Chapter 2

Dravik had surely forgotten.

Eight years ago, he had ridden through every street and lane of Iron-tribe, calling out to anyone who would listen that he would take no mate but me for as long as he drew breath.

He had sent riders across two mountain ranges to bring back the whitest winterbeast pelt from the far border — because I hated the cold.

For eight years he had given me something real, something bone-deep. So real that when the black bear threw me, when I woke and the bone-mender told me my legs would never carry me again — I didn't weep.

I screamed. I came apart at every seam.

Because I had believed, with everything in me, that Dravik would hold me through all of it without condition.

I was wrong.

A mate's love is not bottomless. And love is a fragile thing — anything can wear it away. Time wears it. Rage wears it. Neediness wears it down to nothing.

Three years of coming apart had cost me not only Dravik but my cub as well. Sorren no longer came to tell me small stories from his lessons. He no longer pressed against my side and begged for the roasted honey-bark sweets I used to make him.

I raised my head. The tears ran faster than I could stop them.

In the empty chamber, there was nothing but the sound of my own muffled crying.

Mira. You brought this on yourself.

You had a full life and you ground it to dust.

I strangled the ache in my chest and forced myself not to look backward. When I had steadied myself enough, I pushed my roll-seat toward Sorren's quarters, meaning to dress his wounds.

I heard Thalwen's voice before I reached the door — soft, careful.

"Brave cub, hold still. Almost done."

I stopped.

Through the gap in the door I saw her sitting at the edge of his sleeping-pelt, her hands moving gently over the marks on his back. Sorren lay perfectly still, obedient in a way he had never been for me.

They looked, in that moment, exactly like a dam and her cub.

The golden light descended.

"Look well at what gentleness does, Mira. A dam's hands are made to heal what is broken — not to break what is whole."

"Has your touch ever brought that cub anything but pain?"

"She brought him a gift from the battlefield. She tends his wounds without being asked. He has never needed you the way he needed her today."

I gripped the remedy-vial until my palm hurt.

Footsteps behind me. Dravik had appeared at my back — I hadn't heard him — and was studying me with a crease between his brows.

"What are you doing here?"

He glanced at the remedy-vial in my hand, then at the scene in the room. His tone was mild and flat.

"Your legs aren't steady. Stop wandering."

I swallowed the sting of that and wheeled myself through the door.

"I came to treat Sorren's wounds."

Sorren heard my voice and turned his head slowly.

He looked at me, and one corner of his mouth lifted in a smile that was not a smile.

"Dam's hands are too fine for this sort of work."

"Besides." He turned, showing me his back — a map of crossing welts, red and dark against his skin. "I should thank Dam for gifting me all of these."

I went still.

I had struck him countless times over these years. Every time he had made no sound and appeared the next morning as though nothing had occurred. So I had never understood how hard I had been hitting.

The golden light came without warning.

"Look at those marks, Mira. You made every one of them."

"Ask yourself what kind of dam leaves her cub with wounds like these and calls it discipline."

"Turn your eyes — there, at the head of his sleeping-pelt."

I looked where the Goddess directed — and there, at the head of his sleeping-pelt, sat a small carved black horse, the kind of fine craftsmanship that did not come from any workshop in Iron-tribe.

Sorren dressed himself and climbed down, moving to stand before the carving, placing his body between it and me. He looked up.

"Does Dam need something else?"

His gaze was hollow.

Dravik stood beside him wearing an identical expression.

The pain in my chest was a needle pushed slowly through.

I dropped my eyes and left.

Back in my own quarters, I dug through the chest at the bottom of the wardrobe until I found a small wooden carving — a leaping hare, worn smooth from years of handling. My blood-brother had made it for me when I was five. I could still hear his voice, bright and certain, lifting me up over his head.

"Ria, your blood-brother will always be here."

I closed my fingers around it. I needed to see him.

I sent word to the Pack-Lord's Den through a den-servant.

The den-servant came back after a long while, head bowed.

"The Pack-Lord says… the matters of the packs press heavily today. He asks the First-Claimed to come another time."

A pause. "He also says — if Warlord's House lacks for anything, the First-Claimed need only send word to the den-keepers."

A bitter smile moved across my face.

Understood.

My blood-brother was tired of me too. He did not want to see me.

The day grew dark. I ate a few mouthfuls of the evening meal and set it aside.

Dravik didn't come.

In the early seasons after I was hurt, he would spend the first few nights back from any campaign in my quarters. Tonight I waited until the third watch of the night, and he never appeared.

The golden light came faintly, like an ember in dying ash.

"Stop waiting, Mira. He is not coming to you tonight."

"You have had your years with him. Those years are behind you now. What he gives his time to — that is where his heart has already gone."

I reached over and put out the lamp. I lay in the dark with my eyes open.

This is how it is.

It's normal.

He loves Thalwen. This is normal.