“My Lady?” June crept closer, her brow furrowed.
“Are you unwell?
Should I call the physician?” Seren lowered the mirror.
“What year is it?” she asked.
June blinked.
“Twenty-third of the Eldridge reign.
My Lady—are you certain you’re—” Twenty-third year.
She was seventeen again.
Back in the spring of the river, the visit.
The memories came back all at once.
Knox Eldridge, not yet Alpha King.
One of nine sons circling their dying father’s throne.
He had come to House Hawthorne with his retinue.
Her father, Harlan, was one of the most powerful military wolves in the realm, and every prince wanted Hawthorne claws on their side.
Knox had been twenty-two.
Beautiful and cold and precise, a wolf who walked through the Hawthorne halls as if he already owned them.
Seren, seventeen years old, had fallen in love with him the moment he walked through the door.
It had not been love.
Infatuation, more like it—a child’s desperate, romantic, foolish hunger for something she did not understand.
She had stared at him across her father’s dining table and decided that this was the wolf she would marry, and she had never once stopped to ask if he wanted her.
Her family had tried to warn her.
Her father, her mother, her brother Alden, who had pulled her aside and said, “That wolf has ice in his chest, Seren.
He’ll break your heart and call it strategy.” She had not listened.
She had made a fool of herself.
Following him through the Hawthorne grounds.
Leaving small gifts outside his chamber door.
Writing him letters that he never answered.
Her family had been mortified.
The Eldridge wolves had laughed behind their hands.
Then Sienna had pushed her into the river.
It had happened during a walk along the northern bluffs.
The Eldridge party was leaving the next morning, and Seren had begged to accompany them on the final stroll.
She had positioned herself near Knox, trying to walk beside him, trying to make him notice her.
Sienna had come up behind her, smiling as always, and put her hands on Seren’s shoulders.
“Careful, little cousin,” Sienna had whispered.
“You wouldn’t want to slip.” Then she had pushed.
The river was high that spring, swollen with snowmelt from the mountains.
Seren had gone under immediately.
The cold stealing her breath.
The current dragging her toward the rapids.
She had been in the water for nearly ten minutes before the wolves on the bank pulled her out.
Knox had watched the whole thing from the shore.
He had not moved to help her.
Later, he would say to his companions: “The Hawthorne girl is more trouble than she’s worth.
Pushy.
Desperate.
Someone should teach her restraint.” Seren had not heard those words at the time.
She had been unconscious, half-drowned, being carried back to the keep by her father’s wolves.
She heard them now, twenty years late.
Pushy.
Desperate.
Someone should teach her restraint.
“Greta.” Seren’s eyes moved to the window.
“The day I fell into the river.
The Eldridge party.
They were here.” Greta nodded, her expression darkening.
“Yes, My Lady.
They left this morning.
The Alpha King’s son, Prince Knox, and his wolves departed at dawn.” Good.
He was gone, and she had time.
“Someone pushed me,” Seren said.
Greta and June exchanged glances.
June stepped closer, lowering her voice.
“We know, My Lady.
Greta saw Miss Sienna’s hands on your shoulders, and when we tried to tell the Grandmother, the Second Branch, anyone, they said we were lying to protect you.
They said you slipped.” “Because you were hysterical,” Greta added.
“Because you’ve been unwell since you started following Prince Knox around.
Because everyone thinks you’re a lovesick child who can’t tell the difference between a fall and a shove.” Seren smiled.
It was not a nice smile.
It was the smile of a wolf who had been cornered one too many times and had stopped being afraid.
“They’re wrong,” she said.
“I know exactly what happened.
And I know exactly who did it.” June looked at her strangely.
“My Lady…
you seem different.” “The fever broke,” Seren said.
“I feel clearer than I have in months.” Greta nodded, worry plain in her face.
“The physician said you need rest.
You shouldn’t push yourself.” “I won’t.” Seren leaned back against the pillows.
“But before you go, is Sienna in the keep?” Greta’s mouth tightened.
“She’s been outside your door since dawn, My Lady.
She and Miss Yena both.
They keep asking if you’re awake.
Miss Sienna says she wants to apologize.” To see if Seren remembered.
To see if she would accuse her.
To see how much of the story needed managing.
“Let them in,” Seren said.
Greta froze.
“My Lady, you’re not well.
The physician said—” “I know what the physician said.” Her voice came out even, unbothered.
“Let them in.
Both of them.
Together.” Greta exchanged a look with June, then went to the door.
The two she-wolves who entered could not have been more different.
Sienna came first, tall and golden, her white-gold hair braided back from a face that belonged on a warrior’s medal.
She wore a gown the color of winter cream, simple but expensive, and she moved like she owned every room she entered.
Her eyes were mountain-sky blue, and they swept over Seren’s sickbed with an expression that might have been concern, if one did not look too closely at the set of her jaw.
Behind her came Yena, smaller and softer, honey-colored hair loose around her shoulders.
She wore pale pink, the color of apple blossoms, and her face was arranged in the perfect picture of sisterly distress.
Her hands were clasped in front of her, knuckles gone pale, as if she could barely contain her worry.
The blade and the poison.
Sienna to cut, Yena to wait.
“Little cousin.” Sienna’s voice was warm, but her eyes were cold.
“We came as soon as we heard you were awake.
You gave us such a fright.” Yena hurried to the bedside, reaching for Seren’s hand.
“When they pulled you from the river, I couldn’t breathe.
Standing there on the bank, I thought we’d lost you.” Seren let Yena take her hand.
She let her face soften into something grateful and weak.
“How kind of you both,” she said.
“To visit me so early.” Sienna settled herself on the edge of the bed, her weight pressing into the furs.
“Of course we came.
We’re family.
