Chapter 50
Noa
Ipush through the wrought iron gate, the stiff and rusted hinges voice their complaint loudly as it swings inward, and the sound lands in my chest with a weight I wasn’t prepared for.
The entire area is fenced off, tucked up high in the hills of Fallamhain territory where no one could stumble upon it by accident.
From up here, the lake spreads out below us, a cold blue mirror catching the late-morning sun.
There’s no easy way in—only a hard hike on foot or a vehicle capable of handling the rough terrain.
But once you arrive, you understand—the quiet isn’t empty, it’s respectful.
As if the world itself chose to step back and let the dead rest up here.
I didn’t think I’d be facing the dead again so soon, not after the mass funeral three weeks ago. I thought I’d get at least a small reprieve after that to let the emotional fissures heal before I cracked them wide open again by inviting in old grief.
Yet here I am, boots crunching over crusted snow, breath turning white the moment it leaves me, walking between a row of weathered and cracked headstones.
And it’s all because Rennick’s brought me back to Ashvale yesterday. The first time since I’ve left.
He said we couldn’t keep avoiding it forever.
That enough time had passed for us to risk a few careful hours among the things I abandoned in my haste to make sure the people I cared about most had the best chance of survival.
He knew I needed more than the bag I packed in a blind rush that night, that the limited items in it were never meant to sustain a real life.
I’ve been living out of it ever since. Cycling through the same four or five outfits while supplementing by stealing from his closet—which is a habit I have no intention of breaking anytime soon.
But it wasn’t just about practicality as he tried to frame it, to soften the blow of stepping back into yet another life I was forced to flee from in the night.
Rennick knew there were things I’d want to bring back with me.
Objects that don’t look like much to anyone else but have sentimental value to me.
Little keepsakes that act as quiet remnants of a life I lived and hold the memories I made along the way.
Memories I now look back on with a new bittersweet clarity.
All things I need with me to make the space actually feel like home and not some temporary thing I occupy.
Home isn’t that simple anymore.
Fallamhain territory, wrapped in the granite mountains, layered with memories of my childhood, with Rennick’s presence woven through every corner of it—that’s home in the way that is inevitable. The kind that sinks deep and you don’t question because you just know it’s where you’re meant to be.
But Ashvale, the Victorian manor with its carefully curated thrifted furniture and blankets draped over every chair, the air still faintly scented with sage and the tea from my mom, the sanctuary that lies waiting below it, that’s home in a different way.
The kind that holds you even when you leave, claiming its share of your heart no matter how far you go.
I packed boxes yesterday. Filled them with clothes and photographs, apothecary items Rennick’s kitchen is going to hate to see coming, and more books than I care to count—including the one he gave me on my eighteenth birthday.
It’s enough of my life gathered in one place to finally and confidently say aloud that I’ve moved in with him. I’m no longer a guest.
But none of that means I left Ashvale behind.
I never will. There’s still too much work to be done with the omegas, and the manor and what lies beneath are a lifeline for so many.
A safe haven when the rest of the world has only brought them pain or rejection.
When the time is right, when we can stay there longer than a few careful hours, I’ll rebuild it.
I’ll open the doors again with Seren’s help.
And probably Siggy’s too, if my hunch is right about my Nightingale.
The night of the raid didn’t set her healing back the way I feared it would.
Once she pushed through the thick, suffocating fog of grieving Rhosyn, something else surfaced beneath it.
Anger. Being hunted again. Restrained again.
Forced into a situation against her will again.
Coming terrifyingly close to the auction block again.
It lit a fire in her I hadn’t seen before, something sharp-edged and determined.
She wants to fight back, to rail against the same system that caused her so much pain and left scars on her that will never fade.
And I love seeing it.
Almost as much as I love to see her growing curiosity about botany and herbal medicine.
She’s been my little shadow lately, an unofficial apprentice of sorts, soaking up everything she can. I can already see her orbiting that future and it makes something warm settle in my chest for her.
It was when we were getting ready to walk out of the manor with the last box yesterday that I saw the pewter urn.
