Ann was already awake at dawn when a knock at the door came and Bartholomew hand delivered the proof of the nobles' treachery into her hands.
Now she knew the truth, this afternoon wasn't going to be to hear petitions as had been scheduled. It would be for the court to see the mask ripped away.
She called the court to assemble that evening. Brad took his position at the door and Eva and Coral flanked her, their presence silent, but reassuring. Ann was still weak and recovering so she had limited her appearances in court to once a day now until she was fully healed.
Bartholomew stood at her left with a folder under his arm, his face settled in an expression that was so familiar to Adam's. That Ann had to stifle a smile..
The hall filled quickly, and refugees and soldiers lined the walls, taking the standing spaces that they could.
The newly arrived families stood near the front, their crests unhidden and faces impassive as they waited to experience the first court session under their houses crests.
Nobles were pressed into tight groups, their voices loud as they gossiped until the guards closed the doors. Then silence descended immediately.
Ann didn't sit. She stood, with one hand on the rail, her gaze sweeping the room.
"This won't take long," she said.
Bartholomew opened the folder.
"We intercepted these orders." He said as he laid three sheets on the lectern. "Rations and resources that were diverted from the south armory directly to a supply camp of the Lycan King. Lord Halvern's seal is on them."
Gasps broke from the nobles and Lord Halvern stood straighter, lifting his chin imperiously, daring anyone to meet his eye.
Bartholomew laid down two more.
"These are watch rotations that were altered without command approval. The same seal."
Another page.
"Delivery confirmations were falsified. The carts never reached the frontlines which left our people short of what they needed to survive. The same seal signed for it."
Halvern barked a laugh and waved his hand dismissively.
"Forgeries. All of them. Any enemy of my pack could've drawn those."
Eva cut him off.
"The ink matches the palace reserve that was signed out to your clerk. The logbook shows your draw."
Halvern's eyes flicked, searching for allies.
"This is convenient. Too convenient!.Ah, I see what's happening here. You all want a scapegoat, don't you? You should look at…" He swung toward a rival lord. "YOU! Your wagons were late last week, weren't they? Perhaps the Queen prefers your house intact and is focusing on…"
The rival's face drained, and voices rose across the chamber as nobles began spitting blame at one another, desperate to step away from Halvern's shadow.
Ann didn't wait for this to escalate further and her furious voice cut through the bickering effortlessly.
"Enough!"
The room froze and she suppressed a wince at the way her wound pulled when she shouted.
"You sent our supplies into the hands of the Lycan King," she snarled, "You turned our wagons into his provisions and our watch orders into his openings. You fed the Lycan King while our men bled. You rewrote the night watch patrol routes so our walls would burn and you happily smiled in my court while you handed our children to the murderer who twists corpses regardless of age.That's treason."
Halvern tried again, his voice cracking.
"You can't-"
"I can," Ann snapped. "I'm the Alpha Queen, which you seem to have forgotten, and you're nothing but the filth that fed our enemy. You'll die in chains, and your house will follow if one more word leaves your mouth."
The hall went still.
"Guards," Ann called smoothly..
Brad strode forward. His shackles clamped shut and Halvern hit the tiles hard enough that the echo carried through the chamber.
Maeve's voice curled in Ann's mind, rumbling happily.
"The betrayer finally tastes the fear that our people do. Good.
Ann didn't look at Halvern again.
She looked over the nobles and spoke each sentence as if it were law.
"This is the last time treason is hidden in this court. He won't get a trial. We'll strip him of title, bind him in chains, and march him to the holding cells. If anyone here helped him and stays silent, they'll follow him into custody. If anyone here tries to hide it, we'll pull them out of their beds and strip them bare of title and coin."
Her voice dropped, cold and small so that every person present was forced to lean forward. "If so much as one man in this hall says the word 'surrender' again, I'll make an example he won't forget. I'll hand his halls to his neighbors and his heirs will answer the oath in iron or in blood."
The silence shattered instantly as a few names were pushed forward. There were confessions, grudging admissions, men who'd thought themselves untouchable and were suddenly not. Soldiers moved through the hall and took them all without ceremony. Coral nodded once, and they were led away.
Ann kept her hand on the rail until the last echo died.
"The rest of you will load wagons, mend hedges, keep the wards lit, and serve at the front until I say otherwise. You won't talk down to the men who carry out your work with less complaints than I have heard in this council chamber over my duration of being instated here. You will show them how to fight. If you can't fight for the kingdom that you claim yourself fit to govern parts of under my leadership, then hand me your seals now and leave this hall. Nobles exist to govern smaller territories to support the crown, not impede it."
The nobles flinched but the refugees didn't. Some bowed their heads and some smiled with pride, because their Queen had noticed the contribution that they made to the kingdom.
"For once they're smart enough to shut up." Maeve said darkly and Ann didn't answer.
Every man and woman in that hall knew she'd kill the next who stood against her and was done playing games.
The battle had raged for days.
The field was a graveyard of mud and blood, trenches collapsing under the weight of corpses. Armor hung in tatters and wolves limped more than they ran, their fur stiff with dried blood, their eyes dull from too many shifts without rest.
Adam stood where the line split. Mud clung to his boots, blood spread in sheets over the ground. Men leaned on what they could just to stay upright. Some hadn't eaten in two days and the last water ration was gone before dawn. There was more on the way but the sabotage had hit their forces hard.
The Lycan King's forces pressed harder with every charge. For every handler silenced, two more took his place. Constructs ground the trenches into ruin and the twisted Lycans hurled themselves over the line relentlessly.
Adam's voice still carried though, and men still answered, but their replies grew quieter with each passing hour. They weren't rising because they had strength left. They rose only because he told them to.
Medics worked with rags and bare hands now, as there were few supplies left. The latent healing abilities that the lycans and wolves possessed naturally had slowed to a crawl as the exhaustion set in and their energy ran low. The medics and healers work became even more of a life and death struggle as the majority of the stronger fighters now healed no quicker than the magick users. They bound stumps with belts, poured the last of the salt into open wounds, and shoved the barely-conscious back to the wall because there was no one else to fill the gaps in defences.
The Magick-users dropped where they stood, drained to nothing more than withered husks for those who had pushed themselves beyond the limit and gave their very life force to save others. Those still breathing smeared blood on stone, feeding power with their own veins just to keep the barrier they had erected over the final safe encampment flickering.
The right flank had broken three times that day. Each time Adam dragged bodies into the breach himself, forcing the line shut by sheer presence alone. He hadn't stopped moving in two days, hadn't slept in three and his wolf clawed at his skin, begging to take over and burn itself out in one last frenzy.
The army was seconds from collapse. He saw it in every hollow stare. Men whispered to one another without meaning to and the words passed down the line like a prayer and a curse.
"We're going to need a miracle to survive this."
No one argued.
Adam looked out over the ruin of his line, the walking dead that was still somehow an army. He knew they couldn't last another charge and his heart felt as though it would burst.
He had failed them. His kingdom. His people.
His pups.
And when he thought that all hope was lost.
The sky answered.