The trip back to Ashridge felt longer.
Partly because fatigue set in once the adrenaline of discovery bled away. Partly because descending steep, slick slopes on the back of a wolf was terrifying in new and interesting ways.
Bram went slower on the return climb, more careful. Lira could feel it in the way his muscles tensed under her, in the little huffs of breath when a jolt pulled at his healing ribs. He hid it well. From most eyes.
Not from hers.
“Stubborn idiot,” she murmured once when he took a ledge a bit too hard.
His ears flicked back. *Still on my back, aren’t you?* his sense teased.
“Yes,” she thought. “Unfortunately.”
He huffed.
By the time the first boundary stone loomed out of the mist again, Lira’s thighs ached from clenching. Her fingers were numb from gripping fur. Her head throbbed faintly from the constant background buzz of old magic and new wrongness.
She slid off Bram’s back near the village gate, legs wobbling. He shifted beside her, fur melting to skin in a rush of motion.
She looked away. Mostly.
He didn’t bother with modesty, grabbing his discarded trousers and dragging them on without much ceremony.
“You didn’t fall,” he said, sounding irritatingly pleased.
“I considered it,” she said. “Then I remembered I like my bones intact.”
“High standards,” he said.
The gate guards stared openly at the returning group as they trotted in. Eyes lingered on Corin—mud-splashed, jaw set. On Rane—silver fur bristling. On Garron—face grim.
On Lira.
Whispers rippled.
“North ridge.” “Found something?” “Look at her. She looks… hollower.” “Is that possible?”
Mara shouldered past more than one wolf without apology. “Move,” she snapped. “Move or I’ll start pricking randomly and calling it diagnostics.”
The crowd parted.
Corin didn’t stop in the courtyard. He headed straight for the main hall, expression unreadable.
“Council,” Garron muttered. “Again.”
“Fun,” Bram said.
“You’re not going,” Mara said, hooking a hand in the back of his shirt as he started after them.
He scowled. “I’m beta.”
“You’re injured,” she retorted. “You smell like strained stitches and ego. Sit down before I sedate you.”
He opened his mouth.
Lira touched his arm. “She’s right,” she said softly.
He looked at her. His jaw flexed. “You going?” he asked.
She hesitated. “Corin didn’t say,” she said. “But… they’ll want… descriptions. I should—”
“You should eat,” Mara cut in. “Your hands are shaking.”
Lira looked down. They were.
“I can…” she began.
“Sit,” Mara said. “We’ll tell Corin you’re patching your soul back together before he tries to pick at it for information.”
Bram’s lips twitched. “See? Balance,” he said. “Corin thinks with strategy. Mara thinks with survival. You think with—”
“Regret,” she said dryly.
“Heart,” he said.
Heat climbed her neck. “That’s… not—”
“Sit,” Mara repeated, exasperated. “Both of you. Gods, it’s like trying to herd fog.”
***
The infirmary felt like a different world after the raw presence of the ravine.
Warm. Dim. Full of the small, persistent sounds of life—someone snoring, someone coughing, the low murmur of Idris soothing an anxious parent as he changed a bandage.
Tansy sat propped against a pile of pillows, eyes shadowed but clearer. She watched them come in, gaze snagging on the faint smear of red dust on Lira’s boots.
“You found it,” she said.
“Yes,” Lira said. “We found… one of them.”
Tansy shivered, pulling the blanket tighter. “It… remembers me,” she whispered.
“It remembers… blood,” Bram said, expression softening. “Not you. Not as you. As… offering.”
“Comforting,” Tansy muttered.
“We’re… going back,” Lira said. “Not today. But soon. Prepared.”
“Don’t,” Tansy blurted. “It… eats. It’ll… take you too.”
Her eyes fixed on Lira. “It already… tasted you. That night. It’ll want… more.”
Lira’s stomach clenched. “I know,” she said. “That’s why I can’t… leave it. It’s… threaded through too much now. Thornfell. Ashridge. Your pack. Others. If we don’t… cut and re-tie… it’ll keep pulling.”
Tansy’s fingers dug into the blanket. “I don’t want… more ghosts,” she said.
Lira sat on the edge of her cot. “Neither do I,” she said quietly.
Mara grunted. “Eat,” she said, shoving a plate into Lira’s hands. “You can’t retie the world on an empty stomach.”
The food—stew thick with root vegetables and shreds of meat—tasted like ash in Lira’s mouth at first. Then her body remembered hunger. She ate mechanically.
Bram hovered.
He called it “standing nearby.” The way his eyes tracked her spoon said otherwise.
