Chapter 16: Three days of silence

FAYE'S POV

The first day of silence was the hardest.

After Rowan's revelations about his brother and the Crimson Crown Pack, I'd expected to feel something—curiosity, maybe, or anxiety about what his presence meant for my future. Instead, I felt a kind of hollowed-out numbness that made even thinking seem like too much effort.

Rowan seemed to understand this without me having to explain it. He stopped attempting conversation and simply moved around the cabin with quiet efficiency. He brought me food at regular intervals. He kept the fire burning. He read from one of his books, his dark eyes tracking the words, his presence a steady, undemanding thing in the small space.

He didn't ask me to talk.

On the second day, I realized I was listening to the sounds of the forest for the first time since arriving at the cabin. The wind in the pines. The distant call of a bird I couldn't identify. The soft creaking of the cabin's wooden frame as it settled and shifted with temperature changes.

My wolf was listening too. Not with the frantic urgency of those first days, but with a kind of quiet awareness. As if she was slowly remembering that the world contained things beyond pain and rejection.

Rowan brought me a cup of tea on the afternoon of the second day. The steam rising from it smelled like herbs and honey, and something else I couldn't quite identify. Something that made my senses sharpen slightly.

"Willow bark," Rowan said, settling onto his stool. "For the pain. Also helps with the inflammation. It won't taste particularly pleasant, but it will help you sleep."

I accepted the cup, and he was right—it tasted bitter beneath the honey, but the warmth was comforting. I drank it slowly, and within an hour, I felt the edges of consciousness beginning to blur. The pain in my ribs faded into something distant and manageable.

As sleep pulled me under, I was aware of Rowan moving around the cabin. Checking the door. Arranging supplies. Positioning himself near the window where he could see the forest beyond.

Standing watch.

The third day was when things changed.

I woke to morning light filtering through the cabin's small window, and for the first time since Ethan's rejection, I didn't immediately remember why I was alive. There was a moment—perhaps half a second—where I simply existed. Where I was just a person waking up in a warm place, with someone nearby who was making breakfast.

Then the memory crashed back, and the weight settled over me again. But it was slightly lighter than before. Slightly more bearable.

Rowan had made porridge. Real porridge with dried fruit and nuts, the kind of breakfast that suggested he'd been holding this particular luxury in reserve. He'd also brought in fresh snow from outside and melted it, giving me enough water to wash.

"You should try to move around a bit today," Rowan said as I ate. "Carefully, nothing that jostles your ribs, but your body needs to remember how to function. Sitting still for three days is the enemy of recovery."

I wanted to resist. Wanted to simply stay in this bed, in this warm place, where the world outside didn't exist and I didn't have to make decisions or face the reality of what my life had become.

But Rowan's eyes held a kind of gentle insistence, and I found myself actually wanting to try.

It took longer than it should have to get out of bed. My body had spent three days in almost complete immobility, and the muscles had begun to atrophy. My legs felt uncertain beneath me when I finally stood. The world tilted slightly, and I had to grip Rowan's arm to keep from falling.

"Easy," he said, his voice steady and supportive. "Your body's been through significant trauma. Give it time."

We moved slowly across the cabin—perhaps ten feet, to the window and back. It felt like miles. My ribs screamed in protest, and there was a moment where I thought I might actually be sick.

But I made it back to the bed without falling, and some small part of me that wasn't completely broken felt a kind of grim satisfaction at that accomplishment.

"Tomorrow we'll go a bit farther," Rowan said, not making a big deal out of what had just happened, which somehow made it matter more. "Your body is stronger than you believe. It's just learning to trust that strength again."

On the fourth day—which I'd stopped trying to track precisely—I stood at the window for the first time since arriving at the cabin.

The view was remarkable. The cabin faced north toward higher mountains, and the forest stretched out in layers of greens and browns, with peaks visible in the distance. Snow clung to the highest elevations, and the late afternoon light caught it in a way that made the entire landscape seem to glow.

It was beautiful in a way that hurt to look at.

"It's safe," Rowan said, coming to stand beside me at the window. "The wards I've set up will keep your scent contained. No one can track you here unless they actually see the cabin, and I've made sure that's not possible."

"How long can I stay?" I asked quietly.

"As long as you need to," Rowan said simply. "There's no timeline. No pressure. You heal at whatever pace your body requires."

I wanted to believe him. Wanted to trust that there actually existed a place where I could simply be without having to earn my right to exist through labor or service or acknowledgment from people who'd already decided I wasn't worth noticing.

But the broken places in me were skeptical.

That night, Rowan made a meal that was almost celebratory—meat cooked with vegetables, bread that he said he'd been saving, even something that looked like wine but was probably safer than actual wine for someone in my condition.

"You're starting to heal," he said as we ate. "Your color is better. Your movements are becoming less painful. Your wolf is beginning to return to herself."

"My wolf is destroyed," I said flatly. "The bond is severed. That part of me is just—broken."

"Bonds can be broken," Rowan agreed. "But wolves are resilient. Your wolf will learn to live with the absence, the way humans learn to live with loss. It will become part of her, not the whole of her."

"How do you know?" I asked. "How do you know I won't just fade away? How do you know that I'm not already dying and just haven't accepted it yet?"

Rowan set down his cup and looked at me with an intensity that made my breath catch. "Because I can feel her," he said quietly. "I can feel your wolf in here, learning to function without the bond. She's damaged, yes. Fractured, absolutely. But she's not dead. And she's not going to let you die either."

There was something absolute in the way he said it. Something that suggested he wasn't simply offering reassurance but stating a fact he'd somehow already verified.