Chapter 19, The Price of Refusal
Wren
I looked at the hand Skarde had extended, large, scarred, and steady. It was the hand of a man who lived by the laws of the mountain, not the petty politics of a village.
I looked back at my father. He stood next to Silas and Rorik, his face pale and eyes wide with a desperate, helpless sort of grief.
My heart felt like it was being hollowed out.
I thought of the small things that made up my life: the hum of the old refrigerator in our kitchen, the smell of the laundry detergent my mother used, and the way the heater in my bedroom would click and hiss on winter nights.
I thought of Elias and Sage, their laughter.
Killian... his face was the last anchor, the only person who had ever seen me as more than a shadow.
If I left, those memories would become ghosts, fading a little more with every step I took into the dark.
I turned my gaze to the King. Alaric stood like a statue carved from the night itself.
“What if I refuse?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper, thin and fragile against the roar of the wind. “What does it mean if I say no?”
Alaric didn’t smile, but his eyes sharpened with a clinical, lethal clarity.
“It means the tithe remains unpaid, Wren. A lie of this magnitude, an insult to the Peace... it grants the Night-Stalkers the right of Retribution.”
He stepped closer, the dominance rolling off him in waves that made the air feel heavy.
“The little skirmishes you have had on your border are nothing in comparison to what would happen next. Alpha Skarde would have every right to declare a blood-war. They could seize your lands, claim your hunting grounds, and take your wolves as slaves or do as they see fit.”
“Or,” Rhys cut in, his voice a low, sandpaper rasp from the shadows. “We could just massacre them right where they stand. They have no chance against us, ghost pup.”
I flinched as if he’d struck me. I looked at the High-Ridge warriors by the SUVs, men I had grown up around.
They looked small and terrified, their breath hitching in the cold.
My stomach turned at the thought of the shale beneath my feet running red with their blood.
I could see it in my mind: my father’s blood staining the stones, my village burning, all because I wanted to cling to a place that didn’t want me back.
Skarde didn’t deny the threat. He simply tilted his head, watching me with those violet eyes that seemed to see right through my ribs.
Torin took a heavy step forward, his expression devoid of pity.
“We would burn it all to the ground. We have no use for the land: it’ll make a nice buffer between the rest of the world and us.”
A cold shudder raced down my spine. The sorrow was a physical weight now, a stone in my throat. They were ready to wipe out my entire history, everyone I loved, to settle a debt for a lie I hadn’t even told.
Silas and Rorik looked ready to break. “Wren, be reasonable,” Silas urged, his voice thin and desperate.
“Shut up, Silas!” Arthur roared, his face contorted. “Wren, you make the choice you want. If they want a war, let them come. We will fight.”
“We are getting old, Arthur,” Rorik spoke for the first time, his voice heavy with the exhaustion of years.
“We need peace. For Killian’s sake when he becomes Alpha... and the Silver Havoc in the east is getting restless now their Alpha has passed and they had no heir. Let the girl go. A small price to save us.”
A small price. The words felt like a shard of ice driven into my chest. My throat tightened, a sob threatening to break through, but I swallowed it back, the taste of it bitter and metallic. I looked at Skarde, then back at the King.
“If I go,” I said, my voice shaking but loud enough to be heard over the lap of the lake. “I would want a moment. To say goodbye to my mother. To my brother... to my friends.”
“No,” Alaric said instantly. The word was a finality that echoed off the cliffs. “The tithe is settled here. You do not return to the village. Everything you need, you will get on the other side.”
I felt a tear finally slip, hot and tracks of fire against my cold cheek.
I looked at my father, seeing the heartbreak in his eyes, the way his hands were shaking at his sides.
He was my family, but Rorik was right: the pack was already trading me away.
I could see it in the way the other warriors wouldn’t meet my eyes. To them, I was already gone.
If I stayed, I was a death sentence for everyone I loved. If I left, I was just a ghost they would eventually forget. The choice wasn’t a choice at all; it was a sacrifice.
I looked at Skarde’s hand again. He wasn’t offering a cage: he was offering a way to save my father from his own pride. He was offering a life where I wouldn’t have to apologize for existing.
I took a breath that felt like it was made of needles and shifted my weight. I looked at the yellow lights of the SUVs one last time, memorizing the way the fog rolled over the High-Ridge road. Then, I turned my back on it.
“Then I am the tithe,” I whispered, the words disappearing into the wind.