“You should eat too,” she said when she’d scraped the bowl.
“I’m fine,” he said.
Her gaze dropped to his side. He moved stiffly, favoring his left.
“You’re lying, again,” she said.
Mara snorted. “Get your own bowl, Kade,” she said. “You’re not pretty enough to live on air.”
He rolled his eyes but took her advice. Lira watched the tension ease from his shoulders somewhat once hot food hit his stomach.
She shouldn’t track those shifts in him. The way his jaw relaxed. The way the lines around his eyes softened.
She did.
Corin appeared less than an hour later, shoulders tight, Rane and Garron at his heels.
His gaze went straight to Lira. “We sent a runner to Thornfell,” he said without preamble. “Cael will meet us at the neutral clearing at dusk tomorrow.”
The stew turned to lead in Lira’s stomach. “Tomorrow,” she repeated.
“We don’t have the luxury of waiting for the next full moon to tear a hole through someone else,” Corin said. “We tell him what we found. We propose… collaboration.”
Mara snorted. “You going to use that word? He’ll think it’s an insult.”
Corin’s mouth twitched. “We propose… not killing each other long enough to fix this.”
“More accurate,” Garron said.
Lira set her bowl aside. “He’ll… want me back,” she said. “Cael. Once he hears… everything.”
“Yes,” Corin said. “He will.”
Bram’s body went very still.
“And?” Lira asked, voice steady only because she forced it so.
“And I told him we’re not done with you,” Corin said. “The treaty said ‘a season.’ It’s been barely a month. He doesn’t get to move the goalposts because the game got more dangerous.”
Relief flickered. Quickly smothered by guilt. “He won’t like that,” she said.
“I don’t like ravines that eat wolves,” Corin said. “We all live with things we don’t like.” He tilted his head. “You… still want to go back?”
Did she?
The question had seemed simple once. Of course she would. Thornfell was… her pack. Her duty.
Now…
The infirmary smelled like herbs and fur and Ashridge. The wolves here watched her with wary respect instead of barely concealed fear. Mara barked but braced her. Idris trusted her hands. Tansy clung to her voice.
Bram—
Her gaze slid to him. His eyes were on her. Open. Waiting.
“I… don’t know,” she admitted. “Not yet.”
“That’s an answer,” Corin said, echoing Bram’s earlier words.
She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “What do you need from me… with Cael?” she asked.
“The truth,” Corin said. “As you see it. Not filtered through Thornfell’s pride or Ashridge’s grudges.”
“Careful,” Rane rasped. “Truth cuts.”
“Good,” Corin said. “Maybe it’ll cut the right things this time.”
***
The rest of the day blurred into preparation.
Not for the ravine. Not yet. For the meeting.
Lira found herself pacing between her cot and the herbs shelf more than once, hands worrying at the edge of her jerkin. Idris helped her inventory tinctures, partly for something to do, partly as an excuse to hover.
“You don’t have to go,” he said quietly, lining up vials.
“Yes,” she said. “I do.”
“Why?” he asked. “Corin can talk. Bram can glower. Mara can swear. You could stay here. With Tansy. With the… ordinary hurts.”
She traced the grain in the wood with a fingernail. “Because Cael sent me,” she said. “Because I walked into this. Because I… owe it to my wolves to tell them what’s really happening. Not just the bits that make Thornfell look noble.”
Idris groaned. “You’re all too honorable,” he muttered. “It’s exhausting.”
She huffed. “Says the boy who chastised an elder for insulting me.”
“That was just fun,” he said. “Don’t confuse my pettiness with virtue.”
Her lips twitched.
Mara approached at some point with a small, worn leather bag. “Here,” she said, thrusting it at Lira.
“What is it?” Lira asked, opening it.
Inside were long, narrow strips of linen, a spool of thread that shimmered faintly silver, a small, wickedly sharp knife, and a flat piece of stone carved with unfamiliar runes.
“Emergency kit,” Mara said. “For if things go sideways at the clearing. Or with the ravine. Or with anything, really.”
Lira’s fingers brushed the stone. It thrummed faintly. “What does this do?” she asked.
“Anchors,” Mara said. “Temporarily. If something tries to… pull you out of yourself. Or shove something else in. You grab that. Hard. Think of my charming face. It’ll piss you off enough to hold.”
Lira laughed, startled. “That’s your… plan? Irritation as spellfuel?”
“It’s worked for me for fifty years,” Mara said. “Don’t knock it.”
“Thank you,” Lira said, more seriously.
