I do not know why.

But I know one thing for certain.

Whatever happened to Saria tonight did not end in that courtyard.

And whatever this bond is, it has only just begun to show its teeth.