Chapter 3
Wren
Idon’t answer him right away and he stays exactly where he is, hands clasped behind his back, eyes steady on mine like he has all the time in the world to wait me out.
He doesn’t repeat the question, or press like I expect him to.
Instead, he seems content to watch, composed and giving nothing away in his expression or mannerisms.
The lights from above illuminate his face, and without the other two guards here setting me on edge, I find myself taking in the small details.
He has a smattering of light freckles across the bridge of his nose and cheeks.
His jawline is square and frames his dimpled chin and lips, which begin to tilt up the longer I stare.
“I can’t say I’ve ever had to ask someone for their name twice,” he murmurs, taking a few steps toward the wall before leaning against it and crossing his arms across his chest. It pulls his uniform tightly over his broad shoulders.
“Usually I seem to strike fear into people whether I try to or not, and they answer instantly.”
His statement makes my brow pinch in consideration. Should I feel fear in his presence?
I don’t, but I also didn’t fear the kings the way everyone else does, from nearly the moment they introduced themselves.
The words spill out of my mouth before I think them through, “Do you want me to fear you?”
His eyes widen a moment before he barks out a sharp, succinct laugh.
I watch him closely as his head shakes lightly and his tongue darts out to wet his lips as he continues to chuckle lightly.
Hopefully his answer is no, because this reaction isn’t doing him any favors if he’s trying to be imposing.
He kicks a foot up against the wall and finally answers with a small smirk still tugging at one corner of his mouth, “No. I don’t want you to fear me. However, I still have to do my job as colonel and learn more about you. Perhaps starting with your name.”
My mind and body clash over how to respond to that. Physically, I feel my own lips starting to lift in response to his lighthearted tone, but the second I do, the four kings' faces pop into my mind and a somber feeling washes over me.
It feels wrong to feel any semblance of camaraderie without them at my side. It feels like a betrayal of what I had with them to smile just two days later.
Eventually, I lift my chin and answer tightly, “Wren.”
He seems to notice my sharp shift in tone, his lips tightening into a flat line for a moment and his eyes searching my face for answers to what just changed. I’m not willing to give them, so I keep my face carefully composed.
His head dips once, the smallest nod of greeting.
“Wren…” he trails off, clearly wanting more.
Which is fair, given the circumstances, but despite my inclination to think he isn’t a terrible human entirely, I don’t feel comfortable giving him much more than that.
It’s clear I need to learn more about this city and the humans, and Ryoden seems to be the perfect path to do so, but I must continue to tread carefully.
I keep my breathing slow as I glance past him, toward the now-empty doorway, toward the space where the guards stood before slinking out.
Possible lies come to my head, but it doesn’t settle right within me to do that.
I’m here to judge humans off of the truth of their actions, words, and convictions—I can’t hold myself to a different standard just because it’s easier and safer.
“That’s all I’ve got,” I answer in a heavy sigh as our eyes meet once more. “I don’t have a last name. Just Wren.”
He nods slowly at my answer, then shifts his weight off the wall and takes a few measured steps closer.
He doesn’t invade my space, but he narrows the distance enough that I can see how carefully he carries himself—shoulders squared, spine straight, each motion deliberate, practiced.
Every inch of someone used to being watched at all times.
“I’m required to ask a few more questions,” he says, voice steady but not cold. “It’s not personal. It’s protocol.”
I nod once, keeping my face unreadable.
“Where were you born?”
Could I consider the earth pushing me out of it as my birth?
A breath moves through me, tight in my chest to think about the time before the earth severed our connection. “I believe it was somewhere in Ohio, but I’m unsure as I don’t have records of it or any parents to ask.”
All the truth.
He doesn’t look skeptical at my answer. Just folds his arms again and asks another question.
“Where were you coming from, before you showed up on our hill talking to yourself?”
The corner of his mouth tugs up slightly, and I realize it’s not meant as mockery—just observation with the faintest edge of humor, like he’s giving me the chance to soften the tension if I want it.
I don’t want it. I…shouldn’t want it.
But my body doesn’t seem to care what I want, because I feel something tug at my mouth in return, the echo of a smirk trying to form before I school it away.
“I walked here for two days, following old signs, but I don’t know what city it was that I came from,” I answer carefully, knowing I need to walk the line of truth. “I’ve been looking for a human city to find safety, and hopefully some food.”
He holds my gaze for another long beat, then gives a small nod and falls quiet, like he’s trying to process this.
“I believe you,” he finally says, “but belief and evidence don’t always walk hand in hand.”
How heavy and true that statement is sends a chill down my spine.
“My job is to make sure we’re not welcoming someone into our city who might jeopardize what we’ve built here. I hope you can understand that.”
There’s no threat in the words, but there is weight. Still, I don’t feel the need to defend myself.
His neatly styled brown strands of hair fall slightly onto his forehead as he tilts his head.
“Wren, I’m not sure what to do here, if I’m being honest. Though I can admit you don’t appear to be a supernatural here to incite a battle…
” He pauses for a moment before a heavy sigh falls across his open mouth, “I don’t believe you’re lying, but I do believe you’re leaving pertinent information out. ”
My lungs expand with a deep breath as I ruminate on what I can say to convince him, but we just met, and trust works both ways. The information I’m holding on to isn’t surface level details like he seems to think.
I feel a tick in my jaw as it tightens, before I relax it enough to mutter, “I’m not sure you’d believe me if I told you.”
Something in his eyes shifts, a faint flicker of intrigue that disappears as quickly as it came.
My mouth opens, then closes again, my answer stalling somewhere in the space between truth and self-preservation. He waits, giving me the space to speak, but making it clear that the clock is ticking on his patience.
