CHAPTER 028: The Ball
~LYRA'S POV~
The Harrow estate announced itself before we were even through the gates.
Stone walls that had been standing longer than most pack alliances, torches burning in iron brackets along the approach road, carriages lined up ahead of ours from territories I recognised and some I didn't. The kind of place that had been built specifically to remind you that the people who lived here had been powerful for a very long time, and that you were just a guest in that history whether you were comfortable with it or not.
I stood on the stone steps in the green gown Ryland had chosen and let myself feel the weight of it for exactly one moment.
Everything from the last week pressing against the back of my composure, the training nights, the killings, the thread I'd held through by the thinnest margin, and then I let it go. I straightened my shoulders and forced my legs to start moving.
