By sunset, I understood why Ronan had spent the afternoon trying to talk me out of attending the council dinner.
The Blackthorn great hall had been arranged like a courtroom pretending to be a celebration. Twelve Elders sat along the raised table. Serena occupied the chair at Ronan's right. Mine.
A single place had been set for me below the dais.
I stopped in the doorway.
"No," I said.
Ronan came up behind me. "Elara."
"If they want the Luna at dinner, they can seat her beside the Alpha."
Elder Garrick smiled from the center of the table. "Titles require recognition, child. Tonight is partly about determining whether that recognition still serves Blackthorn."
My hands went cold.
Ronan's voice hardened. "We agreed this was a discussion, not a public humiliation."
"Then perhaps your mate should stop treating every tradition as an insult," Garrick replied.
Serena rose with smooth, practiced grace. "She can have my chair."
The room turned to admire her generosity.
I almost laughed.
"Keep it," I said. "It suits you. You never minded sitting where someone else belonged."
A few wolves choked on their wine.
Serena's smile held. "I only want peace."
"Then stop auditioning for my marriage."
Ronan caught my wrist before I could walk out.
"Please," he murmured. "One dinner. Don't give Garrick what he wants."
I looked at his hand around mine. Once, that touch had settled my entire body. Now the mate bond between us felt thin and exhausted, a pulse I had to search for.
I sat.
A servant placed a fresh plate in front of me. I recognized him as Owen, one of the kitchen boys who used to sneak honey cakes to the patrol pups. He would not meet my eyes. When he reached for my wineglass, his hand shook hard enough to make the crystal click against the table.
"Are you afraid of me too?" I asked quietly.
His face went red. "No, Luna."
Garrick heard him. "She is not to be addressed by that title until this matter is settled."
Owen bowed and fled.
Ronan's fingers tightened around his fork. He said nothing.
That silence told the room exactly how far the Council could push.
For the first course, Garrick discussed border alliances as if my life were a line item in a treaty. Pureblood continuity. Strong heirs. Public confidence. He never used the word human, but every sentence pointed at me.
Serena played the peacemaker.
"Elara has served the pack faithfully," she said, pouring dark red wine into her goblet. "No one is questioning her heart."
"Only her blood," I said.
Serena's fingers paused on the bottle.
Ronan shot me a warning look.
Garrick leaned back. "Scent is not a cosmetic matter. A Luna who cannot shift, cannot project a pack bond, and cannot produce a recognizable mating scent creates uncertainty."
My palm settled over my belly. "Funny. No one complained about uncertainty when Ronan's heir was conceived."
Silence snapped across the hall.
Ronan's mouth almost moved. A smile he refused to allow.
Serena saw it.
Something cold passed through her eyes.
She lifted her goblet. "Then let us toast the heir. Whatever the Council decides, the child should never bear the weight of adult conflict."
I watched her drink.
One swallow.
Two.
Her hand trembled.
The goblet struck the table.
Serena lurched to her feet and made a choking sound.
"Serena?" Ronan stood.
She turned toward me.
Black blood spilled over her lips.
For one frozen second, nobody moved.
Then she collapsed across the table, knocking plates and candles to the floor.
Ronan caught her before her head struck the stone.
"Healer!"
Chaos detonated.
I stood so quickly my chair toppled backward. Serena convulsed in Ronan's arms, dark blood soaking the front of her pale dress. Her fingers seized his sleeve.
"Elara," she rasped.
Every face in the hall swung toward me.
The healer shoved past the guards. He smelled Serena's wine, touched the black blood, then looked toward the serving table.
"Wolfsbane."
A murmur became a roar.
"Search the table," Garrick ordered.
"No one moves," Ronan barked.
But Garrick's guards were already obeying him.
One overturned the wine decanter near my place. Another searched the small sideboard behind my chair.
His hand emerged holding a narrow glass vial.
My stomach dropped.
"I have never seen that before."
The guard pulled the stopper and recoiled. "Same smell."
"That isn't mine."
Serena coughed again. Ronan looked down at the blood on his hands, then at me.
I knew that expression.
Not certainty.
Worse.
Doubt.
"Ronan," I whispered.
"Did you touch her wine?"
The question broke something cleanly inside me.
"You think I poisoned her?"
"I asked if you touched it."
"I passed the bottle after the servant placed it beside me. That is all."
Garrick seized the opening. "The vial was hidden behind the Luna's chair."
"She is not the Luna," another Elder said.
Ronan's head snapped toward him. "Enough."
Serena convulsed harder.
The healer shouted for help carrying her to the infirmary.
Ronan rose with her in his arms.
I stepped into his path. "Look at me."
He did.
"I did not do this."
His jaw worked.
"I need to know what happened."
"You know me."
"Elara—"
"Do you?"
For three years, I had believed the mate bond meant one person in the world would know the truth of me even when everyone else lied.
Ronan looked past my shoulder at the vial.
That was his answer.
Garrick raised his staff. "Until the investigation is complete, Elara should be confined. Attempted poisoning of a noble wolf carries a death sentence."
The baby shifted sharply beneath my ribs.
I pressed both palms over the movement, suddenly aware that every argument in the room had stopped being about me. If the Council could strip my title tonight, they could decide where my child was raised tomorrow. Serena's father had already offered troops, grain, and a winter trade route in exchange for a stronger alliance. A pureblood woman standing beside Ronan would make that alliance neat. Convenient.
I looked at Serena being carried through the side doors and understood how her collapse had solved every problem except mine.
Ronan's face went white.
"No execution," he said.
"Then invoke the old law," Garrick replied. "Sever her standing from the Alpha until judgment is rendered."
Ronan stared at him.
The entire hall fell silent.
Garrick placed a parchment on the table between them.
At the top, in black ceremonial ink, were two words I had only ever seen in history books.
Severing Ritual.
