Stormcaster (Shattered Realms #3)(124)

“Raisa ana’Marianna was poisoned,” Hanalea said gently.

“Poisoned?” Lyss’s knees buckled, and she would have fallen, but the wolves pressed in around her, supporting her, keeping her upright. “When? And how? And by whom?”

“Three days ago,” Hanalea said. “We don’t know the answers to your other questions.”

Three days ago. Lyss had awakened from a sound sleep, in a panic. She’d had that dream again, the one that had haunted her ever since the summer Hana was killed. Everyone was dead, and she stood on Hanalea Peak, alone with the wolves.

Althea sat, wrapping her tail around her feet. “Raisa crossed over and joined us, thereby breaking her connection to the living Line. Then, what did she do, but she turned right around and went back.”

“She went . . . back?” Lyss clutched handfuls of fur to either side, but the queens didn’t seem to mind.

“Your father interfered,” Althea said.

“My—father?” Lyss whispered. “He was there?”

“It must be that troublemaking Waterlow blood,” Althea said. “First he arranged these trysts between Hana and Alger, and then he—”

“You have Waterlow blood, dear,” Hanalea pointed out drily.

“Highly diluted,” Althea said.

“Anyway, he healed your mother and persuaded her to go back and rejoin the living,” Hanalea said. “But now we have a problem.”

“My mother is alive!” Lyss said, her emotions in a whiplash of confusion. “How is that a problem?”

“The Line was broken,” Althea said. “And that means that, technically—”

“Not just technically,” Hanalea said. She looked into Lyss’s eyes. “That means that you—Alyssa ana’Raisa—you are now the Gray Wolf queen.”