Chapter 2: Homecoming

Wren POV

Damian didn't touch me again after that.

He kept a careful two feet of space between us the whole walk up to the house, hands stuffed in his pockets like he didn't trust them not to reach for me and set me off a second time.

The pack house hadn't changed. Same grey stone, same ivy crawling up the east wall that Rosalind never let anyone cut back. It should've felt like something, walking up those front steps again. It felt like nothing. Like looking at a photograph of a place I used to live.

Inside, the whole house was in chaos. Servants I didn't recognize were hauling crates of silverware through the front hall, someone was up on a ladder rehanging the old pack banners, and nobody so much as glanced our way.

"Watch it.." A young girl, maybe sixteen, nearly walked straight into me carrying a stack of folded linens taller than her head. She sidestepped at the last second, muttered a quick "sorry, miss," and kept moving without actually looking at my face.

Miss. Not even a flicker of recognition.

"New girl," Damian said, like that explained it. "Half the staff's new since... since you left."

Since you left. Not since I was sent to a labor camp for a crime I didn't commit. Since I left. Like I packed a bag and walked out on my own two feet.

I didn't correct him.

"Damn, it's a madhouse in here," he muttered, dragging a hand through his hair as another servant rushed past with an armful of flowers. "King's arrival has everyone losing their minds."

"I heard." I hadn't, actually, not until the car ride. But it didn't seem worth mentioning that nobody had bothered writing to tell me anything for two years.

"Come on. I'll get you settled."

Settled turned out to be a guest room on the second floor, not my old room, which I hadn't expected and didn't ask about. Small bed, plain dresser, a window that looked out over the training yard instead of the garden. Fine. It was clean. It had a lock on the inside of the door, which was more than I had in two years, and that alone made something in my chest loosen a little.

"I know it's not.." Damian started, then stopped, rubbing the back of his neck. "We can sort out something better once things calm down."

"This is fine."

"Wren"

"It's fine, Damian." It was the first time I used his name instead of his title since I got here. He looked almost relieved, like that was the crack in the ice he'd been waiting for.

It wasn't. I just didn't have the energy to keep up the formality every single second.

I was still standing in the doorway when I heard her.

"Wren?"

I knew the voice before I turned around. Calla stood at the end of the hall in a pale blue dress that probably cost more than what I used to make in a year, hands pressed to her mouth like she couldn't believe her own eyes.

"Oh my... Wren. You're really back."

She crossed the distance between us fast, arms already opening, and I saw it coming half a second too late to stop it. Her arms wrapped around me before I could get a word out, and my body did exactly what it had learned to do for two years straight.

I shoved.

My hands just moved on their own, putting space between us so fast Calla stumbled back a step, blinking at me like I'd slapped her.

"I…sorry," I said, throat tight. "I don't… I'm not good with.."

"No, no, it's fine." Calla's eyes were already glassy. "I shouldn't have… bloody hell, I'm so stupid, I just missed you so much, I wasn't thinking.."

"Wren." Damian's voice, sharp behind me. "What the hell was that?"

"It wasn't anything, I just.."

"She hugged you and you shoved her."

"Damian, it's okay," Calla said quickly, wiping under her eyes. "She's been through a lot. I get it."

I get it. Like she understood something about what I'd been through. Like two years of silence and a body that flinched at kindness now was something you could just get.

I didn't say any of that. I looked at the floor instead.

"I'm gonna go check on the flower arrangements," Calla said, sniffling once, dramatic and quiet at the same time, a trick I remembered her being good at even before I left. "It's really good to have you home, Wren. I mean that."

She squeezed my arm on her way past, gentle enough that I didn't flinch this time, and disappeared down the hall.

Damian didn't say anything. I could see it on his face, the same thought he wasn't saying out loud: what the hell is wrong with you.

"Wren." A different voice now, softer, coming from the top of the stairs.

Rosalind.

Something happened in my chest that I hadn't planned for. Two years of nothing, and one look at her and my throat went tight anyway. She looked smaller than I remembered. Thinner in the face, more silver through her hair.

"Mom," I said, before I could stop myself.

She didn't move to hug me. Didn't move much at all, actually, one hand resting on the banister like she needed it to stay upright.

"Calla, sweetheart, are you tired from all this running around?" she called past me, down the hall, and I realized Calla had reappeared at the far end, drawn back by the sound of voices. "Make sure you rest before the fitting tomorrow. You'll want to look your best for the King."

"I will, Mom." Calla smiled, soft and easy, and disappeared again.

Rosalind's eyes came back to me last. "It's good you're back, Wren."

That was it. No hug. No question about the quarry, the weight I lost, the two years she hadn't written a single letter in. Just five words and a look that already had one foot somewhere else.

I told myself I was used to this. I told myself it didn't matter anymore.

It mattered anyway.

"I need you to do something for me," Rosalind said, and she hesitated, glancing toward the stairs like the words were hard to get out. "The dinner with the King. I think it's best if you... stayed upstairs that night. Just until things settle. You understand."

I understood it fine. I understood before she finished the sentence.

"I'll stay up here," I said. "I won't be a problem."

Something crossed her face, guilt maybe, or something close enough to it, but she didn't take it back. She just nodded, thanked me, and turned to go check on whatever needed checking downstairs.

Damian was still standing there when I walked past him toward my room. The old me would've asked why. Would've begged for a reason, cried about it, made him feel something.

I didn't have any of that left in me.

Downstairs, the house kept moving, voices and footsteps and someone laughing about flower arrangements for a king who didn't know I existed. I climbed the stairs alone, shut the door behind me, and sat down on the edge of a bed that wasn't mine, in a house that had already stopped being my home a long time before I ever left it.