CHAPTER THREE- RESCUED.

The moment my foot crossed the Silverfang border, the world changed.

The sun was gone, grasses gave way to tangled roots, and as the sun was replaced by a cold, silver gloom, the trees thickened, pressing against my skin like a warning. Every step was a trespass, every breath a gamble.

The forest didn’t welcome me.

It swallowed me whole.

I paused, listening, only the sound of ancient bark and the hiss of wind threading through the trees like whispered threats, no threat of a prey nor birdsong.

My hands held the hem of my cloak. White silk. Gold thread. Useless against thorns and brambles. A mockery of purity, given to a girl already deemed unworthy.

The chill bit through me, sharp as teeth.

Still, I walked.

By sunrise, blood seeped from my heels, staining the once-delicate shoes. The bruises from the night before resurfaced causing my knees to ache from every stumble, where I had dropped to them in shock, throbbed in rhythm with my heartbeat.

Kieran’s voice haunted the back of my skull, curling around every thought like smoke.

“I reject this bond.”

I stood there, shaking. Eyes wide. Waiting for a mistake to be corrected. A cruel joke to be undone.

But his face had been stone. His tone is colder than the northern wind.

And the crowd... the crowd had gasped.

Then I laughed.

Some had turned away. Most hadn’t even blinked.

They let me go.

No, watched me go.

I should have turned back. Fallen at his feet. Pleaded, begged, screamed until the Moon herself pitied me.

But pride held me upright. Pride and the echo of hope that maybe, just maybe he would call out and stop me.

He didn’t.

Now, the forest wrapped around me, tighter with every hour. My breath clouded in front of me as dusk fell again. Each inhale scraped my throat raw. I didn’t know how many days had passed, only that my legs moved because stopping would mean surrender.

And I wasn’t ready to die. Not yet.

Though... I wasn’t sure why. By the third night, I found a shallow cave tucked behind a tangle of vine and root. Not shelter. Just less exposure. I crawled in, curling into myself, arms wrapped tight around my ribs.

Not from the cold.

But from the hollow space where a soul used to be.

My wolf stirred once. Then went silent. She hadn’t spoken since the rejection—hadn’t howled, hadn’t raged. Just... gone still.

Like she’d heard Kieran too.

Like she agreed with him.

You weren’t enough.

I squeezed my eyes shut, jaw tight. The tears dried before they could fall.

Time passed. Maybe days. I counted bruises instead of sunsets. My ribs showed beneath my torn dress. My lips cracked, split with each whisper I made to the shadows.

“You should have fought,” I muttered once, staring at a root dangling like a noose above me. “You should have begged him to stay.”

The root didn’t answer. Neither did the Moon.

By the sixth night, if it even was the sixth I collapsed in a clearing. Snow drifted slowly from the sky like ash. My fingers dug into the dirt as my knees hit the ground.

I didn’t cry. There was nothing left to cry with.

“Is this it?” I rasped into the pine needles. “Is this how I die?”

The wind answered with a wail, high and distant.

My skin burned with cold. My bones pulsed with pain. I curled tighter, shaking.

If death wanted me, now was a good time.

“If you want me,” I whispered, lips barely moving, “then take me.”

The silence after that felt heavier. Like something was listening.

Then… Crunch.

A footstep.

Then another.

Slow. Steady. Measured.

Not wind. Not a beast.

Humans.

No, no.

I froze. A shudder escaped, as my breath caught in my throat.

As the figure stepped closer, the snow hushed. My eyes half-lidded, blurred with frost and fatigue, through it, I saw him.

Tall. Cloaked in black. Hood drawn low.

He stopped just before me. Boots are silent against the snow.

“Who…” My voice cracked. I couldn’t finish.

He didn’t speak.

Only watched.

I blinked, trying to stay awake. My heartbeat was loud in my ears. Too loud.

A glint beneath his cloak caught my eye.

Hair.

Silver.

Not metal. Not moonlight.

Hair.

Then darkness swept me under.

I didn’t wake up in warmth.

I woke up shaking. Beside me, the fire lit up in a manner that seemed it could go off any time soon, giving off shadows on the stone walls. Smokes, not choking but faintly lingering in the air, just enough to remind me I was breathing. My skin trembled beneath a threadbare blanket, coarse and when I moved, something pulled tight against my ankles.

I looked down.

Clean. Bandaged. Wrapped in strips of soft cloth.

Not mine.

My ceremonial dress was gone. Burned, maybe, or probably buried in the snow I almost died in, but neither were the clothes on my body; a simple woolen trousers and an oversized tunic that scratched at my neck were mine.

I blinked slowly. The ache behind my eyes pulsed with each heartbeat.

This wasn’t the forest.

Stone walls. Timber beams. A crude hearth in the corner, where the fire cracked gently. Animal skins layered beneath me, rough against my palms. A wooden bowl sat by the flames, steam no longer rising from its surface.

Water.

I reached out, hand unsteady. The bowl wobbled in my grip as I raised it to my lips and drank. Cold. Clean. Sharp against my tongue.

I swallowed hard.

This was real.

Someone had saved me.

But… why?

My fingers curled tighter around the bowl.

No one saved the rejected.

No one saved the weak.

The door creaked and I shook.

A slightly bent old woman stepped inside, wrapped in layers of faded clothes, letting in the cold air as she moved with a slow limp across the floor. Her gray hair was coiled neatly at the nape of her neck, and her eyes were sharp and unblinking as they took in everything.

“You’re awake.” Her voice was dry, practical, not unkind. She dropped something beside me. “Good.”

I struggled to sit up, pressing one hand against my ribs. Fire bloomed beneath my skin with every motion. “Where… where am I?”

The woman didn’t answer immediately. She lit a stub of candle near the fire, then finally turned back to me. “Far from where you came.

Closer to where you’re going.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.” My voice cracked. It didn’t even sound like me.

She shrugged. “It will. In time.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Who are you?”