ZARIA'S POV 
The bitter wind sweeping through the inner courtyard did nothing to cool the raw tension hanging over the stones. The air tasted of ash, ozone, and old snow, a brutal reminder of the violence that had just torn through the royal wing upstairs.
Cassian’s hand was a heavy, warm pressure on my forearm, his fingers tightening every single time I tried to take another step down the stone stairwell.
"Zaria, stop this. You can barely keep your balance," he said. "Let me go down there and handle it."
"No," I told him. My ribs ached with a dull, throbbing heat every time I drew a full breath, and the palms of my hands were still raw and stinging from where the greenhouse glass had sliced into them. My human body was entirely spent, shaking from the absolute edge of physical exhaustion, but my mind was absolute steel. "He came to the gates screaming my name, Cassian. I’m not going to hide. I’m going to look him in the eye."
Cassian let out a low, frustrated rumble from the back of his throat, the sound vibrating against my shoulder, but he didn't pull me back. He knew better than to try and lock me away when I had made up my mind. Instead, he dropped his hand from my arm and shifted slightly, keeping himself a half-step behind my shoulder as we finally walked out onto the lower cobblestones.
Down in the center of the courtyard, Garrick was on his knees.
He was completely trapped inside a tight, overlapping circle of Shadowpelt guards. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder, their long, heavy silver blades unsheathed and pointed directly down at his neck, the metal catching the dim, gray light of the afternoon.
If I hadn't known his face, I wouldn't have recognized him. The pristine, untouchable Alpha who had stood in the warmth of the Bloodmoon hall and cast me out into a freezing blizzard to bleed to death was completely gone. He was shivering, his chest heaving violently as he gasped for the thin northern air.
The moment our boots clattered against the wet cobblestones, Garrick’s head snapped up.
His hair was matted with grime, sticking to his forehead, but the second his wild, bloodshot green eyes locked onto my face, the absolute terror in his expression vanished. A look of pure, desperate, and utterly pathetic relief washed over him.
"Zaria," he choked out. The sound was ragged, scraping out of his throat as if he hadn't had a sip of water in days. He made a sudden, frantic motion to push himself up off his knees, but the guards didn't give him an inch. They instantly stepped inward, pressing the sharp tips of their silver blades directly against the skin of his throat, forcing him right back down onto the cold, hard stone. "Zaria... thank God. You're alive. You're actually alive. I thought... I thought I was too late."
I stopped right at the edge of the circle of blades, looking down at the man kneeling in the dirt.
I waited for the old familiar sting. I waited for the anger, or the phantom ache of the life we were supposed to have together, or even the fear. But as I stood there staring at the absolute wreck of the man who used to be the center of my entire world, I felt absolutely nothing. No hate, no sorrow. Just a deep, cold, and heavy disgust.
"What are you doing here, Garrick?" I asked. My voice sounded flat, hollow, and completely dead in the quiet of the courtyard.
"I came to warn you," he pleaded, his voice cracking as he reached his arms out toward me through the gaps in the guards' blades, his bloody, dirt-caked palms open in a silent beg. "Cynthia... she lied to me, Zaria. She lied to everyone. I swear to you on my life, I had no idea she had sent assassins up here to the north. I didn't know about the rogues. I thought she just wanted to handle the border treaties at the Council. The absolute second I found out what she had done, the moment I realized what she was planning I came here to save you."
"To save me?" I let out a short, sharp laugh that felt like dry ash in the back of my throat. I looked at the bloody state of him, the desperation rolling off him in waves. "You threw me out into a freezing storm to die alone in the snow, Garrick. You stood there and watched me bleed. Don't come to my home now and act like my life suddenly matters to you."
"It does!" he cried, the tears finally breaking through, cutting clean, white tracks through the thick grime on his cheeks. He slammed his fist against his own chest, his fingers ripping frantically at the torn linen of his shirt until the skin beneath was red. "The bond... Zaria, the moment those rogues broke through your walls, the bond flared up. It’s tearing my chest wide open. I can feel your pain. I could feel the coldness when you almost died in that hallway. I know what I did. I made a horrible mistake. A sickening, terrible mistake. Please... you have to listen to me. We can fix this. We can pull the bond back together. Just look at me!"
I watched him thrash around in his own guilt, listening to him whine about the pain in his chest, and the absolute pity of the sight made my stomach turn. He only cared about himself—about the agonizing, phantom ache of a connection that he had broken with his own hands, now screaming at him because he had realized what he threw away.
"There is absolutely nothing to fix, Garrick," I said, my voice steady, quiet, and completely unyielding. "You made your choice in the snow. You signed the paper, and you walked away. Now you have to live with it."
Garrick’s face twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated agony. A desperate, wild look took over his eyes, and he made a sudden, lunging movement forward, trying to dive right beneath the guards' swords. His bloody fingers clawed through the dirt, reaching out frantically, trying to catch the hem of my trousers. "Zaria, please! Just let me touch your hand! Just let me tell you—"
Before his fingers could even come within a foot of my boots, Cassian stepped directly into the space between us.
The movement was completely silent, but the shift in the courtyard was instantaneous. Cassian’s presence dropped over the stone floor like a physical, suffocating weight. He loomed over the kneeling Alpha like a shadow from the mountains, his golden eyes narrowing until they looked like two slits of cold, unblinking fire.
Garrick froze instantly, the raw, crushing power of the Lycan King pinning him flat against the cobblestones. He looked up, the bravado completely draining out of him, his breath catching in his throat as he finally realized exactly how small, how helpless, and how utterly pathetic he truly was in the north.
"You've said more than enough, boy," Cassian rumbled.
 I could see the tight, white-knuckled grip Cassian had on his own fists, the muscles in his back coiled tightly like a spring ready to snap. I knew exactly how easily he could have reached down and taken Garrick’s head right off his shoulders. But then, Cassian caught his breath, his eyes shifting back over his shoulder to look at me. He saw the way the exhaustion was pulling at my eyes, the way my breath was coming in short, painful hitches, and the murderous fire in his face settled into something much colder, much more calculated.
Helen stepped out from the line of guards, her hand resting heavily on the hilt of her unsheathed sword, her eyes fixed on the prisoner. "Shall we kill him, my King?"
"No," Cassian commanded, his voice echoing clearly off the high stone walls of the fortress. "Death is far too quick for a coward like him. Strip him of his weapons, strip him of his rank, and bind his hands in heavy iron. Drag him down to the subterranean cells beneath the keep. Let him sit down there in the dark and the damp."
Garrick’s eyes went wide with sudden panic as two massive Shadowpelt guards stepped forward, grabbing him roughly by the armpits and hauling him backward across the rough stones. He thrashed against their grip, his boots dragging uselessly through the mud.
"Zaria! No! Don't let him do this to me!" Garrick screamed, his voice echoing wildly as they threw open the heavy cellar doors. "Zaria, please! Look at me!"
 Cassian reached out, his large, warm hand gently finding the small of my back to support my weight, slowly guiding me away from the cold wind and back toward the safety of the keep. "Let his pack spend the next few months wondering whether their Alpha is alive or dead."