Chapter 5: Prison Never Ended

Wren POV

Garrett found me in the corridor outside the kitchen, arms full of table linens I was supposed to be dropping off in the dining hall. He didn't say anything at first. Just stood there blocking my path, arms crossed, that same scar through his eyebrow pulled tight with whatever he worked himself up over since yesterday.

"Heard an interesting story this morning," he said.

"Good for you."

"About how you brought Luna Rosalind tea yesterday. Real touching. Real devoted daughter routine." His voice had an edge to it I hadn't heard from him yet. "Except word is you made a scene about it in front of half the staff."

"I didn't make a scene."

"That's not what I heard."

"Then you heard wrong." I shifted the linens in my arms, tried to step around him. He moved to block me again.

"You know what I think?" he said. "I think you're playing a long game. Sad little servant girl, tragic prison victim, everybody's supposed to feel sorry for you right before the King shows up and Calla's future's on the line."

"I don't care what you think."

"You should confess," he said, flat, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Tell the truth about what you did to her. Save everyone the trouble of watching you crawl around this house pretending to be a victim."

Something in me went very still. "I didn't do anything to her."

"Right." He laughed, short and humorless. "Sure."

"I didn't." My voice came out harder than I meant it to. "I took the blame because your Alpha asked me to. That's it. That's the whole story. I didn't touch her, I didn't hurt anyone, and I spent two years in a labor camp for a crime I never committed."

"Watch it," he said, stepping closer. "That's a hell of an accusation to throw around."

"It's the truth."

"Bullshit." The word cracked out of him sharp enough that I flinched. "You know what, I'm sick of hearing it. I'm sick of watching you walk around here acting wounded like the rest of us are supposed to just believe whatever you say."

He grabbed my arm before I understood what was happening, linens spilling out of my grip and onto the floor.

"Let go of me.."

"You need to cool off," he said, already dragging me down the hall, toward the narrow stairs that led to the record archive in the basement. "Sit with what you did for a while. Maybe it'll knock something loose."

"Garrett, let go…" I twisted, tried to plant my feet, but he was twice my size and I hadn't eaten a real meal in longer than I wanted to think about. My shoulder scraped the wall going down the stairs. "This isn't… you can't just…"

"Watch me."

The archive room door creaked open, dark and cold, shelves of old ledgers lining the walls, no windows anywhere. He shoved me through it before I could get another word out.

"Garrett, wait.."

The door slammed. The bolt scraped into place on the other side.

For a second, I just stood there in the dark, chest heaving, telling myself it was fine, it was just a room, it was going to be fine.

Then the walls started closing in.

I don't know how else to explain it. One second I was standing in a basement archive room, and the next I was back there, back in the punishment cell, stone pressing in from every side, no light, no sound except my own breathing getting faster and faster until I couldn't tell where the walls ended and my own body began.

"No..no, no, no…"

I hit the door with both fists. "Let me out! Please, let me out, I'll do anything, please…"

My voice didn't even sound like mine anymore. High and cracked and begging, the exact same voice I used to hate hearing come out of my own throat in that cell, back when begging was the only thing left that I had.

"Please, I can't… I can't breathe, let me out"

I slid down the door, knees giving out, arms wrapped around my head like that was going to stop whatever was coming. My wolf didn't answer. She never answered anymore, not even now, not even when every instinct in my body was screaming for her to do something, anything, and there was just silence where she used to be.

"Please," I said again, quieter now, barely a whisper. "Please don't leave me in here."

I don't know how long I was on that floor. Long enough that my throat had gone raw from screaming, long enough that I stopped being able to tell if my eyes were open or shut.

Then I heard the bolt tear loose, wood splintering, and light flooded the room hard enough to hurt.

"What in the name of the moon goddess!"

A man I'd never seen before stood in the doorway, tall, composed, pale silver eyes gone wide with something between shock and fury. Behind him, Garrett stood frozen at the top of the stairs.

"She's fine," Garrett started. "She's just…"

"Fine?" The stranger's voice cracked through the room like a whip. He crouched down in front of me, and I flinched so hard I hit my head against the door frame, arms coming up automatically to shield my face.

He went still. Didn't reach for me. Just stayed there, crouched at a careful distance, watching me shake.

"Someone get a healer," he said, without taking his eyes off me. His voice had dropped, quiet now, controlled in a way that scared me more than shouting would have. "Now."

"Your Majesty, I can explain.." Garrett started.

Your Majesty.

Through the haze in my head, that landed somewhere. This wasn't just some stranger. This was the King. He wasn't supposed to arrive for another five days.

"You can explain," the King said, not looking at him, "why I just pulled a grown woman out of a locked, windowless room, screaming like someone was about to kill her."

"She was being difficult, I only meant to.."

"That was not difficulty." His eyes hadn't left my face this whole time, and something in his expression had shifted from anger into something sharper. Calculating. Like he was looking at a puzzle piece that didn't fit the picture he'd been shown. "That was fear. I've seen men break on battlefields who didn't look half that terrified."

I couldn't get words out yet. My whole body was still shaking, breath coming in short, useless gasps.

The King studied me a moment longer, something unreadable moving behind those pale eyes.

"Somebody," he said quietly, "is going to explain to me exactly what happened to this girl. And it had better not be the story I've been told so far.”