Chapter 28, The Anchor
Wren
The medical wing didn’t smell like the sterile, chemical-soaked clinics of the High-Ridge. It smelled of crushed pine needles, bitter herbs, and the dry, biting chill of a mountain peak.
Skarde led me through a set of heavy, seamless doors that recognized his presence before he even reached them.
Inside, the room was a blur of shadows and shifting light.
It looked less like a hospital and more like the workshop of an ancient alchemist who had discovered electricity.
Vials of dark glass sat next to sleek, glowing monitors, and the walls were carved directly into the black rock of the mountain.
“Saga,” Skarde called out. His voice was a low vibration that seemed to bounce off the stone.
A woman emerged from behind a wall of flickering screens.
She was an older wolf, her hair a shock of white that caught the overhead light.
She didn’t wear a white coat; she wore deep gray robes that rustled like dry leaves as she moved.
Her eyes were sharp behind a pair of glasses, scanning me with a clinical intensity that made me feel like I was being dissected while still standing.
“Ah,” Saga said, her voice like a smooth stone as her eyes settled on me. “You’re late, Skarde. I’ve been watching her heart rate climb on my feed for an hour.”
“She took the long way back,” Skarde said. He didn’t sit; he hovered near the door, his arms crossed over his chest like a gargoyle. “The altitude is hitting her hard.”
“It’s not just the altitude,” Saga muttered, gesturing for me to sit on an examination bed. “Sit, girl. Let’s see what the High-Ridge managed to miss.”
Saga didn’t pull out a stethoscope. She simply stood in front of me and closed her eyes.
She held her hands a few inches from my skin, and I felt a strange, magnetic pull, like the air was thickening between us.
On the monitors behind her, the data Skarde had discussed with her earlier began to shift and update in real time.
“They called you a Null,” she said, her eyes snapping open.
“Because I am,” I whispered, clutching the edge of the platform. “I... I’m empty.”
Saga let out a soft, sharp huff of a laugh. She turned to a holographic display, swiping her hand through the air to bring up a series of jagged, pulsing lines.
“You aren’t empty, girl. You’re a dam that’s about to burst,” Saga said. “The High-Ridge saw a quiet vessel and assumed it was broken. They didn’t realize that some lineages whisper. They wait until they have enough power to explode. And you? You’re going to explode.”
She pointed at the numbers, mumbling to herself as she adjusted the readout. I looked over at Skarde. He was watching the monitors, his expression unreadable, but his eyes were fixed on a specific line, one that was thumping in a steady, heavy rhythm.
“What does all that mean?” I asked, my voice trembling.
“It means your body has spent eighteen years in hibernation,” Saga explained, stepping closer to check the tracker at my neck.
“But the Black-Spines are a forge. Between the pressure of the peaks and the...”
She glanced at Skarde. “...constant proximity to an Alpha of this caliber, your blood is finally waking up.”
She turned back to the screen, pointing at two overlapping pulses.
“Look at that, Skarde,” she said, her voice dropping into a warning tone. “Her heart is trying to match yours. She’s looking for an anchor, and her instincts have already picked you.”
I stared at the screen, watching the two lines dance together. My pulse was a frantic bird, but it was desperately trying to time its beat to the heavy, slow thrum of his. The realization made me want to bolt and stay forever all at once.
Skarde straightened up, his shadow stretching across the floor. “She has the tracker, Saga. She has the villa’s security.”
“She doesn’t need a machine, you idiot,” Saga snapped.
“A first shift is a violent birth. For someone like her, whose body has been taught to stay small, the transition will be a war. Her bones will be stiff. If she transitions alone, it will be brutal. She needs an anchor,
an actual physical presence in the same room to ground her soul so she doesn’t get lost in the pain.”
Lost in the pain? Panic flared in my throat. I looked at Skarde, searching for any sign of the monster I’d been told he was, but all I saw was a man looking at me with an intensity that made my lungs feel tight. His jaw worked, his eyes dark and unreadable.
“We start tomorrow,” Saga declared. “You’ll come back here in the morning, Wren. I need to know exactly what you’ve been feeling. We’ll go through your senses. If you’re smelling things others don’t, or hearing the heartbeat of the mountain elk a mile away, I need to know. We have to prepare.”
I nodded slowly, my mind racing. I was overwhelmed, but for the first time in my life, there was a tiny, fragile spark of hope. I wasn’t broken afterall!
“Go,” Saga waved us off. “Get some sleep. You’re going to need every bit of strength for tomorrow.”
Skarde didn’t say a word. He just placed a heavy, warm hand on the small of my back. The heat of his palm through my shirt was the only thing keeping me from shaking as he led me out into the hall.