Chapter 143: Rowan's Final Testimony

The council chamber smelled of old paper and melted snow. Nora stood at the head of the table with her hands flat on the wood, the grain rough beneath her palms, and she watched Rowan Vale being led through the door by two Frosthold sentinels. He was thinner than she remembered. His shoulders had lost their Alpha breadth, and the iron collar around his throat marked him as a witness rather than a wolf. Darius stood at the far wall with his arms crossed, a shadow in the corner of her vision. He had offered to stand at her side. She had refused. This moment belonged to her alone. Rowan stopped at the opposite end of the table and raised his eyes to meet hers. For a long breath, neither of them spoke. The chamber's fire crackled and spat, and somewhere in the corridor beyond, a door swung shut. "Tell them everything," Nora said. Rowan's jaw tightened. He reached up and touched the iron collar as if testing its weight, then let his hand fall. "I knew about the ledgers from the first year of her Luna service." His voice came out rough, scraped clean of the authority he once carried. "Elder Callum came to me with two sets of books. One showed the pack's real spending. The other showed us laundering mother-debt payments through three shell accounts." "The real ledgers," Nors pressed. Rowan nodded. "Buried in the old mine shaft. I told myself it was for pack stability. That the debt system kept order. That the women who signed over their futures did it willingly because they had no other choice." Nora felt the cold of the table seep through her sleeves. She kept her hands still. "And the children?" Rowan's face went pale. He stared at the wood between them for a long moment before he spoke again. "Fourteen infants taken from debt-bound mothers over five years. Sold to southern packs that needed heirs. I signed the transfer papers myself." The room felt thin, the air too small to hold the weight of what he had just confessed. Darius shifted at the wall, and Nora heard the faint scrape of his boot on stone. A warning. A reminder that she could stop this anytime. She did not stop it. "Why?" she asked. "Why what?" "Why did you really reject me?" Rowan looked up at her, and for the first time since he entered the chamber, she saw something crack behind his eyes. Not guilt. Not remorse. The sound of something breaking that had already been shattered too many times to count. "Because Iris promised me a son." The words hung in the air like smoke. "She told me you were barren. She showed me a healer's report. I wanted an heir, Nora. I wanted someone to carry my name, my bloodline, my legacy. And you gave me five years of nothing." "I was pregnant when you rejected me." Rowan flinched as if she had struck him. "I didn't know." "You chose not to know. You never asked. You never looked at the healer's ledger yourself. You took Iris's word because it was easier than admitting your Luna deserved a second chance." Rowan's hands gripped the edge of the table, and his knuckles went white. "I know." Nora held his gaze. "The child I carried that night is named Hope. She bears the crown-moon mark. She will never carry your name, your pack, or your debt." Silence settled over the room like frost. Rowan pulled a folded parchment from his coat and laid it flat on the table. The seal at the bottom bore Blackridge's crest. "This is my full testimony. Signed, witnessed, and bound by blood oath. It names every lie I told, every debt I hid, and every child I sold." Nora looked at the parchment. Then she looked at Rowan. "And the pack?" "The pack is free." Rowan's voice broke on the last word. "I've transferred ownership to the Winter Council. Blackridge will be dissolved into a sanctuary territory for debt-bound women. No Alpha. No Luna. No throne." "You'll have nothing." Rowan smiled, and the expression did not reach his eyes. "I had nothing the night I sent you into the snow. I just didn't know it until now."