CHAPTER 6

The sky still black as Kael carries Aria into camp, her body limp on his shoulders, her cloak splattered with blood and pine resin. Maela waits at the clearing's edge, jaw set and a clump of herbs already in her hand.

"Inside," she orders, pushing aside the door to her tent. "Put her down."

Kael obeyed without a word. His hands were gentle as he placed Aria on the cot, but his eyes were thunder. The tension in his body buzzed like a blade held too long to fire.

“I’ll take care of her,” Maela said, not unkindly, but firmly.

Kael hesitated, his gaze lingering on the blood seeping from Aria’s thigh. Then, reluctantly, he stepped back and disappeared into the night.

Maela got to work in silence, her fingers deft as she removed Aria’s boot and began cleaning the gash. Aria flinched awake with a cry.

“Easy,” Maela murmured, pressing a cloth soaked in numbing salves against the wound. “You’re safe now.”

“I wasn’t supposed to survive,” Aria whispered, voice hoarse. “He sent someone… from Silverpine.”

“I know,” Maela said, tying the wound. “Kael told me. The whole camp’s talking.”

Aria had swallowed hard. "They think I'm the danger."

"Maybe," Maela admitted. "But you bled for them today. That buys you time."

The flap creaked open gently. Nessa peered in, eyes puffy and tearful.

"Can I? Is she okay?" the girl asked.

"She will be," Maela said. She looked at Aria. "You want her here?

Aria nodded, and Nessa crept closer, hand locked around Aria's in a vice, eyes burning with a ferocity that made Aria's heart ache. The girl pulled into a knot next to her and did not let go, not even when Aria drifted into fitful sleep.

The fever dreams struck hard.

She was in a hall of mirrors, every window reflecting not her face, but the she-wolf's. That same ethereal loveliness. That silver-eyed pain.

"Aria," repeated the wolf, voice like wind across bone. "He destroys what he cannot meet."

A roar ripped through the dream, and Aria was falling… falling through fire.

She jarred awake with a convulsive movement, her senses assaulted by the acrid reek of smoke.

Not the sugary kind that had wafted from the campfire, this reek was acrid. Yellowed parchment. Seared ink.

Dark. Nessa was gone, and so was Maela.

Aria sat bolt upright, racing heart, and slowly brushed aside the tent flap.

She had first seen the glow, and then Kael bent under a small fire. A scroll clutched in one hand, already crumbling, darkening. His other hand trembled beside him.

"What are you doing?"

Kael swung around, too abruptly, his face twisted with shock and guilt. But it was replaced in an instant by his usual coldness.

"Sleep," he growled.

"What was it?" Aria demanded. She crept forward, her injured leg smarting.

"Nothing."

"It was something," she snapped. "You ruined it before I could read it."

"It wasn't for your eyes."

She edged closer, aching with anger. "You're hiding things. Ever since the day I arrived. The way you look at me. The way you flinch when I talk about my mother."

Kael's jaw ground. He didn't speak.

"Tell me," she demanded.

No, he whispered. "Because if I do, you'll hate me more than you hate me now."

She scowled at him, her voice low. "You knew her, didn't you?"

He refused to look at her.

"You knew my mother."

His breathing hitched.

Then, so quietly she barely heard it, he whispered, "Forgive me. I knew your mother."

The words shattered something in her.

Aria stepped back, voice trembling. "What do you mean you knew her? How?

Kael did not answer. He wheeled from her, staring into the embers as though they held all the secrets he'd tried to keep.

"Tell me!" she shrieked, voice cracking.

But Kael said nothing again.

Aria fled.

She did not sleep. Could not. She paced instead on the edge of the rogue camp where the wind was cold and the light of the fires did not penetrate far.

Two guards, Dren and Vex, rough-faced rogues from the east perimeter nodded towards her. They had once looked at her with skepticism, now they regarded her with something closer to respect.

“Alpha’s girl,” Vex said gruffly. “Didn’t think you’d survive that beast.”

“Neither did I,” she murmured.

“You got bite,” Dren said, tossing her a waterskin. “They’re starting to see it.”

She nodded in thankfulness, still hearing the echo of Kael's words in her ears.

You'll hate me more than you already hate me.

What had he done with her mother? What was he involved with?

The burned paper… the prophecy Maela had put forward… 

It all connected. Her mother's wariness. The she-wolf in her dreams. Kael's rage and shame. Rhys' pursuit.

And Aria. caught in the middle, like a fire in the midst of two tempests.

She turned her face toward the stars and closed her eyes.

The night was infinite.

And sunrise would come with more secrets.