We look after each other.” Do we?
She smiled anyway.
Yena’s expression settled into practiced hesitation.
“Little cousin, I know this is difficult to speak of, but Eldest Sister is beside herself with guilt.
She did not mean for you to fall.
She has been asking after you constantly.” A pause, timed too well.
“Since you’re awake now, perhaps you could find it in your heart to forgive her?
She did not intentionally try to humiliate you in front of His Highness.” There it was.
His Highness.
Prince Knox, the wolf Seren had been trailing like a lost pup for months, the wolf who had watched her drown from the shore and done nothing.
Those words had worked exactly as intended the first time.
Seren had stormed to the Grandmother’s chambers, accused Sienna, demanded justice, made a fool of herself.
No one had believed her.
Someone had chosen the witnesses.
The story that stuck was that Seren Hawthorne was so lovesick that she was inventing attacks on her own cousins.
She had been confined for a month.
By the time she emerged, her reputation was ruined.
Clever.
Yena’s face gave nothing away.
So clever.
Yena did not know who she was speaking to.
Yena thought she was addressing a seventeen-year-old girl with a crush and no sense.
She did not know that the wolf in the bed had spent twenty years in a court where every smile was a blade and every kind word was a trap.
“His Highness,” Seren repeated, letting her voice waver.
“Do you think he saw?
When I fell?” Sienna’s lips twitched, the barest hint of a smile, quickly suppressed.
“I’m sure he did, little cousin.
But you must not worry.
His Highness is a prince.
He has surely seen worse embarrassments.” Worse embarrassments.
Another careful knife.
In the first life, Seren had burst into tears at this point.
Humiliated, furious, desperate to prove herself, she had done exactly what her cousins wanted.
This time, she did something else.
She smiled.
A small smile, thin and tired, the smile of a girl three days out of a fever.
Beneath it, something else moved.
Cold and ancient and patient.
“Eldest Sister,” Seren said, turning to Sienna, “you don’t need to apologize.
It was an accident.
I slipped.” Sienna’s eyes narrowed.
Just a fraction.
She had not expected that.
“I should have been more careful,” Sienna said.
“Walking so close to the edge.
It was reckless of me.” Not an admission, never that, but close enough that Seren could see the calculation behind her cousin’s eyes.
“It’s forgotten,” Seren said.
“It’s done.
I don’t want bad blood between us.” Yena moved on the bed, unsettled by how easily Seren had forgiven.
“Little cousin, you are too generous.
If I had been pushed—” She stopped, as if catching herself.
“If I had fallen, I don’t know if I could be so gracious.” There.
Yena had almost said it.
Seren tilted her head, expression soft.
“Why would anyone push me?
We’re family.” The silence that followed was thick as river mud.
Sienna recovered first.
“Of course we’re family.
Which is why I came to make sure you were all right.” She stood, smoothing her skirts.
“But we should let you rest.
The physician said you need rest.” Yena rose, fingers loose around Seren’s hand.
“I’ll visit again tomorrow, little cousin.
Perhaps bring you some of Cook’s broth.
You need to keep your strength up.” “You’re both so kind to me,” Seren said.
“I don’t know what I would do without you.” They left together, side by side, united in their purpose.
The door closed behind them.
Seren’s smile faded.
Sienna’s cold eyes.
Yena’s careful words.
The way they had looked at her, not as family, but as an obstacle with a deadline.
They both wanted Knox.
She had not seen it the first time.
She had been too young, too desperate, too blinded by her own hunger to notice that her cousins were circling the same prey.
They had let her do the work.
Make a fool of herself.
Embarrass her family.
Ruin her own name.
They had waited in the shadows for the dust to settle.
She had handed them the advantage and never even known she was doing it.
Two dogs fighting over a bone, while the hunter waited in the trees.
The hunter was not Sienna.
It was not Yena.
It was Seren.
Let them circle each other.
Teeth bared.
Fighting over a wolf who would never love any of them.
He would use them the way he had used her.
Until they were no longer useful.
Then he would set them aside without looking back.
She had watched him do it with a Luna who gave him twenty years.
He would do it again, and again, because that was what Knox Eldridge was.
And when it happened, when Sienna and Yena came crawling back to House Hawthorne, broken and finally understanding what they had helped destroy, Seren would be waiting.
Not with anger.
With patience, which was worse.
Seren did not move for a long moment.
June stood at the window, watching the courtyard below.
Greta hovered at the foot of the bed, hands folded, saying nothing.
“My Lady.” June’s voice came out strange.
Careful.
“Miss Sienna left flowers while you were sleeping.
Two days ago.” She paused.
“I put them on the sill.
The white ones.” Seren looked.
White blooms in the vase by the window.
Fresh enough to have been placed recently.
Small and soft-petaled, the kind that grew along the riverbank in late spring.
Her mother had told her the name of those flowers once.
Years ago.
Standing in the Hawthorne garden with her hand over Seren’s small one.
Told her the name and then explained why they were never kept in the house.
They’re mourning flowers.
You put them by the body before the burial rites.
Sienna had come to confirm she was dead.
Had stood in this room, looked at the bed, and placed those flowers on the sill.
Seren looked at them a beat longer.
Then she looked away.
“Throw them out.” Greta moved.
She took the vase and carried it to the door.
The door closed behind her.
Seren lay back against the pillows.
The ceiling above her.
The Hawthorne knot.
Her mother’s stitching in the blankets.
She had been given a second chance.
She had been given back the body of a seventeen-year-old, the time before the mistakes, the chance to make different choices.
She had already made the first one.
Sienna and Yena thought they had won.
They thought she was the same lovesick girl they had pushed into the river.
They thought she would break the way she had broken before.
They had no idea what was coming.