Blood crystallized in the snow beneath her, each crimson drop turning to ruby ice before it could soak into the frozen ground.
Reign collapsed to her knees, breath coming in ragged gasps that sent silver mist streaming from her lips. Every movement sent fresh waves of agony through her body where blessed silver had found its mark. The wounds along her ribs burned like liquid fire, the sacred metal's poison fighting against her supernatural healing with relentless persistence.
The battlefield lay silent behind her, strewn with the corpses of wolves who had once shared her hearth. She couldn't tell if the stillness meant victory or if the direwolf had simply dragged her away before Kieran could deliver a killing blow. The memory of the fight blurred together in a haze of frost and blood an