A part of me begins to feel backed into a corner, pressured to give more than I’m willing to, to a stranger. My spine stiffens at the feeling and my lips purse at his expectant gaze.
“I don’t know what you’re expecting me to say,” I mutter, the edge of my voice sharper than I intend. “I don’t know you and I don’t trust you yet. I owe you nothing past my heartfelt admission that I don’t want to hurt any of your people.”
Rationally I understand his stance on this, but trust is earned, not demanded.
“And yet,” he says softly, clearly picking up on my defensive nerve being plucked, “you still haven’t told me anything of substance, Wren, and if you aren’t aware, there was just a large-scale attack on one of our bases just days ago.
Which lines up with the amount of time you claim to have been walking toward us. ”
I simply shrug my shoulders, unsure of where we go from here. Just the mention of that attack has my throat tightening at the thought of the kings, the earth weeping, and everything lost that day.
His sigh is soft, but heavy, before he asks, “Is there anything else you’d like to tell me, before I decide what happens next? Perhaps why you are here, specifically.”
I cross my arms against my chest and draw in a long breath as I mull over that question.
“I don’t even entirely know why I came here,” I admit, letting my heart guide me on what to say.
“For weeks on end I’ve been trying to recover fragments of information on who I am after I woke up in the middle of a battlefield with no memories or clue of who I am.
I had no idea why everything around me was burning and I didn’t even know who was fighting who. ”
The words don’t pour out easily, but they’re deliberate and earnest—sticking to my truth and what I’m willing to tell anyone about myself for now.
His eyes haven’t left my face. There’s a slight shift in the lines around his mouth and in the small furrow of his brow. Interest, or maybe even empathy, peeking through.
For a single breath, I think he might say he understands and that I’m free to walk into the city. Then he clears his throat and whatever flicker softens his demeanor vanishes behind the calm mask he seems to wear like a second skin.
His mouth opens like he’s about to speak, but before a single word comes out, my stomach betrays me with a low, drawn-out growl that echoes in the quiet room.
A sheepish, embarrassed grimace contorts my face. “At least you know I wasn’t lying about searching for food?” I suggest awkwardly.
Ryoden pauses, jaw going slack for a fraction of a second before his lips press into a flat line. I quietly watch him exhale through his nose and lift a hand to rub at his face, dragging his palm across the sharp angle of his cheek before letting it drop back to his side.
“Come on,” he mutters, not unkindly. “Let’s get you something to eat. We can continue this conversation over some warm stew.”
My body tenses automatically, from sheer confusion.
I blink at him, lips parting, unsure whether I misheard him, or if this is a weird human trap.
He doesn’t clarify or wait for my agreement, just simply walks toward the door and doesn’t wait to see if I follow, as if walking a woman caught talking to herself while lurking on a hill to get a meal is part of his morning routine.
It can’t be that simple…can it?
I hesitate because everything in me is still screaming to stay cautious. I’ve had a gun to my head, been cuffed, and assaulted within the first hour of stepping near this place.
My stomach turns at the memory of the berries that had poisoned me—how they clawed their way back up my throat as I doubled over in the mud, shaking from cold and nausea.
He disappears into the hallway and my feet make the choice before my brain does, following him instinctively. I can’t pass up a chance to fill my stomach. I have no clue when the next opportunity will arise.
Still, I don’t trust it, and as I step into the hall to find his retreating back, I can’t help but ask, “What, no cuffs this time?”
I keep my tone flat, but the edge of suspicion is still there.
Ryoden glances back, one brow raised like he’s both unimpressed and mildly amused. “Only if you grow fangs and bite.”
I can tell he once again means to lighten the mood, but a cavernous pit opens up within my chest as Riven’s voice floats through my mind. “I’ve waited centuries to worship someone worthy of it.”
A ball of emotion clogs my throat as I follow Ryoden’s broad back through the stone hallway.
We journey deeper through the wall, his pace measured and unbothered, and I try my damndest to focus on the present.
Maybe this is how he tests my actions, to see if I try to make a break for it, or attack him with no one else around.
My hands curl into fists at my side. What I do know is that I’m going to have to be a lot more careful moving forward. I shouldn’t have reacted to the bite comment. I should’ve kept my face blank and my focus tight, but the memory crashed in before I could shut the door on it.
The memory crumbles to ash as my feet carry me forward, but my heart stays lodged in the past. To our last night together in the cottage, when I thought everything was finally piecing itself together in our favor.
When Sylvin had looked at me like everything in his world was perfect as long as I was next to him.
“Come here, little echo. My tummy hurts from all this tension since you arrived. Soothe me, please.”
My lip quivers as I fight the sting in my eyes remembering how Torryn, my steadfast protector and supporter, had always defended me. “She didn’t owe you anything then and she doesn’t owe any of us a thing now.”
My throat closes as their words course through me.
I blink hard and fix my gaze on the back of Ryoden’s neck, as if anchoring to this moment can stop the desperate desire within me to try to find some thread to pull on that puts me back in all of their arms before I made the decision that makes that impossible now.
I’m not supposed to mourn them like this, but the ache blooms anyway, deep and consuming. I press a palm flat to my stomach as the weight of hunger shifts into something hollow, because I’ve already lost more than food could ever fix.
Azyric’s accusations and suspicions haunt my mind more than anything. “It’s because I want everything, Wren. I tell myself I don’t. That you’re a risk, a threat, a variable we can’t afford to miscalculate.”
They should have listened to him. I was never worthy of their attention or affections, we were all just fooled into thinking otherwise, and we paid the price for it.
Now they're not here. So I walk, step after step, pretending I’m whole.