Chapter 221 The List
ADRIANA
Being Queen was one thing. Being Queen at seven in the morning was something else entirely.
When Hazel had put the schedule in front of me the night before, the first thing I'd seen was that time and I'd stared at it like it had personally offended me.
"Who scheduled this?"
"They did." Hazel hadn't even looked up from her phone. "I pushed it to nine. They pushed it back."
"What could they possibly need to say at seven in the morning that they can't say at ten?"
She'd shrugged. "No idea. They just said it was urgent."
I'd gone to bed telling myself I'd be up in time. And then my body had made a completely different decision, because the next thing I knew, Leo was in my doorway saying my name in the tone he used when something had already gone wrong and he was trying to be calm about it.
"Mum."
I sat up. "What?"
"The elders." He hesitated. "They've been waiting since seven."
I looked at the window. The light was wrong. I looked at the clock on the nightstand.
"Oh, for the love of-" I was already out of the bed before I finished the sentence, grabbing whatever was closest. "Why didn't Hazel come wake me up?"
"She said she tried. Twice." He wisely retreated from the doorway.
I flew into the bathroom, brushed my teeth in approximately forty-five seconds, threw my hair into something that could pass as intentional from a distance, and made it to the conference room in under ten minutes. I was still pulling my jacket straight when I pushed the door open.
Every head in the room turned toward me.
I looked at the clock on the wall. Two hours and thirty-seven minutes late.
I took a breath, walked to my seat and sat down.
"I have no excuse," I said. "I overslept. I apologize for your time."
Elder Matthew spoke first, and his voice was remarkably gentle about it. "You are the Queen. We waited because we chose to. Your situation is not lost on us."
That made it worse somehow. I pulled the notepad Hazel slid in front of me and looked at the three items on the agenda.
Storm Pack leadership. The Moonlight Celebration. Elijah's health.
I'd been dreading all three of them in different ways and for different reasons.
"Storm Pack." I set the notepad down. "Why is this still on the agenda? This is the third session we've spent time on it."
"Because it requires a decision, My Queen," one of the younger elders said carefully. "A pack without leadership becomes unstable. The people there are already feeling it. They've submitted a formal request to this council."
I didn't know what Elijah had been planning to do with that territory before the attack. I'd found nothing conclusive in his files, no decision made, no clear direction. Going in half-informed and making a permanent call on something he'd been carefully considering felt wrong in a way I couldn't quite articulate.
"Fine." I sat forward. "I'm absorbing Storm Pack into this kingdom. Temporarily. It falls under my administration until Elijah wakes up and handles it the way he intended to. No special appointments or interim Alpha, no opportunity for anyone to plant a flag."
There was a beat of silence around the table.
"There are at least five Alphas who have submitted formal proposals for the territory," Elder Matthew said.
"Then tell them the territory isn't available." I held his gaze. "And if any of them want to dispute that, they can come and dispute it with me directly."
Nobody said anything after that, which I took as agreement by exhaustion.
"The Moonlight Celebration." I moved on before anyone could circle back. "It's in four days. Where are preparations?"
The atmosphere in the room shifted slightly to something lighter. The elder who handled cultural affairs sat up a little straighter.
"The people have been preparing for weeks, My Queen. The enthusiasm this year is notable. There's a sense that they want to honor the celebration even more deliberately given the King's absence."
That landed somewhere in my chest.
"Good." I kept my voice steady. "Nothing changes because Elijah isn't here. The celebration goes forward exactly as it always has. I'll address the people. Schedule a date for me to visit the pack grounds before the first day."
Then Elder Matthew cleared his throat. He was the one who always delivered the difficult things, and I'd learned to recognize the way he straightened in his chair before he did it.
"My Queen. We are aware that you've been carrying an extraordinary weight these past six months. We are grateful. More than we've perhaps expressed adequately." He paused. "But the people have questions about the King. Questions we don't have answers to. They want to know there is hope. They want to know what the doctors are saying."
"The doctors are saying it's too soon to tell," I said.
"Too soon?" The outburst came from the far end of the table - one of the older elders, a man who rarely spoke. His voice was rough. "It has been six months."
The room went quiet.
"Elder Pryce." I kept my voice completely even. "I know."
He shook his head, looked down at his hands. "Forgive me, My Queen. I didn't mean-"
"You don't need to apologize." I meant that. "We're all sitting with the same thing. The difference is I can't fall apart in front of you, and you can't fall apart in front of the people. So we hold it. We keep going. That's all there is." I looked around the table. "We do the Moonlight Celebration with everything we have, and we give the people something worth celebrating. And we hope. That's what we have right now."
Nobody argued with that.
The meeting ended shortly after. I sat in the chair for a moment after the room emptied, and let myself feel the weight of all of it before I stood up and put it somewhere I could carry it.