Chapter 30 Returned, Not Tainted

• Raya’s POV
• The Black Moon territory was a study in cold efficiency, a mirror of my father’s own rigid mind. I skirted the main patrol paths, moving along the shadowed edges of the forest line until the formidable stone perimeter of the main compound came into view. The scent of the Pack, usually a warm, collective aroma of pine and wolf, was corrupted here—replaced by the sharp, metallic odour of fear and an oppressive, faint undercurrent of the same ‘witch-blood’ residue that had dissolved the rogues in the clearing. It was woven into the very fabric of the air, polluting the hearth smoke and the damp stone.
• I used the old, unused supply entrance near the root cellar, a route I had memorized during my childhood games. The lock was rusted, but the mechanism yielded with a soft, protesting scrape under the application of Kaelen’s field knife—the practical utility blade he used for mundane tasks. I slipped inside the secondary wall and moved toward the servant quarters, the lowest, most hidden wing of the fortress.