Across the square, just beyond the edge of the market's bustle, stood Alpha Zion.
He wasn't with his riders this time. Instead, he was tucked into the shadow of a collapsed awning, speaking to a man draped in layers of fabric so dense only his eyes were visible, piercing, pale, and wholly out of place among Sundra's soot-streaked faces.
The stranger slipped something into Zion's gloved palm. A flick of silver, maybe, or something smaller. Whatever it was, The Alpha tucked it swiftly into the inner pocket of his coat as the cloaked man casted a furtive glance around.
Then he turned, boots silent on frostbitten stone, and melted into the crowd without a trace.
Zion lingered only a moment longer, adjusting his coat with a tension too measured to be casual. Then he stepped back into the square, returning to his men who were haggling over flint-strikers and arrow shafts like any other bored patrol unit.
It was then he saw us.
Our eyes met.
And despite the unease coiling low in my gut, I felt it again—that raw, involuntary hitch in my breath. Gods help me, he was beautiful. That same wildfire beauty, dangerous, consuming and impossible to ignore.
His face was carved in brutal symmetry, cheekbones sharp enough to draw blood, lips full but unsmiling, jawline dusted with the suggestion of stubble. A smudge of shadow beneath each eye made him look half-exhausted, half-haunted. And his eyes, black as polished obsidian, held me like a vice. Deep, endless and emotionless. Like he'd seen the worst the world could offer and made peace with it.
Even in stillness, he looked like he might kill or kiss someone without blinking.
The faint wind caught his coat just enough to expose the fitted leather beneath, sleeves tight around thick forearms, chest built like a fortress. He radiated danger the way a thunderhead promised ruin.
Marco, beside me, had gone utterly quiet. Zion's gaze swept to him, impassive, then returned to me.
He nodded, barely a flicker of acknowledgment, before turning back toward his men, who were now inspecting fletching as if nothing strange had happened.
Neither of us spoke. Whatever transaction we'd just witnessed, it hadn't been for public eyes. The moment buried beneath the noise of a bargaining city.
Marco exhaled slowly. "Well, that wasn't suspicious at all."
"Nope," I murmured. "Not even a little."
But the image of Zion's hand slipping that mystery object into his coat pocket stayed with me.
By the time we reached the saddler, our horses groaned under the weight of gear—tarps, flint strikers, a collapsible cookpot Marco insisted was "essential for morale." I lingered at a display of leather satchels, running my thumb over a sturdy one lined with rabbit fur. Kisa had always hated the cold.
Marco nudged me, dangling a pair of snow goggles from his finger. "For the glare off the pass. Unless you want to go blind and frozen."
I took them, adding a second pair. Flynn squinted in sunlight. Always had.
The saddler's wife wrapped our final purchase—a fleece-lined cloak, hood stitched with fur. "For your brother?" she asked, noting the way I folded it carefully, as if it might tear.
I nodded, tossing her an extra sovereign. "Keep the rest for your kids."
Marco raised an eyebrow as we mounted up. "You realize he's probably burning his clothes for warmth right now?"
"Then he'll need this more," I said, securing the cloak behind my saddle.
The road to Blackridge Pass loomed ahead, its peaks gnawing at the steel-gray sky. Marco adjusted his new goggles with a grin. "Ready to save the damsel in distress?"
I kicked my mare into a trot. "He's not the damsel. You are."
The wind swallowed his retort, but not the clatter of gear—ropes, rations, hope—strapped tight to our saddles.
— — —
By dusk of the second day, my thighs felt like they'd been chewed up and spit out by a pack of suckers.
I shifted in the saddle for the hundredth time, gritting my teeth against the burn in my lower back. The cursed horse beneath me—Marco's pride and joy, some thick-necked beast named Rika—had a gait like a drunk goat on cobblestones. Every bounce drove another nail into my spine.
"Gods," I muttered, adjusting my pack for the millionth time, "how do people do this for weeks?"
Up ahead, Marco raised a hand, signaling another stop. Again. For the fifth time since lunch.
"You better be dying or leaking blood," I called. "Because if this is another piss break, I'm leaving you here and letting the wolves sort you out."
He had the audacity to grin as he dismounted, sauntering toward a cluster of trees like he had all the time in the world.
