"Luna?"

Guard Miller stepped from the shadowed corridor, one hand resting on his radio. "You shouldn't be outside the Council Hall."

I looked at the closed door behind me.

My son was somewhere in the central nursery. Serena had rooms beside him. Ronan had just agreed that I could not see my own child without permission from men who had cut the mate bond out of my body hours before I gave birth.

Whatever had been holding me together simply stopped.

"I'm leaving," I said.

Miller frowned. "Alpha Ronan ordered you back to the South Wing."

"Then he can order the furniture around after I'm gone."

He reached for my arm. "Elara, please. You've just given birth."

I slapped his hand away.

"Don't touch me."

I turned and ran.

My bare feet struck the freezing stone as I crossed the northern corridor. Every step sent pain through my abdomen, but pain had become background noise. The keep doors opened before me, and the blizzard swallowed everything.

Wind tore through my thin white dress.

Snow reached my calves within minutes.

Behind me, an alarm began to howl.

"Stop her!" Miller shouted into his radio. "The Luna is heading north!"

Not the Luna.

Not a mate.

Barely a mother.

I kept moving.

The northern woods thinned around the forbidden zone. Trees leaned away from the Moon Rift as if even roots understood what lived below it.

A young border scout burst from the tree line. Behind him, two more patrol wolves appeared between the pines, but neither dared come close. Even stripped of my title, I was still the mother of the Alpha's heir, and no one wanted to be the guard who dragged a bleeding woman through the snow.

"Elara! Wait!"

Toby blocked the path with both arms spread. "You can't go farther. The cliffs are unstable in this weather."

"Move."

"I can't let you pass."

He caught my wrist.

I ripped free so hard I nearly fell.

"Touch me again and I'll take you over the edge with me."

His eyes widened.

"The Alpha is coming."

"Good. He can watch."

I walked until the trees ended.

The Moon Rift opened beneath me, a vast black wound splitting the northern border. Mist churned far below, swallowing snow before it could fall out of sight. No one knew how deep the abyss went. Patrol wolves told stories about voices rising from the fog and ancient power sleeping under the mountain.

I felt none of it.

No fear.

No awe.

Only quiet.

I stopped inches from the ledge.

A siren screamed behind me.

Then came Ronan's voice.

"Elara!"

I turned.

He broke through the tree line with a dozen guards. Snow clung to his dark hair. His face was stripped of every controlled Alpha expression I had known.

He looked terrified.

"Stay where you are," he ordered.

I laughed.

"Still giving orders."

He lifted both hands. "Please. Just come away from the edge."

"Why? So Garrick can lock me back in the South Wing? So Serena can raise my son while I ask permission to look at him?"

"That is not what is going to happen."

"I heard you."

Ronan stopped.

The wind flattened his coat against his body.

"You heard part of a council meeting."

"I heard enough."

"No. You didn't." He took one careful step forward. "I found something in Serena's room after you left the hall. An empty vial hidden behind the wardrobe. It smells like the wolfsbane from her wine."

For one second, the revelation struck me cleanly.

Serena had framed me.

I had been right.

Then the feeling vanished.

"It doesn't matter."

Ronan stared at me. "Of course it matters."

"Not anymore."

"Elara, I know she lied. I know the evidence was planted. We can undo this."

"Undo what?" My voice rose over the wind. "The dungeon? The altar? The knife? The hours I begged you to believe me?"

His face tightened.

"I was trying to keep you alive."

"You were trying to keep the Council calm."

"They wanted you executed."

"And you chose the compromise that destroyed me instead."

He flinched.

I pressed a hand to my empty stomach.

"Where is my son?"

"Safe."

"With Serena?"

"Not anymore. I had her removed from the nursery the moment I found the vial."

"You should never have let her near him."

"I know."

"You should never have let them touch me."

"I know."

"You should have known me."

That silenced him.

Snow collected in my hair and melted against my neck, stinging the fresh severing wound.

Ronan took another step.

One of the guards behind him murmured that the cliff was cracking. Ronan threw out an arm without looking back, ordering every wolf to stay where they were. For once, the entire pack obeyed him immediately.

His attention never left my face.

"Come back with me. See our son. Hold him. I will arrest Garrick. I will strip Serena of every privilege she has. I will return your title."

"My title?"

I almost pitied him.

"You still think this is about a chair at your table."

"Then tell me what you want."

"Freedom."

His eyes flashed. "You can have anything else."

There it was.

Even now.

"You don't get to decide what I can have."

The wind eased for one strange second.

Ronan's voice broke. "Think about our son."

"I am."

"He needs you."

"Then perhaps you should have remembered that before you let them take him from my arms."

"Elara, don't."

I looked at the man I had once loved more than my own life.

The mate bond was gone. The scent was gone. The certainty was gone.

Only memory remained, and memory was not enough to make me stay.

I stepped backward.

My heel slid over empty air.

Ronan lunged.

"Elara, no!"

I smiled at him for the last time.

"Goodbye, Ronan."

His hand caught the edge of my sleeve.

The fabric tore.

For one heartbeat, his fingers scraped across mine. Then there was nothing beneath me.

And I fell into the black mist of the Moon Rift.