Dire Bound (The Wolves of Ruin, #1)

by Sable Sorensen

“Hide the journals,” Anassa growls suddenly over the bond, her tone urgent and filled with warning. At

“All right, talk,” I say. “What do you know about my mother’s journals and why in the goddess’s name did you make me hide them from Killian?”

“The Sturmfrost Queens.”

The Sturmfrost Queens were the original rulers of Nocturna, the book proclaims. A long matrilineal line of Bonded warriors with incredible powers who ruled the kingdom for centuries. The dates listed are long before King Cyril’s line took over.

But according to this book, none of that is true. Nocturna is millennia older than we’ve been told. And the direwolves were a central part of the Sturmfrost line’s rule. They’ve always been our allies.

And then I find the drawings. My breath catches in my throat. I turn and set the book on the little table beside the shelf, pulling out my mother’s journals. I don’t need to see the drawings side by side to know they’re the same, but I lay them out anyway. It’s the crown my mother drew over and over—the twin wolves leaping at a precious gem set between them. Absolutely identical.

My mind reels. How could my mother know about this? Where could she have possibly seen it?

Is she one of the queens? Is that why Stark calls her princess? Is that why Saela was kidnapped by Lee... They want to have control..

What I find is another drawing. Adrenaline floods my veins. It’s an illustration of the carving I found behind that tapestry in the servant passage: a queen astride her direwolf, the Sturmfrost crown with the two leaping wolves perched atop her head.

That’s where I’ve seen the crown before.

But it doesn’t make sense that I knew exactly which book to read, either. That this particular volume is the one that called to me. That the illustrations inside match with my mother’s drawings, her visions—and mine. None of this makes sense.

His eyes darken, jaw drawing tight. “Congratulations on your engagement,” he says instead. “You’ll make an incredible queen.”

Oh he's mad ayyyy

“If you’re so worried what I’m going to do with this book, then tell me what I need to know!” Something flickers across his face, too swift to comprehend. He shakes his head. “I can’t. Just… be careful.”

Tomison is here.

Is he the one who reminds her of the vampire thing

“I have a weird feeling, though,” Venna continues. “I’m sure there’s something I’m missing or that I haven’t found yet. Just out of reach.”

This was Henrey’s dream. His lifelong hope was to make it here, to this arena, to partake in these Trials and become Bonded. He made it to the very last task. And now his dream is tearing him apart.

Jonah. Where is that fucker? I’m going to gut him for what he did.

I briefly catch a glimpse of stairs that lead down. Beneath the arena? Like where that crown might be buried. But why?

“When’s the wedding happening, then? You know you ship out to the front right after the graduation ceremony,” he says.

Then, the sound of children’s voices.

“M-Meryn,” she whimpers.

The other children in her cell and those gathered at the other cell doors are watching with something hungry in their eyes. Aching jealousy, I realize. Loneliness. I don’t know how long they’ve been down here, but no one’s been caring for them the way a child needs care. No one’s been here to love them. They must have gone to sleep each night longing for their homes, their families, for the sun.

“H-he comes every few weeks. He walks between the cells, studying us. He has the guard take down notes. Then he’ll… choose one of us. Sometimes two.” “For what?” I ask shakily. She shakes her head, eyes welling. “We never see them again, but sometimes I think I can hear them screaming somewhere far away. And I’ve b-been passed over six times. I’ve been here the longest. He’s going to choose me next. I know he is. Meryn!”

There’s someone else I do trust, who has always prioritized me. Who looks out for me. Who understands my pain and tends to my wounds. Who tells me everything he knows.

Hell no

Killian’s brow tightens, his skin paling. There’s a razor-sharp grief in his eyes, like this revelation is taking something precious from him.

“That will be your opportunity. You’ll have to strike then, and you can’t falter or you’ll fail.”

This feels like a setup

Instead, she merely growls, “Make it quick.”

So before we proceed to the blessing, we will have a final free-for-all battle.”

That fucker dies today.

The instant I take it up, power. Ancient, overwhelming magic sears my veins.

There is no relief. No triumph at his father’s downfall. He looks at me in abject horror, his eyes moving over the blood spilled across my chest, to the sword, to his father’s corpse.

“Meryn, what have you done?” he shudders out, stepping away from me with wide eyes, hands shaking. Then, anger. His expression contorts into fury. “Guards! Seize her! She’s killed the king!”

“GET THE CROWN.” I gasp awake, teeth chattering. The air is cold.

He flinches at the sound of it, glancing back at the guards warily. There it is again. That embarrassment. I know that feeling. I felt awful about it, but sometimes I looked at Mother and felt shame.

“You realize this is why I put my trust in him over you? You’re supposed to be my partner! My direwolf. My Bonded. But you can’t even be honest with me. All this time, and you haven’t even told me who your mate is or let me in on your connection with them at all! Don’t you realize how lonely that makes me feel?”

And then Stark walks around the corner.

The woman sitting on the throne. She’s pale, with long silver hair that falls in a shining waterfall over her shoulders and down to her hips. Atop her silver hair sits the golden crown with its twin wolves. At her throat, my opal necklace. At her hip, the wolf-pommel sword. And at her feet, the largest direwolf I’ve ever seen, with glossy silver-white fur.

Her beauty. The crown. The sword. But her child, too.

"princess", it's either her or her mom

“Take her,” Queen Chiara orders, handing the breathless woman her child. “Protect my child with your life. Get her out of the castle and hide her.”

That necklace. My necklace, my mother’s necklace and her mother’s before her. Given to the queen’s child as she was rushed away to safety. Is it possible that this necklace stayed with the baby’s family all these years? That the queen is… my ancestor?

Siphons flood the hallway, obviously because of their unnatural speed and beauty.

And that's Lee's family

My entire being shudders. He looks unsettlingly like both Killian and his father, with piercing blue eyes and the same sharp features.

I called it

Brightbane. Like Lucien Brightbane, the Siphon king of Astreona. But this man isn’t him—a relative or ancestor, perhaps?

“Chiara Sturmfrost is dead. Meryn Sturmfrost has returned. Long live Queen Sturmfrost.”

Queen Chiara’s opal necklace, given to her baby, then passed down my family line. The visions my mother received, that I received—disjointed, overwhelming, and eventually all-consuming, but containing truths. Anassa, a direwolf of immeasurable power who had waited years for a rider, then forced a bond on someone unwilling. The crown of leaping wolves on my brow that feels as if it’s meant to be there.

“I’m the rightful queen of Nocturna, aren’t I?” I ask. Stark’s eyes spark, he takes a single step back, and he bows down on one knee, hand to his chest. “Welcome home, my queen.”

He’s kneeling for me.

“The Bonded have been under a Siphon blood curse for five hundred years.” He gestures to the crown with a distractingly scarred hand. “That crown and the sword, together, control the human bonds to the direwolves.”

“The Siphon who overthrew the rightful royal family used powerful blood magic to bind the public’s memories of the Sturmfrost royals. No one was permitted to speak of them again, and within a generation, they were forgotten,”

All this time. My protector, not Killian’s, not the king’s.

“You literally couldn’t speak about it. Is that why I had to give Anassa a direct order to get the crown?”