"For a man with such a giant ego," I growled, "you've got the bladder of a child."
Rika snorted under me, either in agreement or spite.
I stretched in the saddle, spine popping loud enough to echo in the quiet woods. The sun was beginning its slow descent, bleeding rust and rose through the trees, casting long shadows across the dirt path. We were close now. The mountains were beginning to rear their heads on the horizon—Blackridge's jagged teeth gnawing at the sky.
A cool and sharp breeze swept through the pines, and then I heard it.
A howl. It was low, drawn out and resonant.
I stiffened. It wasn't human. Not sucker, either. Too grounded and too wild. My fingers curled reflexively around the reins as the sound faded into the trees.
Volanema.
I knew that sound.
I'd heard it once, when I was twelve, trailing Lorraine to a Wolf ceremony outside town. One of the bonded wolves had howled first that night, and the rest followed. The sound had shaken the stars.
This one was different. Shorter and less ceremonial. A call, maybe. Or a warning.
Still, I shook it off. Wolves patrolled these regions. It wasn't unusual.
I leaned back in the saddle and winced. My entire spine disagreed with my optimism.
"Hurry up, Korvin," I called toward the trees. "If you piss on another root, I'm leaving you to marry the next tree spirit we cross."
His laugh echoed through the woods, and I sighed, resting my chin against my saddle horn.
The howls had become a chorus by the time we reached the outpost. Not the sporadic cries of patrol wolves, but a relentless, overlapping dirge that clawed at the back of my neck. Volanema wolves didn't sing without reason, and they definitely didn't gather in a place like blackridge from what I had heard. Marco's jaw tightened with each new wail, his fingers drumming restlessly on the reins. Even the horses' ears swiveled like dagger points, their nostrils flaring at the stench of fear-sweat and iron wafting from the crowd ahead. How many wolves were here anyway? And why?
The Blackridge recruitment post was lodged in the mountain's side, a crumbling stone garrison flanked by makeshift tents, their canvas sagging under the weight of grime and snowmelt. Dozens milled in the mud, faces gaunt or fever-bright, hands clutching scrolls stamped with the kingdom's sigil, twin howling beasts encircled by numerous thorns.
My gut twisted. Flynn would be here. If he'd made it past the frost—
"Names."
The recruiter called out, hunched behind a splintered table, his blue army uniform frayed at the seams, one eye milky with scar tissue. A ledger lay open before him, its pages smudged with ash and what looked like dried blood.
Marco leaned forward, oozing false charm. "Marco Korvin. Expert marksman. Lover of fine ales and—"
The man didn't look up. "Living kin. Address."
Marco's smirk faltered. His knuckles whitened on the table's edge. For a heartbeat, his mask slipped, revealing the hollow beneath, the same hollow that had driven him to rooftops and tavern brawls and my brother's grave countless times. He reached for the quill.
"Lorraine Weles," I cut in, nudging him aside. "Sundra. Archery school on Elmstrand street."
Marco shot me a glare but scrawled the name, his handwriting was pretty neat, never expected it from him, not that I'd admit it out loud. The recruiter's clouded eye flicked to me. "And you?"
"Iris Liren….. Same address."
He scribbled without comment, splattering ink all over.
I scanned the crowd as Marco muttered curses under his breath—farmers sharpening scythes into spears, starvelings clutching rusted daggers, a girl no older than Kisa trembling beside her sister. No wild curls. No too-sharp cheekbones. No Flynn.
"He's not here," Marco said quietly, following my gaze.
"He's here." He has to be.
Another howl split the air. The recruiter's quill snapped.
"Next!" he barked, and we were pushed aside.
I shoved through the throng, grabbing the arm of a guard herding recruits toward the garrison. "When did the last batch leave?"
He shook me off, eyes narrowing. "An hour ago."
The words punched through my ribs. An hour. Flynn could be halfway up the pass by now.
Marco read my face and cursed. "We're too late. We'll probably see him at the front now."
"If only that stupid boy had once thought with his rattle rotted brain…" I now seriously wanted to bash someone's head into the mountain.
"You wouldn't have let him." Marco replied and I know it's true. I would never let him walk straight to a freaking death reaper.