Direbound

Meryn goes to Stark’s office and finds it empty. She searches for the set of books that caught her attention previously and finds that they contain a handwritten history of Nocturna. She learns that the Sturmfrost Queens were the original rulers of Nocturna long before King Cyril’s bloodline and that the queens were bonded with a direwolf, unlike the current king. Confused, Meryn realizes that she doesn’t know the history of her kingdom beyond the last 500 years. The book makes her question the usual story of how the Faceless Goddess blessed King Cyril’s bloodline with the Diren Blæd, especially after she discovers a drawing of the crown she saw in her visions, on the wall carving, in her mother’s journals, and (she realizes) below the arena.

Stark arrives, and she questions him, but he only acknowledges her engagement band. When she presses him for information, he says that he can’t say anything, which Anassa also repeats. Angry and feeling betrayed since both Stark and Anassa know more about her visions than they let on, Meryn storms off and erects a mental wall between herself and Anassa.

Three days from the Unity Trial, which will test how well the packs coordinate, Meryn pores over the kingdom’s history, still irritated with Anassa and Stark. Izabel comes to check on her, and they discuss Meryn’s engagement to Killian. Izabel organizes a celebration with their other friends in the kitchen. They banter and poke fun at each other’s love lives while trying to make Izabel’s family’s cake recipe. After the cake fails and they’ve spent hours drinking wine, Venna offers to clean up with Meryn. Alone, Venna tells Meryn that, while she hasn’t found anything concrete, she knows that something’s off.

On the day of the Unity Trial, Jonah insults Meryn and insinuates that someone of common blood will die during the Trial. The Rawbonds are then directed to the arena. The king arrives, and the trial begins. As the leaders of Strategos, Meryn and Anassa lead the coordinated attack against the Daemos pack. Meryn directs the Phylax Rawbonds to form a defensive line and directs Kryptos to gather intel from their flanks.

Meryn can feel all the pack bonds, and through the information from her packmates and her streetwise instincts, she directs their defense against Daemos attacks. Jonah, however, leads a contingent against Henrey specifically. Before she can adjust, Henrey and his direwolf fall. Meryn watches as Henrey’s wolf lunges to instinctively kill him out of a warped sense of survival.

As she watches Henrey’s gruesome death, Meryn rallies herself. Her priority is to protect her pack. Henrey silently implores Meryn to kill him mercifully, and she accepts. Meryn has her pack hold their defensive line and breaks rank. Henrey’s wolf seems to be fighting his instincts to further harm Henrey, but when Meryn approaches, she can tell that Henrey will die. Anassa warns that killing him will change Meryn, but she doesn’t hesitate when she strikes him.

Both Henrey and his wolf die, and Meryn wants revenge against Jonah. Anassa reminds her, however, that her priority is to lead her pack to victory. For hours, they defend themselves until the final horn blares and all are deemed to have passed the Trial. Meryn notices servants gathering Henrey and carrying him away to a strange door instead of the castle gates. Meryn thinks they’re taking him beneath the arena, where the crown is.

Everyone celebrates their upcoming graduation that night, but Meryn finds Venna and takes her to her room. Venna, too, noticed the servants’ strange behavior. Meryn asks her to uncover what’s beneath the arena and tells her about the crown. Venna leaves on her mission, and Meryn is about to take out Stark’s history books when she hears Killian come through the secret passage. As he and Meryn move to have sex, Izabel comes into the room looking for Venna and drags Killian into a card game in the common room. Meryn is about to join them, but Stark stops her.

Stark asks when her wedding will be. They argue, and Stark reveals that his family members are the crown’s sworn protectors, so while she might not want to associate with him, she’ll effectively never be rid of him if she marries Killian. Though Stark meant to tattoo her, he leaves it to another Bonded. After the tattoo is finished and the Bonded rider licks Meryn, she realizes that her strong reaction is exclusive to Stark. When she looks at her tattoo, she believes that the collar is complete. Killian joins her, and they return to her room. They have sex, and Killian tells her of his fantasy wherein he sits on the throne and Meryn is perched on his lap, naked and his to touch as he pleases in front of the court. Later, while Killian sleeps, Venna knocks at Meryn’s door and tells her to come with her immediately.

