Chapter 4
Elowen
"If that's about me, just say my name." I looked at her. "The last ten minutes have felt longer than my worst day in that valley."
My mother turned to me with the specific sigh she used to save for spilled milk and broken vases.
"Elowen. I understand you're unhappy about how things have shifted. But Celeste is this family's future now. Yes — you were the Alpha-track prodigy. Yes, Elias was your mate, once." Her eyes went over me, the torn hem, the smell that hadn't scrubbed out no matter how hard I'd tried on the road home. "But look at yourself. Your clothes are rags. Your wolf smells like something dying from the inside."
It landed harder than it had any right to, mostly because none of it was untrue.
I'd chosen this. Every piece of it. I'd walked through that gate three years ago and handed over everything it asked for, and I'd told myself the entire time it was worth it because these people would be standing on the other side when I came back.
My father must have read my silence as remorse, because his face softened into something almost paternal.
"Tell you what." He spread his hands, generous as a king. "You rest. Stay here, live with us — we'll take care of you, provide for you, all of it. Just don't cause trouble, and don't go wandering off anywhere. Nobody in this family will put you through anything like those three years again. That much I promise you."
His voice had gone warm, kind, careful — every note of it dressed up to sound like generosity. It landed on me like a coin tossed to a beggar.
My hands closed into fists so tight my nails cut half-moons into my palms.
"Dad, that's so good of you," Celeste said, eyes wide with theatrical astonishment. "Honestly, I think she'll come around to it eventually. I mean—" a considering little tilt of the head, "—with a wolf like hers she's not finding another mate any time soon, and everyone knows what people say about anyone who comes out of that valley. So." She clapped her hands together, delighted with her own charity. "Let's put her in the West Wing. I'll even lend her one of my maids."
"Isn't she the sweetest thing," my mother beamed. "After the way you've spoken to her today, Elowen, and she's still looking out for you."
I laughed. It came out cold, and it felt good going out that way.
"The West Wing." I looked at my sister. "That's the little room you used to live in. Before I left, I had the East Wing. The big one. Remember? Or is this just another chance to put me one step below you?"
"You—!" my mother started.
I lifted one finger and wagged it, slow, and something about it must have been final enough that even she went quiet.
"Don't trouble yourselves taking me in." My voice had gone very calm — the calm right before something breaks for good. "I don't want your pity, and I definitely don't want whatever this is, dressed up as generosity. I'm leaving this family."
All three of them froze.
"Fuck — you're leaving?" My father, aghast. "And do what? Feed yourself how? What can you even do, Elowen? Three years down there and what did you learn — how to fetch and carry?"
"Even fetching and carrying," I said, already turning for the gate, "beats standing in this yard being looked at like something you scraped off your boot."
I didn't look back. Not when my mother called after me. Not when my father's voice cracked with something that might almost have been real.
Celeste didn't call after me at all.
Nana's house sat at the far edge of the pack lands, and by the time I reached it the light had gone soft and gold, and I could see her before I even got to the fence.
Standing in her own yard. One hand shading her eyes. Looking east, toward the road I'd have come in on.
She'd been watching for me. I didn't know how long. Long enough, I think, that it had turned into a habit.
"Nana."
My voice broke on the second syllable, and that was it — every wall I'd spent three years building came down at once, right there in the dirt outside her fence, and I sobbed like a child.
"Oh, my girl." She was already moving, faster than a woman her age had any business moving, and then her arms were around me and she was crying too. "You're home. You're finally, finally home. Three years, Elowen. Three years I've been standing at this fence."
She got me inside before either of us could pull ourselves together, sat me at her table, put a cup of something warm in my hands whether I wanted it or not. And I told her all of it. The yard. The laughter that stopped. Elias. Every syrupy, sharpened thing my sister had said.
Nana didn't look surprised. Just tired, and a little grim, stirring her tea like she needed something to do with her hands.
"Three years," she said, "and that household's turned into something I don't recognize. Colder. Greedier. Grabbing at every rung of every ladder they can reach. That's exactly why I stopped speaking to them months ago." She looked up. "So. You're really not going back."
I shook my head.
"Then you'll live here." No hesitation whatsoever. "I've got a bit put by. It isn't much, but it's enough for two, and I don't want to hear one word of argument about—"
"No." Too fast, too firm. I softened it when I saw her face. "No, Nana. I'll earn my own way. And besides—" I pulled the bag off my hip and set it on her table. "I brought you something."
She peered at the small dark pill I shook into my palm. "And what in the world is that?"
"Vitality pill." I put it in her hand. "It'll darken your hair, put strength back in your legs. Mostly it'll clear your head — you'll feel sharper than you have in years."
Nana snorted, entirely unconvinced, and swallowed it in one go just to humor me.
Then she went still.
"God." Her hand went to her own hair, and the gray at her temple was already retreating, threads of black bleeding back through it like ink into water. She stood up. Took a few steps across her own kitchen and looked down at her legs like they'd been swapped out for someone else's. "I haven't felt this clear-headed since your grandfather was alive. Elowen — I feel good."
She turned back to me, delighted, shaking her head.
"So that hollow isn't the nightmare everyone makes it out to be after all."
"It's a nightmare," I said. "Just not the way people tell it. The work nearly killed me. But the medicine's real." I shrugged. "I picked those herbs myself. Dried them, ground them, pressed them. That one came out of my own hands."
Nana went absolutely still.
"Wait." She was staring at me now. "You made that? Elowen — that's healer's work. That's not something you pick up carrying trays for somebody."
"Healer's work?" I laughed, waving her off. "Come on, Nana. I never studied a day of it. Nobody down there ever sat me down and taught me anything — they just handed me work and I did it. You do a thing enough times, you remember how. You know how my memory is."
"Mm." Nana sat back down slowly, and something was working behind her eyes — something she didn't say out loud. "Well. From where I'm sitting, that doesn't sound so different from being a healer."
"Whatever." I waved it off again, already moving on, because it wasn't important. "Look — Nana, I need work. Tonight, tomorrow, whatever's out there. I'm not living under your roof eating your food for free, so don't even start."
"Foolish girl. I told you, I don't need your—"
"I'm not budging on this one."
She sighed at me, defeated. "You were a lady of that house, Elowen. Silks and a maid and never lifted anything heavier than a teacup. And now you're telling me you want—"
"Don't talk about who I used to be." It came out gentler than I meant it, but I meant every word. "I'm going to live on my own terms now. Whatever it takes. Whatever the work is."
Something that might have been pride moved across her face, quick and quiet. She nodded slowly, then set her cup down like she'd just remembered something.
"As it happens," she said, "I've got a little job on tonight. Bit of extra work. You want it?"
I didn't even ask what it was.
"Yes."
