Chapter 21
Out with Rhen at first light. Same trees. Same path. Same silence.
My shoulders have been tight since yesterday. Since she was on my back for hours. Every shift of her weight. Her hips when the terrain changed. She stopped fighting the movement halfway through. Just settled. Trusted. Her fingers loosening in my fur. Her weight moving with mine.
Don't.
Rhen's talking about the upper edge. Tracks. Human. Old enough to ignore but recent enough to note.
"Could be hunters." Rhen looks at the tracks. "Passing through."
"When?"
"Two days. Maybe three. Heading away from us."
Probably isn't hunters. "Note it. Add it to Brennan's report."
"Already did."
Good. We keep walking.
The morning is cold. Sharp. Good. Except now there's room for the press of her forehead against my neck, her breath warm through my fur—
Movement at the tree line.
Two figures. Moving fast. Pack. Coming from the direction of the outer runners.
"Keer." Rhen's seen it too.
I'm already moving, closing distance, meeting them halfway. Tovar and one of the younger wolves—Liara—both breathing hard. Liara's face is tight. Tovar won't meet my eye.
"What."
"The human's cottage." Tovar's voice is flat. "It's gone. Burned. Nothing left."
A growl ripping out, low and rough. "Fuck."
Rhen goes still. Tovar doesn't move.
"When?"
"Recent. Day, maybe two." He pauses. Swallows. "A runner found it this morning on the outer sweep. The whole thing, Keer. Foundation's still standing but everything above it—ash."
"Just the cottage?"
"Garden too. The pen. All of it." Liara's voice is thin. "They brought accelerant. Oily residue everywhere."
"How many?"
"Hard to tell. Boot prints overlapping. At least five, maybe more."
"Tracks leading out?"
"Toward Blomstradal."
"The settlements." Rhen. Low.
"Has to be." Tovar looks toward the clearing. Toward her. "Sending a message."
"Or cutting off her option to leave." Rhen's eyes on the tree line.
Both. Burning her out. Making sure there's nowhere to go back to.
I look across the clearing. She's there. Her hair white in the sun, that pink threading through it. Nugget at her feet, the hens pecking around her in the dust, that fucking rooster screaming at a goat who wandered too close to the feed pile.
She's waving her arms at Keer Jr. Her voice carrying across the clearing in fragments I can't catch. Something about boundaries. Something about personal space.
She doesn't know yet.
Years she lived there. Built the place alone. The garden, the goat pen, the shelf where her jars sat. All of it, by herself.
"Keer?" Rhen watching my face.
"Stay on patrol. Tovar, report to Axan—tell him I want those tracks followed before they fade. Liara, find Kestria."
"You're telling the human yourself?" Tovar's eyes narrow.
"I said report to Axan."
He holds my gaze for a second. Nods. Goes.
I'm already walking. Toward her.
Pack members notice. Eyes tracking me, conversations dropping.
The clearing has changed. A goat grazes near the fire pit.
The wolf passing it doesn't alter course—steps around without looking.
Bram is crouched by the pen, checking a post, hands steady.
A pup sits cross-legged beside the spotted female, scratching behind her ears while the animal leans into the touch.
Days ago none of this existed here.
She did this. Brought livestock into a wolf territory and the pack just absorbed it.
No vote. No discussion.
She looks up when I'm close. Mid-sentence, hand still in the air, mouth curved.
Smile fades.
"What happened?"
Her voice catches. Already. Her hand drops. The chickens keep pecking around her feet.
"Your cottage. They burned it. Human accelerant. Nothing left."
She blinks.
But she doesn't—
Goes back to feeding the chickens.
"Melori."
"These ones need extra feed." Her hands keep scattering grain. Manic. Tight. "They're still adjusting to the new environment and stress affects their digestion, you know, so I have to make sure they're getting enough nutrients because otherwise—"
"Melori."
"—they won't lay properly and we need the eggs, we really need the eggs because protein sources are limited here and I've been thinking about setting up a rotation system where the older hens get supplemental grain in the morning and the younger ones get theirs at evening because their metabolisms are different and if we don't account for that the yield drops and—"
Her hands are shaking. Both of them. Wrapped around the empty feed bucket.
She's still talking but the words are coming wrong.
Somewhere underneath the chickens and the grain rotation and the metabolism schedule, she knows. The rest of her hasn't caught up yet, but her voice has. Her hands have.
Don't move toward her. Not yet.
Kestria appears. Steps in and takes the feed from Melori's hands.
Gentle. Firm. Melori doesn't resist, just lets it go, fingers loose at her sides.
"I'm fine." Voice cracking. "I'm completely fine. It's just a building. Buildings burn all the time. People rebuild. That's what people do. They rebuild."
