Chapter 10 Wren
Wren
Aweek slips by.
I’ve watched the sun rise and fall through this same window more times than I care to count.
Seven days in this house. Seven days of being called a prisoner, yet not being interrogated in the slightest. Derrick and Eli continue to rotate being my guard, but each day it seems more and more like they know I’m not a threat.
The door remains open except for when I close it of my own accord for privacy, and we’ve started having friendly conversations that remain surface level but help occupy my endless time here.
And Ryoden…we’ve fallen into our own quiet orbit. Each night I expect it to be the night that he stops allowing silence to fill our meals together, and each night I’m met with his steadfast plight to wait me out, it seems.
It should give me some relief, to not be pressured. Yet I find myself growing more frustrated with each passing day. I don’t know what to do with the space, but if he doesn’t think I’m a threat enough to put pressure on, then he has no right to continue to hold me here.
I press my forehead lightly to the cool glass of my window and watch the city’s inner ring breathe beneath me.
Morning blur gives way to midday bustle, then softens into evening rituals, the same as it always does.
Lanterns light in the same order, market stalls shut down in the same practiced rhythm, children are called inside with the same gentle shouts and laughter.
Every day blends together, but some things stand out.
I haven’t seen Riven again in my dreams since that first night.
No phantom weight sliding in behind me. No voice whispering darling in the corner of my mind.
I wake up alone each morning in the narrow bed with my heart racing, half-braced for the feeling of him to linger from a dream again, and when it never comes, it somehow hurts worse than if the dream had never happened at all.
He isn’t here.
Sometimes, when I roll over in the dark, I swear the blanket smells like forest. Not the vague, generic version, but the exact scent that used to cling to Torryn—the damp sweetness of moss, clean air, the faint bite of pine.
Each time I breathe in too deeply, chasing it, it’s gone.
I tell myself it’s my mind reaching for comfort, nothing more.
He isn’t here.
In the corner of the room, shadows sometimes shift when they shouldn’t.
Just a flicker, a curl in my peripheral vision that looks too deliberate to be a trick of the light.
When I turn my head to catch it, there’s nothing there but the desk and chair, still and harmless.
The first time, my heart lurched with the hope that Azyric had somehow stepped through my dreams and into this room—that his shadows were curling around me to keep me safe once more.
Then the emptiness met me and my throat closed around the foolishness of that thought.
He isn’t here.
Outside, the weather can’t seem to make up its mind.
Twice now, snow has drifted down in the middle of a sunny day—thin flurries that melt as soon as they touch the ground, leaving nothing but damp stone and confused glances from the guards on rotation.
Each time it happens, my chest tightens with the memory of Sylvin’s Winter Court.
Of frost across his lashes, and the way the air around him always felt a few degrees colder and sharper, like he carried his season in his veins.
My brain whispers to me that the flurries are a sign from him, but… he isn’t here.
None of them are.
I can’t decide which is worse: that the universe seems to be echoing them around me, or that my mind is so desperate to believe it.
My connection to the earth remains stubbornly muted.
No hum. No answer when I press my palm to the boards or stretch my senses through the foundation.
I want it to yell at me and give me something, the same way I feel with Ryoden.
Yet on all fronts I’m being met with a silence that is beginning to make my skin crawl.
As I smell whatever dinner Ryoden is preparing tonight wafting up the stairs and through my cracked door, my hands clench.
If he’s going to hold me here, I want a reason.
I want movement—forward, backward, something.
Not this stalled place where I’m not quite a prisoner and not quite a guest. Not trusted, but not harmed.
I’m suspended between judgment and absolution, and I’m at my limit with it.
I wasn’t built to be caged by anyone, not even the kings that each began to steal pieces of my heart. I won’t allow it to continue any longer here. As Derrick escorts me down before bidding us both goodnight, I settle in at the dining table.
The same mind-numbing routine each night, beginning its dance.
The dining room is modest, like the rest of the house. A sturdy wooden table, four chairs, a single window that looks toward the wall instead of the city. Our cutlery sounds too loud in the quiet, each scrape against the plates a dull reminder of how little either of us is saying.
