Chapter 2 Ashguard
The door swung open without a knock, and I was on my feet before I finished deciding to stand.
“You’re supposed to be resting,” the girl in the doorway said, arms full of folded linen. She stopped short when she saw me already up, already dressed, already watching the door like I expected it to attack me.
“I’m resting standing up.”
She blinked, unsure if that counted as a joke. I let her wonder. I’d had all night to sit with what the Alpha had called me, insurance and I’d decided somewhere around dawn that if I was going to be a thing kept in a room, I was at least going to know the shape of the room first.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Mira.” She set the linen down on the chest at the foot of the bed, hands quick, nervous. “The Alpha said you’re not to leave without an escort.”
“Did he say I couldn’t open a door?”
“I… I don’t know.”
“Then I’m going to open a door.” I crossed the room before she could stop me and pulled it open before either guard outside could react fast enough.
The older one straightened, broad and bored-looking, the kind of man who’d stopped being afraid of anything a long time ago. “Get back inside.”
“I was told I couldn’t leave without an escort.” I folded my hands in front of me, the picture of obedience.
“You’re both standing right here. That sounds like an escort to me.”
“That’s not what he meant.”
“Then perhaps you should have been more specific when you gave the order.” I tilted my head, testing him the way I used to test my father’s guards when I was small, back when disappearing into a crowd was a game and not the only skill keeping me breathing. “Or would you like to explain to your Alpha why his insurance went wandering because you couldn’t be bothered to walk beside her?”
The younger guard… the one from yesterday, the one who’d told me not to shake, pressed his lips together like he was fighting a smile. The older one wasn’t amused at all.
“Ten minutes,” he said. “The hall and back. Nowhere else.”
“Very generous.”
“Don’t test me, girl.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” I started walking before he could change his mind.
The corridor outside was wide enough for three men shoulder to shoulder, lined with old tapestries… wolves in silver thread, mountains in gray wool, a crest repeated over and over like a warning stitched into the walls on purpose. I walked slow. I watched everything.
Two servants passed carrying trays, heads down, careful not to meet my eyes. Further along, a pair of guards stopped talking the moment they noticed me, which told me more than if they’d kept going.
I caught the end of it anyway.
“…can’t be right, though. He’s never once…”
“Keep your voice down.”
I slowed, close enough to hear without looking like I was trying.
“I’m only saying what I saw,” the first one muttered, quieter now but not quiet enough. “In the hall. With the girl. He couldn’t read her at all. Not once. Not even a flicker.”
“So? Maybe she’s just good at lying.”
“Nobody’s that good. He’s never missed. Not since he was a boy.” A pause, heavy with something he didn’t want to say out loud. “My cousin serves in the west tower. Says the healers have been in and out of his chambers for weeks now. Something’s not right with him.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Well… I know what I heard.”
The younger one shoved his companion’s shoulder hard enough to end it, and both of them noticed me at the same moment… noticed how close I’d drifted, how my steps had slowed to almost nothing.
“Something you need?” the older one asked, flat and careful.
“Just admiring the tapestries.” I kept my voice light. “Your pack has a great deal of history.”
He didn’t believe me. He also didn’t have whatever gift his Alpha carried, so there was nothing he could do about it except stare.
I turned back the way I’d come, unhurried, every step measured to look like nothing more than idle curiosity. Behind me, the two guards fell into a tense silence, the kind that meant they were both already regretting how much they’d said.
The older one was waiting at my door when I reached it, arms crossed, pleased with himself for enforcing the ten minutes down to the second.
“Satisfied?” he asked.
“Very.” I meant it, though not for the reason he thought.
I stepped back into the room and let the door shut behind me, heavy and final, and for the first time since the chains came off, I let myself sit.
He’s never missed. Not since he was a boy.
I thought of the hall. The way his jaw had tightened when my honesty gave him nothing to hold. The way he’d stood, come down the steps, decided in the space of one breath that I was dangerous rather than admit he didn’t understand why.
A gift like that wasn’t just power. It was the whole foundation of a man’s certainty… the thing that let him sit on a throne and never doubt who around him could be trusted. If it was truly fading, if healers were coming and going from his chambers for reasons no one wanted whispered too loud…
Then the Alpha of Ashguard was standing on ground far less solid than his hall of silent, obedient men believed.
I had walked in three days ago with nothing. No allies. No home. No leverage of any kind, only a name that meant less each hour Hallowmere kept burning behind me.
Now I had this.
I didn’t know yet what I’d do with it. I only knew that something in my chest had gone very still, very sharp, the exact shape of a plan starting to take form where there hadn’t been one an hour before.
