Page 163 of Maksym

The Magistrate’s staff struck the stone floor once. The sound cracked through the chamber.

Lucian’s hand loosened. His face smoothed. Too late. I had seen.

The prosecution counsel rose with a deliberate scrape of chair against stone. He adjusted his sleeves with the practiced precision of a man who believed ceremony would do half his work for him.

The Magistrate inclined his head.

“The prosecution may proceed.”

The chamber drew inward around the words.

The prosecution counsel stepped forward.

He was polished in the way ambitious men often were when they had mistaken polish for virtue. His dark robe fell in clean lines. His hair had been smoothed back from a narrow face that had learned restraint from mirrors rather than morality. When he placed his papers on the lectern, he did so without hurry, aligning the edges with two fingers before he looked up at the Magistrate.

Then he gave the Council a modest inclination of his head.

Modesty performed for an audience was never modesty. It was bait.

“Honored Magistrate. Esteemed members of the Council.” His voice was clipped, deliberate, and edged with that practiced condescension. “We are here today because an Alpha lies dead, his pack bereaved, his sanctioned territory violated, and ancient protections meant to preserve the sovereignty of our peoples treated as an inconvenience by a prince accustomed to entering whatever room he pleases.”

A subtle movement went through the spectator benches. Interest. Approval in some corners. Hunger in others.

I did not look toward Nikolay yet. I looked at Grace. She did not move.

Her hands remained folded in front of her. Her face was perfectly still. She might have been listening to weather reports, except I knew the force she contained beneath that stillness. Grace did not waste expression when silence would invite overconfidence.

He turned slightly, presenting his profile to the Council, his voice smooth enough to make poison drinkable.

“The Ironwood Pack is young in its formal recognition, yes. No one disputes this. It does not possess the centuries of entrenched influence enjoyed by some present in this chamber.” He paused there, long enough to let the implication glance toward us without pointing directly enough to be rebuked. “But youth of sanction does not mean poverty of tradition. Ironwood is a humble pack. A private pack. A pack holding to honest, old-fashioned customs in an age that too often treats conviction as extremism.”

My father did not move. Neither did I.

Across the chamber, one of the wolf kings leaned back by a fraction. Not agreement, perhaps. Consideration. The distinction mattered.

The counsel continued, “We will show that Madelyn Baucaum was not dragged to Ironwood territory by force. She was not abducted from Obsidian. She was not a stranger to the pack members she later accused. Quite the opposite.”

Maddie’s hands stayed flat against the table. Her knuckles had begun to pale.

“At Obsidian,” he said, “after her working hours, Miss Baucaum was seen socializing willingly with Ironwood wolves. Laughing with them. Sharing drinks. Remaining in conversation beyond any professional obligation. She formed what witnesses will describe as a genuine friendship with Sloan Lynch, the Alpha’s sister, who extended kindness to her when she was newly arrived in Philadelphia and, by all accounts, lonely.”

Nikolay’s jaw tightened. The first blade slid between ribs already bruised by guilt.

The counsel saw it, of course. Men like him fed on such movements while pretending not to notice.

“Miss Baucaum accepted an invitation to join Ironwood for a moonlight run,” he continued. “Not under threat. Not under compulsion. Of her own accord. She entered pack territory willingly. She ran beneath the moon with Ironwood wolves. She stayed the night.”

He lifted one sheet from his papers, though I doubted he needed it.

“The next day, she spent time with Alpha Sage Lynch. She rode horses with him. She conversed with him. She remained in his company long after any alleged discomfort should have prompted departure. Then, when invited to remain one additional night for the Black Harvest Moon festival, she agreed.”

Maddie’s mouth had become a hard line.

Nikolay shifted one hand toward her beneath the table, then stopped. Not because he did not want to touch her. Because every movement would be read. Because law turned comfort into optics and love into liability if one did not handle it correctly.

Grace still did not write. Not a single note.

The counsel’s eyes flicked toward her, briefly irritated by the absence of visible reaction. He had expected objection perhaps, or agitation, or a young attorney’s frantic scribbling as he built his foundation. Instead, Grace watched him with her hands folded and her expression arranged into a stillness so complete it became an insult.