Mara’s gaze softened. “I’m… not good at… this,” she said, gesturing vaguely between them.
“Feelings?” Lira supplied.
“Ugh,” Mara said. “Don’t swear in my infirmary. But… if they try to take you back before you’re ready—before *we’re* ready—I will bite Cael myself.”
Lira blinked. “You… can’t.”
“I can,” Mara said. “I probably won’t. But I *can.* That counts.”
Warmth curled low in Lira’s chest. “You’re… very strange,” she said.
“Pot. Kettle,” Mara replied. “Now go scrub your face. You look like you’ve been rolling in dirt. Which, knowing you, you have.”
Lira obeyed.
At the basin, splashing cold water over her skin, she caught sight of her reflection in the warped metal mirror.
The woman who looked back wasn’t the same one who’d left Thornfell.
Her face was still narrow, eyes too big. Hair still stubbornly fell out of its braid in wisps. The collar still circled her throat.
But there was something else now. A tightness around the mouth that hadn’t been there. A line between her brows. Shadows under her eyes. And beneath that—something harder. Sharper.
She’d survived a blood moon. Lived in emptiness. Drained a surge-knot out of a beta. Faced a ravine that ate hums.
She could face Cael.
She had to.
***
The neutral clearing looked different with Ashridge at her back.
The last time she’d crossed it, Thornfell behind her had felt distant and brittle. A place she’d been tolerated, not cherished. Her steps had been hesitant, like she was walking off a cliff.
Now, as she walked beside Corin toward the same circle of stones, Ashridge at her back felt… heavy.
Not in a way that weighed her down. In a way that braced.
Mara walked on her left. Garron ranged ahead in wolf form, fur a tawny streak. Rane stayed at the treeline, wise eyes scanning. Bram shadowed her right shoulder, close enough that his hand occasionally brushed the back of her jerkin.
He didn’t apologize when it happened.
She didn’t flinch away.
The stones hummed faintly as they stepped into the clearing. The air was cooler here, the light slanting differently. Old meetings had soaked into the ground—negotiations, betrayals, stolen glances between wolves who weren’t supposed to want each other.
She wondered, with a brief, bitter humor, what story the land would add today.
Thornfell waited on the far side.
Cael stood at the center, tall and spare, his dark hair pulled back, Thornfell’s green-and-silver cloak falling straight. His second, Malen, loomed at his shoulder, arms folded. Two other wolves flanked them, both in human form, both watching warily.
Lira’s steps hitched.
Home.
She smelled it before she fully felt it. Thornfell’s scent was different from Ashridge’s—more metal, more smoke, less pine. A faint, lingering tang of the surge still clung to it in her memory, even if the land’s hum had quieted there.
Cael’s gaze found her almost immediately.
For a heartbeat, something like relief flickered in his usually cool eyes.
Then it was gone.
“Alpha Corin,” Cael said, voice carrying easily. “You asked for this meeting. I assume you bring more than old grudges and new insults.”
Corin snorted. “I left most of my insults at home,” he said. “Grudges too. We have… other things to argue with.”
Cael’s gaze flicked to Lira again. “So I heard,” he said. “Thornfell’s ‘broken witch’ draining knots of wild magic out of your beta. You are… creative, Ashridge.”
Bram stiffened beside her.
Lira’s jaw tightened. “Hello, Alpha,” she said, before Corin could respond. “It’s… good to see you standing.”
Cael’s mouth tipped at one corner. “You thought I’d fall?” he asked.
“I thought… the land might,” she said. “Under all of us.”
He studied her for a moment. Something like… pride moved in his scent. And grief. And calculation.
“You look… different,” he said.
“So do you,” she replied.
Malen cleared his throat. “Perhaps we discuss the thing tearing holes in both our territories,” he said. “Before we exchange fashion critiques.”
Rane huffed. Garron’s wolf chuffed something like a laugh.
Corin inclined his head. “Agreed,” he said. “We found one of the… sources. In a ravine north of our ridge. Your stray—” his gaze flicked briefly toward where Tansy would have been, had they brought her “—was part of a ritual there.”
Cael’s jaw tightened. “We found… similar stones on our side,” he said. “After the surge. Old things, pulled up from where they’d slept. Someone woke them. They did not… like it.”
“No,” Lira said quietly. “They didn’t.”
Cael’s gaze moved to her again. “You’ve touched one,” he said. Not a question.
“Yes,” she said. “It… touched back.”
“And yet you stand,” he said. “Wolf-less. Empty. Somehow… useful.” His eyes narrowed a fraction at the collar. “You’ve been… busy.”
