“This isn’t helping!” Collin’s voice cracked. He held up a tuft of chestnut hair torn from Nic’s scalp. “We’re tearing each other apart—what good does that do? Fighting won’t bring Niall back. It won’t restore Logan’s family. We need each other, god damn it! Or we won’t survive another night.”
Gravis snarled, teeth bared. He shoved against the wall like it might back down. “Don’t talk to me about bonds. Not whileshe’shere.” His eyes cut like knives toward Helen. “Sitting around her father’s table, night after night—don’t tell me she didn’t know what Sol was planning!”
Helen’s voice trembled. “My father didn’t know... I swear—he didn’t... I didn’t—”
“Save it!” Gravis snapped. “Either you were too stupid to see the signs or you lied to the rest of us!”
Collin’s voice went razor-sharp. “You watch your tone.”
“I warned you,” Nic spat, straining against Uriah’s grip. His voice was low, dangerous, serrated at the edges. “You don’t talk to her. Not like that. Not while I’m alive!”
His hands trembled, fists clenched so hard his knuckles shone bone-white, blood still dripping from his earlier blows.
“She’s not responsible for what that monster did. But if you need someone to bleed—” his eyes locked on Gravis, cold and steady—“start with me. Just know I’ll hit back harder.”
“Gravis, if you insult Helen again in my house, I willpersonallythrow you out,” Collin growled, but his voice was barely steady.
“I’m sorry,” Helen whispered through tears. “I swear, if I’d evenguessed—”
“I never doubted you,” Nic said, ripping himself from the others. He crossed the room and wrapped her in his arms. “This wasn’t your fault.”
He led her to the armchair. She folded into him, sobbing softly into his shirt.
Finally, the room’s volume began to collapse in on itself.
Aries and Lekyi cautiously eased off Gravis.
Gravis straightened, wiped the blood from his mouth with his sleeve. “Sky and I leave for White Wood tomorrow anyway.” His tone dripped contempt. “I’ll see myself out.”
He stomped to the door and yanked it open. He paused at the threshold—a moment—and then closed it quietly behind him.
More than a fortnight had passed since the massacre at Nesaea.
Collin had gone home, washed the blood and black powder from his skin, scrubbed at the soot that seemed to cling to his very pores. But he was far from clean. Far from whole.
Though no longer wolves, returning to their old lives felt like stepping into borrowed realities. They were each due to resume work after a short reprieve—rejoin the rhythms they had once known.
Collin found the monotony of his old life stifling. He didn’t miss the grueling sunrise-to-sunset drills—but he missed the exhaustion. Back then, there had been no time for memory. Now, sleep eluded him. And when it came, it brought nightmares steeped in blood and smoke.
Fatigue was seeping into everything. He misplaced objects without realizing. Tasks remained unfinished or poorly done. Worst of all, the things that had once brought him peace—reading, hunting, crafting with glass—now felt hollow. Dim echoes of a former self.
The fractures in his friends were just as visible.
Aries, once the stalwart guardian, now clung to Hadria with childlike desperation. Nic’s usual warmth had curdled into sharp-edged volatility; he snapped at those closest to him without reason. Dragonfly—never skittish—had grown wary of walking alone after dark. Lekyi, the group's reliable commentator, had gone quiet. No updates on legislation. No mention of village affairs.
And Clive—Clive seemed suspended in fog. He had barely spoken since Niall’s death. At the funeral, while others wept openly, Clive had stood still as stone, staring at the blaze that devoured his twin.
As for Logan and the Nesaea survivors, what remained of their village was scarcely more than a memory. A few dozen—mostly women, children, some elder men—were ushered back to the summit, their fates left in the hands of stewards and clerks.
Sympathetic citizens had stepped forward—offering beds, clothing, even homes for the orphaned. Nic and Uriah’s family, Arion’s, even Helen’s parents had offered Logan a place. But in the end, the stewards decided. He was sent to stay with James, who had recently inherited a small, quiet cottage from a dead grandfather.
Their shared dinner had started like so many others—a quiet ritual they’d come to rely on. Gathered in Collin’s house, nursing cups of tea and the wounds of Nesaea, the group found comfortin shared silence and confessions. Every retelling forged new threads between them—stronger, stranger, more tangled.
But the fragile peace cracked the moment James began showing up. As Logan’s guest, he was courteous, soft-spoken—but his connection to the stewards fanned embers Gravis could no longer suppress. He’d always kept his distance from Helen, but until that evening, he hadn’t turned hostile.
Dinner had been warm, filled with gentle laughter and the exchange of half-recovered appetites. Rhea and Sky, Logan and James retired early, their goodbyes light. Only the core remained, finishing their tea by the hearth when Gravis announced it...
He had petitioned to remain with the guards. Permanently. And been accepted.
