Chapter 1 A Secret Worth Killing For

Zivelle’s POV

The first thing I learned about Thornveil Pack was that kindness always came with a price. The second was that nobody intended to pay that price for me. By nineteen, I had become remarkably good at staying unnoticed, which was difficult when Luna Mirabel seemed to consider my existence a personal insult.

“Zivelle!” Her shout carried through the servants’ corridor before sunrise. “If my breakfast is late again, you can forget about eating today.”

I pulled on my uniform and hurried downstairs, fastening the last button as I entered the kitchen. Cook had left a tray of warm rolls on the counter. Their buttery smell made my stomach ache, but I reached for the teapot instead. Yesterday, I had stolen half a roll and spent the afternoon washing the kennel floors as punishment.

The dining room glittered with silverware and morning sunlight. Rosella, the Alpha’s daughter, was studying an invitation embossed with a golden wolf. She looked up when I approached, then deliberately extended one slipper into my path. I stumbled, catching the teapot just before it struck the floor.

“Careful,” Rosella said sweetly. “Some of us have futures worth protecting.”

Luna Mirabel examined the tea staining my sleeve. “Must you ruin everything you touch?” she asked. When I apologized, she struck my cheek hard enough to blur my vision. “Your apologies are as useless as you are. Change your sleeve before our guests arrive.”

I bowed and retreated, swallowing the words gathering behind my teeth. Arguing would only make things worse. That was Thornveil’s oldest rule, at least for anyone without a wolf. Mine had never appeared, not even on my eighteenth birthday, when the rest of my age group shifted beneath the full moon. I had watched them run together while I stood alone, shivering in a borrowed dress.

Back in the kitchen, I pressed a cool cloth to my face. My reflection in the window looked ordinary enough, except for my eyes. One was gray, the other a strange, pale violet. Mirabel insisted they were an unfortunate defect. She also forbade me from asking about my parents, which made the defect feel like the smallest mystery in my life.

Three months earlier, I had found an application to Eclipsia Royal Academy tucked inside an old library book. The academy trained healers as well as warriors, and its scholarship examination could be completed by correspondence. I had filled the pages after midnight, using scraps of paper and borrowed ink. Nothing in the rules explicitly required applicants to possess a wolf. It had been a foolish hope, perhaps, but it was mine.

By afternoon, two strangers had arrived with Alpha Garrick. I was polishing the staircase when they entered, carrying the cold scent of rain and forest. The taller stranger stopped so abruptly that his companion nearly collided with him. His gaze settled on my face, sharpening as though he recognized something.

“Roswyn?” he asked.

Garrick moved between us. “The servant,” he answered. “She’s been here since she was a baby.”

The stranger did not look away. “And she has no family?”

“None that matters,” Garrick said, his voice suddenly hard. He ordered me to leave, but I heard the stranger ask another question as the study door closed. “Does the king know she survived?”

My polishing cloth fell from my hand. For a moment I could only stare at the closed door. Survived what? I wanted to listen, but footsteps sounded behind me, and I fled before Rosella could catch me lingering where I was not wanted.

At dusk, a royal messenger arrived. He wore a dark blue cloak and carried an envelope sealed with silver wax. Mirabel reached for it, but he stepped aside. “This is addressed to Miss Zivelle Roswyn,” he announced. “I was instructed to deliver it personally.”

No one had ever called me Miss before. I accepted the envelope with trembling fingers and broke the seal. The first line made the room seem to sway: Congratulations. You have been awarded a full scholarship to Eclipsia Royal Academy. I read it twice before I trusted myself to breathe.

Rosella snatched the page from my hand. “There must be a mistake,” she protested. “They can’t possibly want her.”

Mirabel read the letter, her expression tightening with every sentence. She tore it down the middle before I could speak. I lunged for the pieces, but she dropped them into the fireplace. Flames climbed the paper, swallowing the silver crest and every word I had dreamed of seeing.

“You will not leave this house,” she said. “Do you understand me?”

I watched the letter curl into ash. “The scholarship was mine,” I whispered, surprised by how steady my voice sounded. “You had no right.”

Mirabel stepped closer, and I expected another blow. Instead, she seized my chin and turned my face toward the fire. Her thumb pressed beneath my violet eye. “You have no idea what I’ve protected you from,” she murmured. Then she released me and ordered the messenger off the property.

That night, I lay awake with the smell of burned paper still caught in my hair. I should have been mourning my lost opportunity, yet I kept remembering the stranger’s question and Mirabel’s frightened expression. When voices rose below my window, I slipped into the corridor and followed them toward Garrick’s study.

“The council found her,” Garrick whispered. “Destroying a letter won’t change that.”

Mirabel answered so quietly I almost missed it. “What about the prince?”

“He’s coming tomorrow. If he sees those eyes, Odrick will learn we lied.”

A chair scraped across the floor. I leaned closer, heart hammering, and heard Garrick say, “The king ordered every Roswyn child killed nineteen years ago. Zivelle was the only one we couldn’t account for.”

I should have run. Instead, I stood frozen, suddenly certain that my whole childhood had been arranged. Then the study door opened, and Garrick found me listening. His face drained of color. Behind him, Mirabel reached for the dagger around her waist.