The trial hall was packed.

Pack members had been filing in since dawn, filling the long rows of benches, lining the walls when the seats ran out, gathering in clusters at the back of the room and trading low whispers.

The energy in the hall was tight and charged, the particular hum of a community that knew it was about to witness something it would talk about for years.

Derek sat on his throne at the front, his hands resting on the carved arms, his face giving nothing away.

Nana was seated to his right, her back straight, her hands folded neatly in her lap.

The elder wolves who would preside over the trial occupied the long bench to his left, robed and solemn.

To anyone watching, Derek looked exactly as he was supposed to look. Composed. Sovereign. Unreadable.

Underneath, he was checking his phone every two minutes.

Nothing from Kira.

He had expected her to be here by now. The hall had been ready for an hour.

Kira should have walked through those doors flanked by Kai and Jeasica and taken her seat beside him, and yet the seat to his left remained empty and his phone remained silent.

He reached for Connor through the mind-link.

Where is the Queen?

She returned to the palace from the medical centre, Your Grace. I am with the convoy bringing Ruby in. Making sure there are no slip-ups. I assumed she was already with you.

She is not.

A pause. Then, more carefully, Should I send someone to check?

No. Keep your focus on Ruby. I’ll handle it.

He had been reaching out to all her guards but all their links are blocked.

He pulled out his phone and dialled Kira’s number directly. It rang four times and went to voicemail. He tried again. Same result.

Dr Lorenzo had linked him earlier to say that Sasha had died in the night of a heart attack.

Derek didn’t believe that for a second. He had pushed it aside to be investigated later, because the tribunal was today and Ruby had to be dealt with first.

But the timing of Sasha’s death and Kira’s silence were beginning to settle on top of each other in a way he did not like.

He stood from the throne abruptly.

Nana looked up. "Where are you going?"

"I’ll be back."

He moved down the aisle without looking back, and the room shifted around him in that quiet, deferential way it always did when he was crossing it.

Outside the hall, fresh air hit him like a slap.

He spotted Kai and Jeasica hurrying up the path, Kai’s arm slung casually around Jeasica’s shoulders while she swatted at him with a grin that was half-annoyed, half-flirting. Typical.

Kai took one look at his face and stopped smiling. "Where’s Kira?"

The unease in Derek’s chest sharpened into something colder. "I was about to ask you the same thing."

Jeasica’s expression dropped immediately. "She isn’t with you?"

"No."

"We dropped her at the mansion this morning," Kai said. "She said she needed to grab something before the trial. We were supposed to meet her here."

Derek was already moving.

He pushed past them without another word and broke into a run before either of them had fully turned around.

He got into his car, fired the engine, and reversed out of the courtyard with a speed that scattered two startled pack members who had been making their way in.

He took the front steps two at a time and pushed through the doors, calling for her before he had even fully crossed the threshold. The staff scattered out of his way without speaking. He took the stairs to their bedroom in long, fast strides and slammed the door open.

The room was empty.

The dress he had bought her was nowhere in sight, but her phone was sitting on the centre table beside the sofa. He crossed to it in three steps and picked it up.

Her missed calls were all from him.

He stood there with the phone in his hand and the cold feeling moved up into his throat properly.

He turned and ran.

***

Back at the medical centre, the door to her hospital room was open and the bed was made. The nurses he stopped on his way past said the Queen had been collected by Master Kai and Miss Jeasica earlier and had not returned.

He pushed into the room anyway and stood in the middle of it and breathed in.

Nothing.

Her scent was already faint, hours old. The lingering trace of her was settling and fading, and there was no fresher path to follow, no indication that she had been here recently or that someone had brought her back.

He turned in a slow circle, his mind running through possibilities, none of them good.

Leo was loud inside his chest. Pacing. Furious. Demanding to know where she was.

He had no answer to give.

He drove back to the trial hall faster than he had left it.

He came through the doors just as the elder wolves were beginning the proceedings, and the entire room turned at the sound of his entrance.

Derek walked back to his throne without acknowledging any of them, but the dark, contained fury rolling off him was impossible to miss. Several pack members in the front rows shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

Ruby was standing in the cleared space in the centre of the hall, flanked by two gammas. She wore plain clothes, her hair pulled back, her wrists in silver cuffs that had visibly burned the skin around them. She looked smaller than usual.

When she saw Derek’s expression, she straightened slightly.

Kai slipped into the seat beside Derek and put a hand on his forearm. "Steady," he said quietly. "I’ve sent men to start a search. Connor knows. We will find her. Right now you need to be here for this."

Derek said nothing. His eyes were on Ruby and they did not move.

The lead elder wolf cleared his throat and the room settled.

"Ruby Veyle. You stand accused of multiple offences against the Crown and the pack of Dravengard. You will be asked to respond to each formally. Do you understand?"

"I understand," Ruby said.

"Are you guilty of supplying a poisonous herb to the royal head cook, Ishita, with the intent of having it added to the Queen’s meals to prevent her from conceiving?"

Ruby looked at the elder wolf calmly. She had been doing the calculations all morning. Ishita could not yet remember. Sasha was dead. Lara Vaughn was dead. Every voice that could contradict her was gone.

"Not guilty," she said.

A murmur moved through the crowd.

"Are you responsible for the accident that resulted in Ishita’s current condition?"

"No."

"Did you instigate the late Lara Vaughn to poison the Queen’s tea on the day of the blessing ceremony?"

Ruby’s brow flickered slightly. That case had been closed months ago. Lara had been declared the sole perpetrator. Why were they reopening it now?

She gathered herself quickly. "No."

The elder wolf’s expression did not change. "And what of the death of Sasha Jade last night? Did you have a hand in it?"

Ruby’s hand flew to her mouth. Her eyes widened with shock that she made absolutely certain reached every corner of the hall.

"Sasha is dead?" Her voice cracked. She looked from the elder wolf to the rows of pack members to Derek and back again. "Sasha? I only just spoke to her yesterday. She was my dearest friend." The tears were already falling. "I have done nothing to her."

A ripple of murmurs ran through the hall.

Ruby drew in a shaking breath and made her voice steady.

"The only crimes I have ever committed against this Crown are using an aphrodisiac on the King and shoving the Queen down the stairs, and I have admitted to both freely."

"I am ashamed of both. I will accept whatever punishment is decided. But I am being accused of things I did not do." She lifted her chin slightly. "If anyone in this hall has actual evidence against me for the other charges, please. Bring it forward. Let it be heard." 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

The hall was quiet.

Ruby waited, allowing the silence to do its work. She had counted every voice that could have spoken against her. There were none left.

"I do."

The voice came from the entrance.

The hall snapped around as one body. Every head turned. Murmurs rose, then broke into sharp gasps, then into shouts, as pack members at the back of the room scrambled away from the doors, several of the gammas posted along the walls dropping into combat stances, two of them already shifting in mid-step, their bones cracking as their beasts surged forward.

Chaos rippled outward from the entrance in waves.

Ruby turned, slowly, with the others.

And the colour left her face entirely.