Venna takes Meryn below the arena through a maze of corridors, tunnels, and doors. As they progress, even Anassa feels uneasy. When they reach the bottom, Venna warns Meryn that she’ll only have a few minutes before the guards return. When she goes through the door, Meryn arrives in a marbled room where dozens of missing children are contained in cells. Among them is Saela. The sisters reunite, and Saela tells her how the Nabbers took her to the king’s guards. She has been under the castle for four months, and the knowledge that she was so close hurts Meryn.

Saela then tells her that every few weeks, the king chooses a child, sometimes two, and the child or children never return. Saela implores her not to let the king choose her. Venna then arrives to warn her of the returning guards. Meryn promises Saela that she’ll return with help. As Meryn leaves, Anassa urges her not to get anyone else involved, but Meryn is adamant that Killian will help her as he always has.

Meryn returns to her room and tells Killian about finding Saela. She explains that his father, the king, takes the children, and Killian appears distraught at having missed the signs. He promises that whatever it takes, they’ll stop him together. He tells her that the perfect opportunity to strike is during the graduation ceremony. The next day, Meryn readies herself. She lowers the mental wall she has kept with Anassa and tells her about her plan. Anassa grudgingly agrees. As the king makes his congratulatory speech, Meryn thinks of all the Rawbond riders who died because of him. Before he allows the graduation to end, however, he orders a final culling purely for entertainment.

The packs are in a frenzy. Meryn takes control of her pack and coordinates their response to retaliate against the king. She forms a protective arc around him to make it look like she’s defending him. She tells her pack to hold formation no matter what happens. When Anassa asks if she’s certain, Meryn rages and directs them to the king’s throne. Before the king can say anything, she kicks away the Diren Blæd and steals it. It feels right in her hands, as if it’s fusing with her, and she uses it to behead him. When she turns, triumphant, to Killian, he’s shocked and orders the guards to seize her. Just as someone hits her in the back of her head, she sees Killian smiling.

As she regains consciousness, Meryn hears a voice screaming at her to get the crown. When she fully wakes, she realizes that she’s in the castle’s dungeons. Anassa is nearby, collared in blood-red metal, and tells Meryn that she has been unconscious for a long time and that the blood-red collar doesn’t allow her to reach their pack. Meryn worries about Saela when Killian approaches. His eyes have changed, and he asks her why she would think of killing the king. He tells her that her mind, like her mother’s, has grown sick and denies that they ever planned to kill the king together.

Anassa tells her not to listen to him. Killian maintains that she has become unwell because of the grief she endured and that he must keep her in the dungeons for her safety. He tries to kiss her, but she pushes him away, which irritates him. He leaves, and Meryn realizes that she has seen his true nature. She asks if Anassa was aware of Killian’s real personality, and when she doesn’t respond, Meryn lashes out. She blames Anassa’s silence for the misplaced trust she had in Killian. She then asks Anassa to reach out to her mate. Anassa hesitates since Meryn has never trusted her. Meryn asks her to reach out to them, tell them to contact Venna, and find the crown below the arena. Anassa insists on knowing if this is a direct order, and Meryn confirms that it is.

Stark arrives, and Meryn is initially confused until she sees Anassa with Cratos and realizes that he’s her mate. Anassa reveals all her emotions, and Meryn feels an irresistible emotional pull to Stark. Once she erects a thin wall between her and Anassa, he hands over the crown. She notices that the opal at its center matches the one on her mother’s necklace.

Meryn slips on the crown and has a vision from 500 years ago, when the kingdom knew peace and the castle was harmonious. She witnesses the last queen, Queen Chiara, hand over her infant child to an attendant along with her necklace and face off against a surprise Siphon attack led by Alistair Brightbane, a descendant of Lucien Brightbane. Meryn realizes that Alistair has an uncanny resemblance to Killian and his father. Queen Chiara dies, and Meryn returns from her vision to a voice in her head announcing that Meryn Sturmfrost has returned and stating, “Long live.” As the pieces fall into place, Meryn rhetorically asks if she’s the rightful queen of Nocturna, and Stark bows to her and welcomes her back.