Lira lifted her chin. “I’ve been… used,” she corrected. “As intended. I chose to make that mean something.”
He held her gaze. “And now?”
“Now I know more,” she said. “About what we’re facing. And what I can… do.”
“Drain it,” he said.
His tone was flat. His eyes… were not.
“Yes,” she said. “Some of it. Not all. Not yet.”
“And you intend to do this for Ashridge,” Cael said. “For my… rival.”
“Yes,” she said. “For Ashridge. For Thornfell. For any wolf walking on this land who doesn’t deserve to lose pieces of themselves because we were arrogant with old power.”
Silence fell.
Cael’s jaw worked. “You speak as if you were not part of that arrogance,” he said softly.
“I was,” she said. “I lit the match. On a forest that was already dry. I’ve spent three years trying to stamp out the fire. Let me finish what I started.”
Something shifted in his eyes. “You would… stay,” he said. “In Ashridge. To do this.”
The words hung heavy.
Bram’s hand twitched at his side.
Lira swallowed. “I… don’t know,” she said. “Yet. But I… won’t leave while the web is still… strangling.”
Cael took that in.
Malen watched them both with a furrowed brow, clearly cataloguing loyalties, risks, possibilities.
Corin cleared his throat. “We propose a… joint effort,” he said. “To untangle this mess. Share information. Sites. Wolves. Healers.”
Mara snorted. “Share stupidity,” she added. “Might as well put all our bad ideas in one cauldron.”
“One of your bad ideas,” Cael said, “was putting my healer in the path of your wolves. And yet she stands.” His gaze flicked between Lira and Bram. “What… exactly… is between them now?”
Heat flooded Lira’s face.
Bram stepped slightly forward, shoulders squaring. “She pulled my wolf back,” he said. “From somewhere I couldn’t reach him. That creates… ties.”
“Ties,” Cael repeated. “Between my wolf-less healer and your beta.”
“Yes,” Bram said evenly.
“With wild magic threading between them,” Cael said. “And you think this is… wise?”
“No,” Bram said. “But it’s… real.”
Lira wanted to sink into the earth.
“Cael,” she said, forcing the tremor from her voice. “Whatever… bond… is forming, it’s because we touched the same wound. The same… emptiness. I didn’t choose it. Neither did he. But we can use it. To anchor. To drain. To… warn.”
Cael’s mouth tightened. “And if it breaks you?” he asked. “If this… thing… uses your connection as a rope to climb?”
“Then it will climb anyway,” she said. “Through different cracks. At least this way we can… see it coming.”
Malen spoke for the first time since greetings. “We have witnessed,” he said slowly, “that when Lira drains, the surge… dies. Not flares. Not spreads. Dies. That is rare. That is… worth risk.”
Cael’s eyes flicked to him. “You trust her,” he said.
Malen’s jaw worked. “I… trust her hands,” he said. “And her stubborn. She doesn’t… break easy.”
Lira’s throat burned.
“Fine,” Cael said at length. “We… share. Sites. Stones. Knowledge. We let Lira… weave between us. For now.” His gaze snapped back to her. “On one condition.”
Her stomach dropped. “What?”
“You send word,” he said. “Regularly. To Thornfell. To me. Not through Ashridge’s eyes. Through yours. You don’t vanish into their pack and leave us guessing.”
She let out a breath. “I can do that,” she said.
“And,” he added, voice sharpening, “if at any point you feel Ashridge is… using you beyond what you can bear, you say so. And you come home.”
Her eyes stung. “You… still want me,” she said quietly. “Like this.”
“You are Thornfell,” he said simply. “Broken or not. Useful or not. Magic chewed through our land; that isn’t only your sin.” His lips curved in something almost like a smile. “Besides, you’re the only one who can make Edrin admit she’s wrong.”
A wet laugh broke out of her.
Behind her, Bram’s fingers flexed, then loosened. She realized she’d been holding his hand again. Hard.
She didn’t let go.
Corin inclined his head. “Agreed,” he said. “On all points.”
“Then we have a… thread,” Rane said. “Now we pull.”
They began.
For the next hour, standing stones as witnesses, they laid out what they knew.
Cael spoke of Thornfell’s cracked sites—the standing stone that had exploded, the smaller nodes that had hummed wrong before going quiet. He described the paths of twisted wolves, the pattern of rogue attacks.
Corin mapped Ashridge’s own—where the boundary stones had shifted, where rogues had hit hardest, where half-shifts had stumbled back drooling.
Lira traced the web she’d sensed through Tansy. Through Bram. Through herself.
