Chapter Two
Calista
Ma’s crazed eyes met mine, that familiar cloudy haze opaquing the sea blue.
“It’s all right, Suri,” I whispered, even though it wasn’t. “Go left. Slowly. And stay out of the arc.”
My sister obeyed, edging wide until she stood where the swing of the hook would not catch her.
Again, I glanced over my shoulder to be certain the runner and guard were gone, then stepped into Ma’s line of sight the way Aunt Mara had taught me.
No sudden movements. Hands open. Voice low and warm as a hearth.
“Ma,” I said softly. “It’s Calista. I need your help.”
Her eyes snagged on mine, slid away, then caught again. Confusion fluttered across her face like a bird trapped behind glass. “You shouldn’t be out here,” she whispered. “They’re coming.”
“I know.” I nodded as though I saw them too. And perhaps she had sensed them somehow. “That’s why I came. We need the fish-hook hands.” I lifted my palms and mimed the old motion she had taught us as children. Hook, lift, twist. “Will you show me? One time. I can’t quite remember the turn.”
Aunt Mara always said a task could pull her back when nothing else would. The moonveil lilies no longer helped the way they once had but work still seemed to speak a language my mother’s mind understood.
The hook lowered an inch.
My sister blinked at me, then rushed inside and returned with a wooden pail that had seen too many winters. She set it on the stoop like it mattered more than her next breath.
“Good,” I told them both. “Come on, Ma. Show me.”
Her knuckles stayed white on the handle. For one terrible heartbeat, I thought the moment had slipped away. Then she glanced down at the iron hook as though surprised to find it there.
“You set the barbs,” she murmured, her voice smoothing into something older, steadier. “And don’t rush your hand. Fish feel lies.”
“That’s right. Slowly.” I edged closer.
Ma lifted the hook with the absent grace of a female who had hauled half her life from a hard sea.
She tipped it toward the bucket and made that old, precise turn of the wrist. I matched the motion with empty hands, muscle memory answering the shape.
When she looked up to see if I had done it right, I stepped into her space and wrapped my fingers around the handle with hers.
“Got it,” I whispered. “Thank you.”
She blinked once. Then twice. The wildness in her gaze receded. The hook trembled, and I slid my grip down it as slowly as falling snow until the iron rested in my palm instead. I reversed it and tucked the point beneath my belt before I forgot and bled for no good reason.
Behind Ma, the horizon had sharpened. Hooves thudded, regular and inevitable. The procession had left the road and turned onto the manor lane. I could feel its weight in the ground.
Suri’s anxious gaze met mine.
“They cannot see her,” I mouthed.
Then I turned back to our mother. “Come inside, Ma. It’s cold out here.”
Her eyes skated over Suri and lingered. For one breath, recognition flooded in. “My little fish.” A smile cracked over her face like sunlight through clouds.
Suri swallowed down a sob and turned it into a laugh that sounded painful. “I’m not so little anymore.”
“No,” Ma agreed solemnly. “You grew anyhow. Even without a wolf. Both of you did.” Her eyes lingered on me for that one painfully lucid instant.
Technically, Suri still had time. She would not be declared wolfless for one more year.
My sister had been born with Sel’s kiss, unlike me.
It meant her soul carried a Wolvryn thread.
The second sign typically came around the age of ten.
It was known as the stirring, when the mark burned hot or eyes flashed a strange color.
And finally, if by the age of sixteen there was no sign of at least a partial shift or a response to the Alpha, she would be declared Hollow.
One more year for a miracle neither of us had much reason to expect.
I curled one hand around Ma’s elbow and felt how terribly thin she had grown through the fabric. It wasn’t natural. Whatever illness had taken hold and stolen her Wolvryn was unheard of among our kind. She was an anomaly, which was why Father had made us swear to keep it secret all these years.
I nudged her gently. “Come on. Show me how to knot the net before Aunt Mara sees my mess.”
Somehow, we coaxed her across the threshold.
