ELIRA POV
The pendant burns against my skin.
I notice this first, before anything else. The weight of my mother's necklace sits heavy on my chest like it's made of stone instead of silver. I touch it through my dress and the metal is warm. It shouldn't be warm. My hands are ice.
Around me, servants move through my bedroom like ghosts. They fold dresses I'll never wear again. They wrap books I'll never read. They pack pieces of my life into trunks as if my life is something that fits into boxes. As if I'm something that can be packed and transported and delivered to a man I've never met.
Tomorrow I stop being Elira Hayes.
Tomorrow I become Luna of Northwood Pack.
My father promised this would stop a war. My mother cried for three days straight. Now she's downstairs pretending to be brave, and I'm up here watching a servant carefully wrap my grandmother's porcelain set even though we all know I'll never use it. Northwood will have their own dishes. Their own everything. I'll be erased and replaced with whoever they decide I should be.
I should be terrified.
I am terrified, but it's a strange kind. The kind that doesn't shake you anymore because it's been shaking you for weeks. The kind you get used to carrying around like a stone in your stomach.
The servant folding my summer dresses glances at me and I see it in her eyes. Pity. She's wondering if I'll survive the North. If a soft girl from Riverside can handle an Alpha from a pack that breeds violence like other places breed kindness.
I don't know either.
The door opens and my father stands in the frame like he's aged a decade in a month. His face is lined with things he won't say. His eyes are the same color as mine, pale green, and right now they're drowning in something that looks like guilt.
He steps inside and the servants scatter. Even they know that some conversations are supposed to happen alone.
"You're saving lives," he says.
He's said this every day since the arrangement was made. Sometimes in the morning. Sometimes at dinner. Sometimes at night when he thinks I'm asleep but I'm not. I'm always awake now. Sleep is a thing other people do. People who aren't being sent away to marry a stranger who rules a territory like it's built from iron and snow.
I nod even though my hands shake.
He expects me to be strong. To be the kind of daughter who smiles and says of course, father, I understand. To be the daughter who doesn't ask questions like what if he hurts me or what if I can't be what he needs or what if this doesn't stop the war at all and just trades my life for a temporary peace.
My father reaches out and touches my cheek like I'm still small enough to fit in his hands.
"I wouldn't do this if there was another way," he whispers.
But there was another way. There are always other ways. He just chose this one because it was easier. Easier than admitting that his pack is weak. Easier than finally standing up to the Northwood Alpha instead of cowering behind negotiations that never actually work.
I understand this on a level he doesn't know I understand it. I've learned to listen at doors. I've learned to read his face in council meetings. I've learned that the peaceful Alpha of Riverside is peaceful because he's afraid, not because he's good.
It doesn't make me hate him. It makes me sad in a way that's almost worse.
"I know," I tell him.
He leaves after that. He can't stand to be around me when he's drowning in his own conscience. I watch him go and think about how everyone is losing something in this arrangement. My father is losing his daughter. My mother is losing her child. And I'm losing a self I barely got to know.
The servants come back when he's gone. They finish their packing in silence. The trunk with my wedding dress is closed last. The dress that cost more than most people make in a year. White silk that my mother picked out with shaking hands. A burial gown, I think. That's what it looks like.
That's what it feels like.
Night comes and my room is finally empty except for me and the trunks and the ghost of everything I used to be.
I don't sleep.
I lie in my childhood bed and listen to the house creak. Listen to my parents in the room next to mine. My father tries to comfort my mother and she cries into his shoulder like her heart is breaking. Maybe it is. Maybe this is what it sounds like when a mother loses her daughter while the daughter is still breathing.
I count the hours instead of sleeping. One. Two. Three. By the time the sky starts to lighten, I've counted twelve. Twelve hours until my old life ends.
My maid comes at dawn with a basin of warm water and clothes for traveling. She doesn't meet my eyes. Nobody meets my eyes anymore. They all know where I'm going. They all know why.
The water is comforting in a way that nothing else is right now. Hot against my skin. Real. Physical. I wash slowly, letting myself feel the temperature and the soap and the fact that I still exist. That I'm still here, still myself, for maybe the last time.
When I'm dressed, I braid my own hair. Dark auburn, my mother always said it was my best feature. The color of autumn leaves. I braid it tight and practical because Luna of Northwood won't have time for vanity. She'll have to be strong. Composed. Everything I'm not.
The pendant feels heavier when I fasten it around my neck.
My parents are waiting downstairs. My mother's eyes are swollen. My father's jaw is clenched. There's a breakfast on the table that nobody touches. We sit together in silence that tastes like goodbye.
"You're going to be fine," my father says finally. "You're stronger than you think."
I don't believe him. I'm nineteen. I'm soft. I've never fought. I've never even raised my voice in anger. The closest I've come to danger is reading about it in books while sitting in my father's library.
But I nod anyway because it's easier than telling him that I'm terrified. That I don't know how to be what he's sending me to become.
My mother reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. She can't speak. If she tries, she'll fall apart completely, and neither of us can handle that right now.
The horses arrive at sunrise.
I hear them before I see them. The sound of hooves on stone. The jangle of bridles. The low voices of men who are used to taking orders and not asking questions.
My father stands and the meal is over. My life in Riverside is officially over.
The horses outside are black and massive. Built for long distances. Built for purpose. The riders wear Northwood colors, which means they're from the pack. Which means they're here to collect their Alpha's new bride like she's a package instead of a person.
The lead rider has scars across his face and eyes like slate. He looks at me and something flickers across his expression. Assessment. Judgment. Neither of them kind.
"The carriage is ready," he says. His voice sounds like gravel.
My father puts a hand on my shoulder and I stand because I'm supposed to. My mother doesn't stand. She can't. She's folded into herself at the table like if she stays still enough, I won't actually leave.
I want to run to her. I want to stay. I want to be five years old again when the worst thing in my life was missing my bedtime story.
Instead I walk toward the door.
The pendant pulses against my heart.
When I reach the carriage, I turn back one last time. My father stands in the doorway. My mother is visible through the window, watching me like I'm a ghost she's already mourning.
I raise my hand to wave.
It's then that the rider leans down and hands me a sealed letter. It's heavy. Important. The wax seal is black with a wolf embossed into it.
Northwood's mark.
"The Alpha wanted you to have this," the scarred rider says. "To read on the journey."
My father's face goes white. He starts to move forward but the other riders shift their horses between us. The message is clear. I'm not his anymore. I'm Northwood's.
I break the seal with shaking fingers as the carriage lurches into motion.
The handwriting is sharp and precise. Beautiful and terrible.
It reads: "Your father's peace is a lie. When you arrive, don't believe anything he's told you about me. Everything changes tomorrow. Including you."
The carriage rounds a corner and I watch my childhood disappear behind me.
My hands go numb.
What have I just agreed to?