The picture that emerged was… vast.
Lines crisscrossed territories, ignoring man-made borders. They connected old sites of power—some known, some half-forgotten. Old battlefields glowed bright. Places of oath-binding, of first shifts, of pack founding.
“We’re not dealing with… random,” Lira said slowly. “This thing followed… our history. Our… scars.”
“We made the lines,” Rane murmured. “With our paws. Our blood. Our bones.”
“And now they’re choking us,” Mara said.
“Then we unmake them,” Garron said. “Or… re-make. Stronger. On our terms.”
Lira’s emptiness pulsed.
She could *see* it, in her mind’s eye. The web. The nodes. The ravine stones. Thornfell’s. Ashridge’s. Others, further afield, throbbing faintly in the distance like stars.
If they anchored the safe nodes. Re-tied the strong lines. Fed the wild knots into her emptiness, where they could burn out without hosts.
They might stand a chance.
They might also break her.
“Slow,” Bram’s hand on hers reminded her.
She nodded, barely. “We start small,” she said. “Here. With ones we can… reach without dying. We… practice. Learn. Then we go for the ravine.”
“And mine,” Cael said. “You will… come. When we call.”
“Yes,” she said. “If we’re still… whole.”
He nodded once. “If not,” he said, “we burn the stones. And pray the gods forgive us.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Mara muttered.
“Nor would I,” Rane agreed.
They broke then, not because they’d finished, but because they were wolves and dusk only lasted so long.
As the last sliver of sun slid behind the trees, Cael stepped closer to Lira, Malen a respectful distance away.
“You’ve… grown,” Cael said softly.
“I’ve… been forced to,” she said. “By circumstances.”
“By your own choices,” he corrected gently. “Don’t give them all the credit.”
She searched his face. “Are you… angry?” she asked. “That I… tied myself to them. To him.”
His gaze flicked briefly to Bram, then back. “I am… protective,” he said. “Of you. Of Thornfell. Of what you carry. But I am not blind.” His lips twitched. “If I were, I would have died a long time ago.”
“Thornfell never… made me feel like I belonged,” she blurted. Then flinched. “I’m sorry. That’s—”
“Truth,” he said. “Hard. Useful. You were… always between. Cleric and wolf. Pack and land. After the surge… more so.” His eyes softened. “If Ashridge gives you… balance… I will not drag you back because my pride stings.”
Tears surged behind her eyes. “You could,” she whispered. “You have the right. The collar—”
“The collar is mine,” he said quietly. “The choice to keep you in it, or free you, is *yours.*”
Her mouth fell open.
He smiled, small. “You think I bound you forever?” he asked. “I’m not so cruel. Or so foolish. If that collar ever feels more like a chain than armor, you tell me. We’ll… see what we can do.”
Emotion clogged her throat. She could only nod.
He reached out and, in a rare, startling gesture, cupped the back of her head briefly, pressing his lips to her forehead like a father, or an alpha, or both.
“Don’t die,” he murmured.
“I’ll… try not to,” she said thickly.
Then he stepped back.
“Bram Kade,” he said, voice cool again.
Bram straightened automatically. “Alpha,” he said carefully.
“You protect her,” Cael said simply. “Not from the magic. She has teeth for that. From herself. From… your kind’s tendency to throw themselves on every blade for honor.”
Bram’s jaw tightened. “Yes,” he said. “I will.”
“You break her,” Cael said mildly, “I break you.”
Bram nodded once. “Fair,” he said.
Cael’s lips curved. “I like him,” he said to Lira, aside. “Annoying. But honest.”
“That’s… one word,” she muttered.
He turned, cloak swirling. “Until next time,” he said.
“Until,” Corin replied.
Thornfell’s alpha left the clearing the way he’d entered it—sure-footed, unhurried, eyes never fully on his enemies nor off his allies.
Lira watched him go. Watched Malen glance back once, worry clear in his scent. Watched the other Thornfell wolves flick glances at her—some curious, some wary, one or two even… hopeful.
She felt split down the middle.
Ashridge at her back. Thornfell before her.
Her emptiness hummed.
“Hey,” Bram said softly.
She turned.
“We’re new,” he said. “They’re… old. You’re not wrong to… stand with both.”
“I can’t,” she said. “Not fully. No one can serve two alphas.”
“You’re serving the land,” he said. “They’re just… loud about it.”
She huffed a laugh. “Don’t let them hear you say that.”
“I won’t,” he said. “I like my other eye.”
They walked back toward Ashridge together.
Her hand brushed his.
He didn’t let it go this time.
---