The inside of the cottage smelled of porridge and salt and the juniper smoke Mara favored for the hearth.
Thank the goddess for my aunt. If she had not stepped in after Pa died and Ma’s affliction worsened, we never would have survived.
Mara had her own life across the sea on the mainland, her own family and court, but she came as often as she could.
She, like both our parents, had been born with a Wolvryn spirit.
All three had once hailed from Saltspire Court.
When I was declared wolfless, I had been banished to this isle with all the other Hollowcrest children. My family could have left me here, as so many others did. Instead, they stayed.
I had never forgotten that. And now it was my turn to repay that sacrifice.
I guided Ma to the bench by the table while Suri fetched the basket of mending. I placed a length of net in my mother’s lap. Her fingers moved along the cords, familiar and grounding.
“Over, under, twist,” I prompted.
Her hands remembered. Mine mirrored the motions. Suri sat opposite us, breathing slowly on purpose as she watched. Another trick we had learned to steady Ma when the world began to thin.
A shadow crossed the doorway.
Aunt Mara filled it a breath later, silver hair scraped back and eyes flinty. “I heard the horn.” She eyed the window and drew the curtain. “They’re at the lower gate.”
“I saw.” I tried to keep my voice even for Ma’s sake. “How many in the party?”
“Enough to make a point. It’s the standard for the king’s entourage. Frostcrag banners. Conclave runner colors tucked behind. They want everyone to see this is Wolvryn law.”
Ma’s head lifted. “Law?”
“Knots,” I said gently. “Show me again.”
She stared at me a long moment, then her gaze softened and fell back to the net. The line steadied in her hands.
Suri shifted beside me, and tears glistened in her eyes. “It’s not fair. It’s your birthday, Cali. Couldn’t they even give us a day?”
I slowly shook my head. “I doubt kings wait on birthdays, little fish.”
"I'm afraid, Cali,"
"Don't be, it'll be okay. You have Aunt Mara. You have—"
"I mean for you." Her voice faltered on the last word. "I've heard what they say about him. They talk, you know."
Moons curses. I'd tried to shield her from the rumors so she wouldn't worry. But how much had she overheard?
"People gossip, Suri. You know how they are."
My sister’s brow arched, just like my mother's did when she knew I was lying through my teeth. "The watch gossips because they know things," she huffed.
My little fish was too smart for her own good.
"No one told me anything," she spat, and it sounded like an accusation. "Any time I asked about your intended, it was as if no one had heard of the male. Until I was out of earshot and then they'd whisper. Clearly, they—or you— were trying to hide something from me."
There was little use denying it. "You really are too clever, you know that?" I studied her a beat, hoping she hadn't learned the worst of it. "So what have you heard?"
"About the massacre at Tidebreak." Her jaw tilted up, challenging me to deny it. "He's cruel, Cali. He's cruel, and I'm terrified for you."
We’d all heard tales of my husband to-be, the notorious male crowned in blood before Selraya's full face. "Don't be. I'm not."
"You're not afraid to marry someone who just slaughtered an entire village before razing it?" She wiped at her eyes while simultaneously rolling them. "I'm young, but I'm not a fool. You don't have to lie to me. You don't have to protect me from this."
"Even if he is cruel, I doubt he'll be around me very often anyway. He'll be off waging battle across Lunaris while I learn to hone Selraya’s precious gift."
"How can you be so calm at a time like this?" she snapped, shoving my arm. "He rips people to shreds with his teeth, Cali!"
“Shh!” I pressed a finger to my lips. “We don’t want to upset Ma.”
She shook her head at me, all impatience and condescension.
I studied her then, memorizing those big hazel eyes I’d only get to see for a few more hours.
The way her freckles darkened across her cheeks, those fine cheekbones and a straight nose, not the slightest bit crooked from falling from trees like my own.
Bowed lips and the little cleft chin I'd nuzzle and kiss when she was just a baby. More of my soul was within her than my very own body. How could I protect her if I wasn’t with her?