Ryoden sits at his usual place across from me, sleeves rolled up, hair still damp at the ends from a quick wash. He eats with the same measured efficiency that he does everything else. Straight spine, shoulders squared, movements precise.
I watch him from beneath lowered lashes, spoon pushing through the food on my plate more than actually delivering it to my mouth. His eyes flick up once, catch mine, then drop back to his bowl. The muscle in his jaw jumps.
It sets my nerves on end and my hand clenches tightly around the spoon, my frayed patience reaching its limit. I set my spoon down with a soft clink and lean back slightly, folding my arms across my chest. The movement draws his gaze up, green eyes sharp in the light above.
“How long does ‘pending judgment’ usually last in your city?” I ask, keeping my tone light to start, but unable to hide the bite in it entirely. My lips tilt up in a fake, forced smile. “Asking for a friend you’ve had locked in your spare room for a week.”
One of his brows ticks up, the only immediate sign that I’ve hit a nerve. He wipes his mouth with his napkin, buying himself a heartbeat before he answers.
“That depends,” he says, drawing his hands into his lap and clearing his throat. “Some people make it easier on themselves by answering the initial questions they’re asked.”
My lips press together as I feel the familiar spark of defensiveness flare at his implication. “Some people might answer more questions if they weren’t feeling like whatever they say will be treated as an admission of guilt.”
His eyes narrow the slightest bit. “Some people appeared connected to multiple attacks on human positions in a very short period of time,” he counters evenly. “I don’t have the luxury of pretending that doesn’t matter.”
The calm in his voice is more infuriating than if he’d raised it.
I huff out a humorless breath and lean forward, planting my forearms on the table. “It seems you’ve been pretending just fine this past week, not asking me any questions.”
His gaze holds mine, steady and unflinching. The room feels smaller and the light suddenly sharper. Outside, I can faintly hear the change of guard at the front of the house—the murmur of voices, the creak of boots on the front steps.
“Wren,” he says slowly after unclenching his jaw, “I am responsible for every person who sleeps inside these walls.” He gestures vaguely toward the window, toward the rest of the city beyond.
“Women. Children. Families who have already lost enough. I don’t get to ignore red flags because I happen to believe you more than I should, with no basis for it. ”
“That’s the thing,” I say, heat creeping into my tone and my cheeks.
“You believed me about your guards without hesitating. You put them in a cell and split open your own knuckles for something you didn’t see with your own eyes.
But when it comes to me, you use belief as a reason to hold me tighter instead of letting me go. ”
Something flickers in his expression but it’s gone too quickly to pin down, replaced by that careful colonel neutrality.
“You showed up at my gate days after a border was attacked,” he says. “You were present at a battlefield in supernatural territory where we lost many men, and you refuse to tell me why. I am trying very hard not to assume the worst.”
My hands twine together in my lap as I try to dull the rage roaring within my chest.
“And I’m trying very hard not to assume you’re just waiting for an excuse to throw me in an actual cell,” I fire back. “We’re both failing, it seems.”
The words are out before I can soften them.
For a moment, that same dreadful silence creeps back in as we sit there staring at each other, both unwilling to look away.
“I don’t want to treat you like this,” he says softly, before taking a deep breath and exhaling. “You do understand that, don’t you?”
The earnestness in the question catches me off guard and I blink, my anger unsure what to do with that admission. His jaw tightens once more and he seems to be mentally working through what to say next.
“If I let you walk out of here tomorrow and find out later that you were working with them—” he breaks off, fingers curling lightly against the table now. “If something happens to this city because I chose to ignore every warning sign, that blood is on my hands. Not yours. Mine.”
Images flash unbidden across my mind—children weaving between market stalls, women laughing as they trade.
Eli’s haunted eyes, Derrick’s exasperated patience, the old man at the gate and the woman who tried to help him.
I drag in a slow breath at the thought of anyone bringing violence within these walls and a shudder rolls through my body.
“I’m not working for the supernaturals,” I say honestly, softening my tone to match the vulnerability in his words. “I’m not here to hurt your people.”