Chapter 2

Elowen

"No—I didn't mean it like that—" Her hands fluttered up uselessly.

"No, you did." My voice had gone strange and calm, calm the way water goes right before it drops off the edge of something. "You just said you didn't think he'd keep his end of it. Which means you thought I wasn't coming home at all." I felt my own voice crack straight down the middle. "You thought I might be dead. And you did nothing about it. Not one letter, not in three years. You never even looked for me."

My mother opened her mouth. Nothing came out. Her face went a deep, guilty red.

That was when Celeste crossed the yard toward me, light and easy, laughing like none of it had happened at all.

"Oh, come on, don't overthink it." She threw her arms around me, warm as syrup. "All that's ancient history. You're home — obviously we're happy about that."

Then she breathed in. Slow, deliberate, right against my collarbone — a wolf reading another wolf's rank the way a stranger reads a price tag — and I felt the exact moment her posture shifted with whatever answer she found there.

She stepped back, head tilting. "Though... your wolf, hm?"

"Yeah." I shook my head. "That's Death Hollow for you. Half of what they call medicine down there is poison first, and three years of it leaves a mark. My wolf's about as weak as an omega's now. I'm not exactly the—"

"The prodigy who shifted at thirteen?" Celeste couldn't quite bury the delight in it. "The one every elder in this pack swore would be the next Alpha? The girl they used to hold up in front of the training yard as an example?" She tilted her head, almost gentle about it. "No. I suppose you're not."

"I know what I'm not." My voice stayed level. Barely. "But you don't sound like someone remembering it, Celeste. You sound like someone enjoying it."

That was when her scent finally registered properly. Dense. Layered. Strong in a way that had no business belonging to a girl who three years ago couldn't shift without her knees giving out.

"You—" I stared. "You got stronger."

"Of course." She admired her own nails. "Vael's medicine doesn't just cure things. It builds. Turns out I got the better half of that bargain." A pause, perfectly timed. "The Alpha's giving me a commander's commission next month, actually. Youngest in twenty years."

Commander.

Something went through me before I could stop it — quick and stupid and entirely uninvited. Nine years old on that training field, being told exactly what I'd be one day. A whole shape of a life I'd handed over without anyone ever asking me to say it out loud.

I didn't say anything for a moment.

"That's good news," I said finally, and made myself smile around whatever was sitting in my throat, and told myself the last ten minutes had been my imagination — the frozen laughter, the faces, all of it. Nerves.

All I had to do was break the air in this yard before it set.

"Actually — I brought gifts." I reached for the bag at my hip. "Medicine. Things you can't buy anywhere outside that hollow—"

They recoiled like I'd pulled out something plague-ridden.

"Don't open that here!" My mother's voice went shrill. "Elowen, that came out of the Hollow. We have no idea what's been done to it."

"It's a tonic, it's completely safe, it'll strengthen—"

"Come on." Celeste laughed over the top of me. "You were a laborer down there. What kind of medicine do you think they'd trust someone like you to carry out?"

I let the drawstring fall shut.

And something started tightening in my chest — slow, cold, climbing.

"Then at least tell me about the money," I said. "I sent it home every month. Three years. Room and board came free with the work, and anything past what they owed me for the labour got paid out in coin — there was nothing down there to spend it on anyway." My voice had gone thin. "Tell me that got here."

My parents traded a blank look.

"What money?" my father said.

"Nothing ever came from you, sweetheart." My mother shook her head. "Celeste's the one who's been picking up work in the village every month and bringing something home. We hardly need it, of course — but it's the thought that counts, from your sister."

The floor went out from under me.

And Celeste — Celeste had gone very still, very carefully blank, the way people go blank right before they start performing.

"Wait." My hands curled into fists on their own. "Wait. A thousand marks. Every single month, same amount, like clockwork?"

My parents nodded. "Well — yes, but that's—"

"That's mine." My voice came out of me raw. "I bled for every mark of it, in a place that would've killed anyone weaker!"

"Oh, Elowen, come on." Celeste's laugh had an edge sharp enough to cut. "You come home, you see things have changed, and now you want to compete with me over a little credit. But be realistic. That hollow's supposed to be hell on earth. You really expect me to believe they paid you?"

"Your sister's right." My father shook his head, and said the rest without even slowing down for it. "Nobody walks out of that place with a purse. And look — I know those three years were humiliating for you. Nobody's holding it against you. But you can't come home and start—"

"Humiliating."

He stopped.

"That's the word you've been using for it." My voice didn't sound like mine. "All this time. Behind closed doors, at that table, whenever my name came up — humiliating." I took a step. "I wasn't dragged down there. I chose it. For this family. The two of you were on your knees in this exact yard begging me to save her — or has three years tidied that memory up for you?"

And my father's face changed.

Not into anger. That would have been easier. It went red, and then it went somewhere else entirely, and for one second I watched a man hear his own sentence played back to him and realise exactly what it sounded like.

"...That's not what I—" He looked away. "You know that's not what I meant."

"Elowen." My mother stepped in fast, palms out, doing damage control the way she does everything — quickly and without a single thought behind it. "Your father didn't mean it like that. He didn't. Don't be angry, sweetheart — nobody's forgotten what you gave up for this family. Nobody."

"Exactly." Celeste picked it up without missing a beat. "Don't be so petty, Elowen. Honestly." A shrug, warm as anything. "If you want it that badly — fine, you sent it. Happy?"

Something white and roaring rose up behind my eyes.

I looked at the girl who used to trail after me like a shadow back when I was strong enough to be worth following — standing there now dressed head to toe in mockery and calling it kindness — and I honestly could not tell you what had happened to these people in three years.

My hand came up before I'd decided to raise it—

"Beta! My lady — young miss—" A servant burst around the hedge, breathless, bowing so fast he nearly went over. "The Alpha's son has arrived at the gate!"

My hand froze in midair.

Every other thought in my skull went dead silent, shoved aside by four words that hit harder than anything my family had managed all afternoon.

The Alpha's son.

My heart did something violent and completely unauthorized in my chest.

"Elias?" I whispered.

My mate.