Chapter 5 #2
Across the room, Vince had stopped pretending to circulate. He was watching me openly now, his expression unreadable. When I met his eyes, he gave a small nod—acknowledgment, recognition, something I couldn't quite name.
He knew. I wasn't sure how much, but he knew this story wasn't random. Wasn't just something I'd heard once and remembered. It was something I carried.
And then there was James.
He was looking at me like I'd handed him a key to a door he didn't know existed. Not confused—that would've been easier. Curious in a way that felt dangerous, like he was seeing past the surface to something underneath.
"Lumi," he said quietly. "That story—"
"It's just a myth." The words came out sharper than I intended. "That's the whole point, right? Stories. Social technology. It's not real."
The lie tasted like ash.
Vince chose that moment to call time, redirecting us to discuss patterns across our myths. I let the others talk, contributing just enough to avoid notice, but I could feel James's gaze returning to me again and again.
Seen. That was the word. I felt seen, and I hated it.
Class ended eventually. I gathered my things slowly, hoping to lose myself in the shuffle of students, but James materialized beside me before I reached the door.
"Hey."
"Hey." I kept walking.
He fell into step beside me, long legs matching my pace without effort. "That was a hell of a story."
"It's just a story."
"You say that, but you don't tell it like it's just a story." He was watching my face, and I deliberately didn't meet his eyes. "You tell it like it matters."
Because it does. Because I'm about to climb a mountain to save a feral wolf and I don't even know why except that I can't not do it.
"Darian was a good storyteller," I said. "I'm just repeating what he taught me."
"Is he still around? Darian?"
"He travels a lot." I kept my voice casual. "With his wife. I don't see him much anymore."
All true. Nothing that invited follow-up questions about pack gatherings or how a ten-year-old orphan came to know an elder storyteller in the first place.
James nodded slowly, like he was filing the information away. "He taught you well."
"He'd probably say I left out the best parts."
We walked in silence for a moment. The quad was crowded with students moving between classes, and I used the chaos as an excuse to focus on navigation instead of conversation.
"The woman in your story," James said eventually. "The one who found ferals. Do you think she was real?"
All myths are true. That's what makes them dangerous.
"I think," I said carefully, "that stories don't have to be literally true to matter. They teach us something about who we are. What we value. What we're afraid of."
"What does that story teach you?"
I stopped walking. We were at the edge of the quad, near the path that led to the dining hall. Students flowed around us, oblivious.
"Why do you care?"
He blinked, surprised by the sharpness of the question. "Because you're interesting. And because you looked—" He hesitated, searching for the word. "Scared. When you were telling it. Not scared of the story. Scared of something else."
The hum flared, warm and insistent. I wanted to lean toward it. I wanted to run.
"I'm not scared," I said.
"Okay."
"I'm not."
He didn't believe me. I could see it in the gentle stubbornness of his expression, the way he was looking at me like I was a puzzle he intended to solve whether I wanted him to or not.
"I have to go," I said.
"Lumi—"
But I was already walking, putting distance between us, trying to outpace the hum and the memory and the terrible weight of a story I should never have told.
I skipped dinner. Couldn't face the dining hall, couldn't face Ivy's questions or James's patient attention. Instead, I found an empty bench behind the science building and sat with my back against the cold stone wall, trying to breathe.
The woman who walked between worlds.
I'd never told that story to anyone before. Not since hearing Darian tell it around the fire. It had felt too personal, too raw, like exposing a wound that hadn't finished healing.
And now I'd said it in front of strangers. In front of James, who looked at me like he was memorizing every word. In front of Vince, who knew exactly how personal it was.
Why had I done that? I could have made something up. Shared a generic Finnish myth from one of Gregor's books. Something safe, forgettable, unremarkable.
But Vince had asked for something real. Something from my home, my culture, my family. And Darian's story was all three.
Some say her bloodline might still exist.
I pressed my palms against the cold stone, grounding myself. I wasn't the woman from the myth. I wasn't part of some mystical lineage. I was just Lumi Orlav—orphan, outsider, girl with inconvenient visions and a mission she couldn't explain.
Except.
Except I could feel the wolf in my mind, howling. Except I was training for a mountain that would kill most people who tried it. Except every fiber of my being was screaming go, find them, bring them back.
What if the story wasn't just a story?
What if Darian had known? What if he'd told me for a reason, planting a seed that would take years to grow?
I thought about calling Gregor. Asking him what Darian had really believed, whether there was more to the myth than fireside entertainment. But Gregor would ask why I wanted to know, and that would lead to questions I couldn't answer without revealing everything.
The vision. The wolf. Denali.
I was on my own with this. The same way I'd always been on my own—carrying weight that no one else could share.
The cold seeped through my jacket, and I let it. Let the chill anchor me to the present, to the reality of stone and sky and the distant sound of students laughing.
The woman in the story kept trying, even when it cost her everything.
Maybe that was the lesson.
Maybe that was the warning.
I wasn't sure yet which one I needed more.
When I finally made it back to the dorm, Ivy was waiting. She took one look at my face and wordlessly handed me a hot chocolate from the campus café.
"You looked like you needed it," she said.
I wrapped my hands around the cup, letting the warmth seep into my frozen fingers. "Thanks."
"Want to talk about it?"
"Not really."
"Okay." She settled onto her bed, pulling out her laptop. "Movie night? I found a streaming site with terrible horror films. The kind where you can see the zipper on the monster costume."
I almost smiled. "That sounds perfect."
We watched two movies back to back, neither of us commenting on the fact that I kept staring out the window instead of at the screen. Ivy fell asleep during the third, snoring softly, and I sat in the dark with my cold hot chocolate and my racing thoughts.
Tomorrow, I would train. The next day, I would research. In a few weeks, I would climb a mountain that wanted to kill me to save a wolf I'd never met.