Heiko stiffened, his expression sharpening. “A target? Why?”
Victoria’s eyes met his, sharp as daggers. “Because your mother, River — my sister — Mara, committed the gravest sin imaginable in the North. She… mingled her royal bloodline with an outsider.”
She turned to River, and for a moment, the mask of the Iron Queen slipped.
“She fell in love,” Victoria said softly, almost bitterly. “With a man who was not of our clans. A foreigner. A wolf beyond our ancient lineage. She stained our bloodline with her recklessness… for what? For the illusion of love?”
River’s lips parted, but no words came. Her heart was pounding, her mind reeling.
Victoria continued, her tone colder now, but laced with something deeper — grief, perhaps. “She knew the rules. Every royal of the North does. Our line