Meryn demands to know why Stark and Anassa never told her anything. He explains that the Siphons held a blood curse over the Bonded for the last 500 years. When the crown and the sword are used together, they control humans’ bonds to direwolves. The Siphons used them to bind the public’s memories of the rightful royal family. His ancestor was the attendant who smuggled Meryn’s family out, hiding them among commoners.

Stark’s family kept the true history alive through written books, but because of the curse, they could never speak of it. Meryn asks why he has hated her since he met her. He admits that he hated her for being in love with the person who was stealing her birthright and maintaining the curse. She learns that he (not Killian) secured her private room and provided her ball gown. Stark points out that he had to endure their wolves’ mating bond alone while watching her with another man. Anassa then allows her to feel the full strength of her mating bond, and Meryn struggles to differentiate between Anassa’s need for Cratos and her relationship with Stark.

In addition, Stark confirms that during their first encounter in the market, he killed the man who heckled her during her pit match. Meryn deduces that Stark was there during the fight. As emotions run high, she reminds herself and Stark that as Alphas, they don’t have the luxury of weaknesses. They determine that Killian doesn’t appear to be a Siphon, but Meryn struggles with knowing that she accepted, forgave, and pursued Killian. When Stark offers to let Meryn use him as she wishes, she declines in favor of her plan to pretend she’s everything Killian wants to exact revenge. She gives the crown back to Stark for safekeeping and orders him to find Saela and the other children.

After Stark leaves, she begs the guards to meet with Killian. She’s taken to his rooms, where maids make her into a presentable, “beautiful object.” Killian enters, carrying the Diren Blæd. Meryn pretends she’s feeble and in agreement with his gaslighting. Convinced, Killian is about to initiate sex when she takes control, punches him in the throat, and steals the Diren Blæd back. At sword point, she makes him reveal that he always knew her identity and deliberately sought her out.

In addition, she learns that he’s responsible for her mother’s death because he wanted her to have her mother’s power before becoming his queen. Midway through his explanation, however, another entity takes over his body, introducing himself as Alistair Brightbane. Killian resurfaces and explains that each king serves as Alistair’s vessel through transference magic, a subtype of Siphon magic. Killian’s father made him into a Siphon before the graduation ceremony, and Killian then fed on Henrey and became Alistair’s vessel. He reveals that the children were used to hold the transference magic in place.

As Killian holds her down with shadows, Meryn summons Stark and Anassa. Stark plows through the room and gives her the crown. Through it, she has access to boundless magic. Killian remarks that he now knows who Anassa’s mate is. He keeps them all at bay, forces Meryn to kiss him, thanks her for his new power, and tells her that he left her a surprise. He then leaves. Stark and Meryn notice that Killian’s engagement band is sapping her strength, but she can’t remove it.

Stark comforts her and tells her that they found her sister and rescued her and the other children. As he takes her to Saela, they both notice that the shadows on the walls seem alive. Meryn feels that she can control them. When she arrives in the room, Saela hugs her, and Meryn notices that she’s freezing and pale. Stark leaves them alone, and Meryn tells Saela about their true heritage and their mother’s death. Saela gets acquainted with Anassa, and Anassa tells Meryn that she can now eliminate the Bonding Trials since they were a means by which the king shackled the Bonded. Anassa reminds her that she must tell everyone the truth.

Meryn gives the order to pass along the information through their mental connection. As it disperses, Saela convulses and falls to the ground. Meryn lunges for her, but Stark drags her back while Saela attacks an attendant and draws blood with new fangs. Meryn realizes that Killian’s “surprise” for her was making Saela a Siphon before he left. Through her grief and fury, Meryn resolves to find a way to make Saela human again and hunt down Killian.