Chapter 27 New Expectations

• I spent the days after the trial in a strange, muted haze. Everything I had learned in the court gnawed at me, refusing to leave me in peace. I tried to find solace in my room, hiding from the curious gazes of the palace staff, but it didn’t help. The truth was, I didn’t know where I belonged anymore. Being here in the kingdom felt like a betrayal of everything I’d been through, and yet, returning to Wood Mist Pack seemed impossible now.
• Lea was my constant companion, her quiet presence a balm to my aching soul. She sat with me for hours, talking softly, trying to distract me with stories from her own life. She even brought books from the palace library and offered to teach me about Lycan history, though the thought of it only twisted the knife in my heart. History, after all, was what had condemned my family and left me with nothing but questions.
• But it wasn’t just the court’s judgment that weighed on me. I couldn’t shake the image of Astrid’s satisfied smirk or the way she had seemed to relish every moment of my humiliation. She haunted my thoughts, a dark reminder of how precarious my place here really was.