Somehow, I vowed to find a way.
“He’s a king, Suri,” I finally replied, straightening, stretching the tightness from my shoulders and pushing away the ache.
The Frostcrag royal had succeeded where no other Alpha had in the history of Lunaris: in uniting all twelve of the major Wolvryn Courts under his rule.
The most his predecessor had managed were a handful.
“Kings are never one thing. That’s what makes them dangerous. ”
Suri worried her lip. “I still don’t understand why he would choose to marry you.”
Smart little fish.
I had asked myself the same question for a year now. What did a king like him gain from a wolfless bride from a starving isle? There was Selraya’s gift, but surely a male powerful enough to unite the wild Wolvryn could have found a way around ancient custom if he truly wished.
“It’s old law,” Mara answered. “Each allied court must offer a bride. This year the honor fell to Hollowcrest.”
Honor. The word sat strangely in a room like this one.
Suri still looked unconvinced. So was I, if I were honest. But none of it mattered, this marriage was politics. Protection and obligation.
And if I had to be the price of Hollowcrest’s safety, then so be it.
“Do you really have to?” Suri whispered.
“Yes,” Mara and I answered together.
Suri’s jaw set. She looked fifteen and forty-five all at once.
“Go wash up,” Mara told her, patting her shoulder. “Comb your hair and put on the gray cloak. You’ll go with Calista to meet the visitors at the commons.”
Her glance toward our mother said the rest plainly. So no one would see her.
When Suri disappeared into the back room, Mara stepped closer, leaving Ma to her net by the table.
“You still have the parchment?” she asked low enough that only I could hear. “Just in case?”
I touched the inside pocket of my tunic where the folded strip rested. “Yes.” The back up plan because growing up in Hollowcrest, I’d learned long ago not to trust in hope alone.
Mara read whatever she saw on my face and nodded once. “Good. But pray you won’t need it.”
I did.
Because as much as the marriage rankled, as much as I hated being offered up like a treaty seal in female form, I still believed this alliance might buy us what Hollowcrest had lacked for too long: protection, food, and spears strong enough to hold the southern raiders at bay.
A future where Suri might not be tortured in a vain attempt to force her Wolvryn out before she reached sixteen.
I needed this to work. That was the cruelest part of it.
Mara reached up and brushed dirt from my cheek with her thumb. “Brave girl.”
I covered her hand for a moment. “I’m not brave. I was just the one chosen.”
“That’s close enough.”
Outside, boots echoed across the lane.
I turned back to my mother and knelt before her, taking her hands in mine. “Listen to me,” I whispered. “There’s going to be a lot of noise soon. You know how Wolvryn males are. They’ll talk loudly to make themselves feel important. You don’t have to listen to any of it. You only listen to me.”
She studied my face as though searching for the place she kept my name when the world went foggy.
“Calista,” she said at last, so clearly it hurt. “My fierce girl.”
My throat tightened as I kissed her knuckles. “Stay with Aunt Mara. Suri will come back as soon as she can. And I…” I swallowed. “I will do everything in my power to make this worth it.”
That was the truest thing I could offer. That since I had to go, I would make this marriage count for something.
“May Selraya be with you,” Ma murmured.
I gave her a small, careful smile. “Let’s hope she remembers me today.”
Someone pounded the door with the authority that could only belong to a crown.
Ma jumped, but I stood slowly, giving her a reassuring smile. The crescent sickles pressed warm against my spine. Through the window I caught a slice of frost-blue banner and the gleam of iron in the distance.
“I’ll be back, Ma.” I pressed a kiss to her forehead, then turned toward the back of the cottage. “Suri!” I called.
“I’m ready,” she answered a moment later, emerging with her hair smoothed and her gray cloak wrapped around her shoulders.
“So am I,” I lied.
Behind me, Ma’s voice rose in the old work-song, thin and true. The rhythm steadied my hands the way it always had. Over, under, twist.
I opened the door to the king who meant to claim me.