The one I buckled into my passenger seat when I drove back to Pack Fallamhain’s territory after nearly eight years away, believing I was only carrying out Mom’s final wish by bringing her ashes home.
At the time, I didn’t know it was part of something larger.
That she had been guiding me all along, quietly setting the pieces in place to return me to Rennick, to undo a wrong she’d been forced to weave years earlier.
I brought the urn back with me, this time buckled in the back seat of Rennick’s truck. He wasn’t as amused as me.
Despite all of it—the pain, the betrayals, the too close brushes with death, the losses stacking until their grief blurred together—I can say with my whole heart that I’m glad I came back that day.
Glad I followed the strange, out-of-character instruction delivered to me by Mom’s equally strange lawyer.
I move between headstones, reading names etched into stone dusted with snow, until I find the one I’m looking for.
My father.
He was a kind man, that’s always been the thing that people said when he came up.
He died when I was too young to hold on to the memories of him properly.
It was a fluke accident, nothing hidden or scandalous, just the kind of loss the world hands out without warning.
The kid of thing that could happen to anyone on any given Tuesday.
The wind tugs my hair loose from the scarf wrapped around my neck, whipping strands across my face as the cold bites at my cheeks and fingers. Newly acquired wolf-shifter body temperature or not, we’re well into November now, and this far north the weather shows little mercy this time of year.
I stare down at his name, then at the urn cradled in my arms before I start to scrape the snow away from the grave with my boot, only stopping when the first signs of dirt show through.
Stepping back, I hold the urn out in front of me.
After being able to see and communicate with her in my dreams or whatever memory-scape she embedded in our heads, talking to her urn falls flat.
I do it anyway.
“You told me that night,” I whisper, my voice almost stolen by the wind. “In the clearing when everything fell apart, that you hoped one day—when I fixed what you broke—I could forgive you.”
My throat is already growing tight, but I keep going.
“I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.
About how long you must have carried that fear.
Wondering if I’d hate you for it. If I’d understand.
Knowing you wouldn’t be here to explain yourself, or defend what you did, or make it right in my eyes.
” I swallow. “You carried all of that alone. For years.”
I shake my head slowly. “You probably worried it would change how I remembered you. How I remembered our life in Ashvale. Like the truth might poison it somehow.”
It doesn’t. It never could.
“But you never needed my forgiveness,” I say softly. “Because you didn’t do anything wrong. You made the only choice you had. And you made it for me.”
The cold air burns my tight lungs on my next slow inhale.
“I need you to know that I see it now. What you gave up. How much it cost you. It kept me safe. It brought me back here, exactly the way you planned.” My eyes start to sting and then a few tears fall, instantly cooling on my cheeks.
“Thank you for protecting me, even when you had to do it alone. Even when it took everything from you. And thank you for making sure I would find my way back to Rennick.”
With that, I open the urn and gently tip it, letting her ashes fall onto the earth above her mate’s grave. The act in itself is full circle. She returned me to mine, and now I can return the favor.
When it’s empty, I carefully bury the ashes beneath a layer of snow, smoothing it until the grave nearly looks untouched again.
I step away, turning to leave, but stop myself one last time.
“If you see Rhosyn,” I murmur, shifting on my feet and swallowing hard, “she’s probably in need of a mom right about now, and I’ve got a pretty good one she can borrow for a while.” My chest pangs, the ache making my breath stumble. “Take care of each other, okay?”
I reach out and tap the top of my father’s headstone once, a small gesture that feels both childish and required, then finally turn away for real.
The walk back to the Jeep is quiet except for the wind and the crunch of snow under my boots. The cold seems to be cutting deeper now that I don’t have the weight of my task to distract me from it.
I’m halfway there when my senses catch on something new, a presence moving through the snow with a familiar ease that makes my wolf lift her head and perk up, attention snapping alert but pleased all at once.
Her tail flicks, a quiet, eager little rhythm beneath my skin, already responding to what she’s picked up on a heartbeat before I do.