Chapter 51. The Crown of Thorns

The sun lingered weakly overhead as Selene led her battered pack away from the ruins, their shadows stretching long and broken across the ashen earth. Every step felt unfamiliar, as though the world itself needed time to remember how to breathe freely again after so much death.

Ahead, rising stark and defiant against the distant hills, a fortress cut the horizon.

It was built of black stone, jagged and cruel, its towers clawing toward the sky. Ivy long dead and brittle strangled the walls, its pale tendrils clinging to cracks in the masonry. Banners that had once flown bright and proud now hung in tattered shreds, whispering mournfully in the breeze.

Selene recognized it at once.

The Crown of Thorns—last stronghold of the old kings, and perhaps the final refuge for wolves who had nowhere left to run.