Chapter 12, A Silence of Stone
Wren
The Great Hall was a cavern of oppressive heat and the suffocating scent of too many wolves. Logs the size of men roared in the hearths, casting flickering orange shadows against the lineage banners.
I sat at the very back, my back pressed against the cold stone of the wall. To the others, the room was a mess of crackling fire and the Elder’s droning voice, but for me, the world was far too loud. It was getting harder to ignore every day.
I could hear the frantic thumping of forty different hearts. I could hear the wet slide of a girl’s tongue against her teeth. I could even hear the faint friction of Killian’s leather tunic in the front row as he breathed. It all gave me a pounding headache.
At the front, Hala, the healer, stepped forward.
“The First Shift is not merely a change of bone and fur,” she murmured. “You will feel a burn first, a fever in your marrow. Your blood will feel like molten silver, rushing to the surface as your human weakness is purged.”
Around me, the others leaned in, desperate for the pain she described.
“I’ve felt a burn,” Bjorn whispered next to me, his voice a roar in my ears. “It’s been in my chest for a week.”
“My teeth ache,” Carla replied. “Mother says it’s the jawbone preparing to unhinge.”
I looked down at my hands. They were steady. Cold. I felt no fever, no itching skin. But the sound, the constant, relentless noise was making my head throb. I raised my hand.
“Hala?”
The room went silent. A few of the group huffed; they didn’t like the Null interrupting. Killian turned in his seat, his eyes searching mine.
“Is... is the hearing a symptom?” I asked, my voice trembling. “If the world sounds too loud? If you can hear the fire breathing in the next house over? If you hear gossip across the yard?”
Hala walked toward me. “It is uncommon, Wren. Most feel the fire first. But for some, the senses awaken before the flesh. The hearing can become a burden before it becomes a gift. Usually, if hearing is the first symptom, scent is the next. Any others?”
A small hope sparked in my chest. Maybe I’m not broken.
But then, suddenly, there was a silence I could hear.
Not a bird sang, not a rabbit moved. Past the heavy oak doors and the stone walls, I heard it: the rhythmic crunch of shale under a weight that didn’t belong to a man.
Then came the breathing, slow, deep, and vibrating at a frequency that made the stone I leaned against hum.
Then, the scent hit me. Cold stone. Frozen rowan berries. Winter.
I stiffened, my fingers curling into the edge of the bench. I recognized that scent. My heart didn’t race with fear, it hammered with a jarring, violent recognition.
You’re here? I sent a thought out, met with silence.
I looked at the others. Killian was watching me, confused, but he didn’t smell the cold. He didn’t hear the shale. A low, guttural vibration, too deep for any other wolf to catch, rattled through the wall and into my skull.
A purr. What the actual fuck?
Don’t look for the fire they promise you, a voice seemed to echo in my bones. You look much better in the shadows, little one.
I gasped, my breath hitching so loud that people turned to stare. The heat of the hall suddenly felt like a lie. I looked up at the high, slit window.
The glass was darkening. While the hall sweltered, a delicate, jagged pattern of frost began to bloom across the pane. It spread like a spiderweb, crystallizing in the exact spot where the heavy breathing seemed to be coming from on the other side.
“Wren?” Killian’s voice was a distant murmur. “Are you okay?”
I nodded, trying to get him to focus on Hala. I just watched the frost spread, knowing this wasn’t part of the High-Ridge curriculum.
The purr faded, replaced by the sound of something massive pushing off the stone.
I’ll see you soon.
Varg
I pushed off the ledge, my weight effortless as I caught the timber beam of a nearby roof.
The girl’s reaction had been delicious. I had felt her heart jump against the stone, a frantic bird hitting the bars of its cage. She had heard me. She had felt me. While their future Alpha sat blind and deaf, she had been tuned into my frequency.
I moved through the upper reaches of the village, a ghost in the rafters. The High-Ridge thought they were safe behind their walls, but I moved through their territory like I owned the air.
I reached the North Watchtower, pausing in the Sentinel’s blind spot. I looked back at the Great Hall.
The Ritual was in three days. They would try to force a wolf out of her. And I would make my move before they even had a chance to look.
I let out a low huff of amusement, the steam ghosting around my muzzle.
“Let them dress her in their colors,” I projected to Torin, who was waiting a mile away. “Let them prepare their altars. They think they are waiting for a shift.”
I turned and leaped from the wall, a five-hundred-pound shadow plummeting toward the forest floor.