Everyone can see it. Pack members have stopped what they're doing. The hens peck at scattered grain around her boots.
Her hands won't stop moving.
"Come on." Kestria's arm slides around her shoulders. "Let's go sit down."
"I don't need to sit down. I need to feed the chickens."
"I'll feed them."
"But the rotation—"
"Mel."
Silence. Swallowing hard. Her hands clenching, unclenching.
Then, small—so fucking small—
"I want to see it."
"No." The word lands heavy.
She looks at me. Eyes wet. Jaw set. Stubborn.
"Please."
That word.
Shouldn't. Not safe. Not smart.
I look at her, really look. Bright blue, wet at the corners, fixed on mine and not letting go. The whole impossible woman in one stubborn upward stare.
I exhale. Long. Drag my palm down my beard.
The trail's already mapping itself in my head. Who covers the council. How fast we can ride there and back. I'm not even fighting it.
That's the part that should worry me.
She says please and the answer's already yes.
"Just us. I'll take you."
Kestria's watching me.
"Go get your baskets. We'll gather what survived."
She nods. Turns. Walks away. Too steady. Spine straight, shoulders locked.
"Brother."
"Don't."
"I wasn't going to say anything."
"Your face is saying plenty."
She lets out a breath. Close to a laugh. Not there. "Be careful."
I don't answer.
Careful.
Not the word for this.
Tree line. She's standing there with baskets strapped to her back. Same ones from yesterday—same worn leather straps, purple moonbright stain still on the weave.
I start stripping. Shirt first. She can tie it to a basket. Boots next.
She's trying not to look.
Failing.
Yesterday she wouldn't take her eyes off the ground. Talked about soil decomposition. That was heat. Today her eyes are blank.
She doesn't turn around.
Belt. Pants. Her eyes on me.
I shift. Bones cracking, muscles reshaping, world going sharp and bright. Colors flatten. Smells explode—pine and earth and morning damp and her. Moonbright and sweat and salt.
I lower myself so she can climb on.
She grabs my fur. Yesterday her hands knew where to go.
She settles. Weight distributed. Baskets balanced.
Her hands are shaking.
I start moving.
Her face presses against my neck. Eyes closed.
I run faster.
Her thighs press in when I jump a fallen log, tightening around me. But her grip is tighter than yesterday. She's just holding on. Pressed hard against my back.
I smell it before we get there. Ash. Char. Old smoke. And underneath—oily, sharp. Accelerant soaked into burned wood.
I slow down. Every muscle in her body goes rigid against my back. Fingers digging in.
The clearing opens up.
Foundation stones. Blackened earth. Charred beams collapsed inward. A doorframe still standing—arch intact, wood scorched but upright. Open air behind it.
I stop and lower myself.
She slides off.
Not moving. Not breathing.
I shift back. Cold hits my bare skin. Ignore it.
She walks forward.
The clothes come out of her basket without her looking. One hand finding the bundle, holding it out to her side, arm extended, eyes fixed on her burnt home.
She isn't waiting for me to take them. She's already walking.
I take them.
She doesn't notice.
Turns at the threshold. Angles through a door that isn't there anymore—the motion automatic. Walks the footprint of the cottage. The workbench where she mixed paste—charred stump of a leg, everything else gone. The shelf where her jars sat.
I follow. Keeping distance.
She crouches in the rubble, fingers sifting through ash and char, and pulls something out.
Pottery shard. Blue glaze, bright against the black. Part of a bowl—the curve of the rim. Handmade.
Her hands shake holding it.
"Ten years."
Voice thin. Cracking.
"I built all of this. By myself. T—ten years.
" Turns the shard over. Runs her thumb across the glaze.
"The walls first. Took me months because I didn't know what I was doing and the first set fell down twice. Then the roof. Then the floor, which I ripped up and redid two times because it just didn’t feel right. "
"Two times?"
"I'm stubborn."
She holds the shard up. Blue glaze catching pale light. "This bowl. I fired it myself in a pit kiln I dug behind the garden. Cracked the first three times. This one held."
She holds it in both hands.
"And now it's a piece."
She turns the shard over again. Thumb tracing the rim. Doesn't say anything for a while. Just holding it.
"You'll build again."
"Where?"
With me.
"Somewhere." Useless word.
"Somewhere." She lets out a breath. "Inspiring."
"I'm not good at—"
"Comfort? No." She stands. Turns. I'm closer than she expected—breath catches, eyes going wide. Close enough to see ash smudged across her jaw. "You're really not."
Tears on her face now. Silent. Streaming. She's not wiping them away.
"Why did you bring me here?"
"You asked."
"Why did you say yes?" Tight and raw. "Why do you care what I need?"
"I don't know."