Chapter 9

Freya

I didn't know what to think after Mira's revelation. Even after I'd thanked her and gone back to my room, it still didn't feel real.

All these years, I'd been mocked and branded as useless, meanwhile that was far from the truth. The idea of power was exciting, I wouldn't lie, but deep down, there was a certain fear that came with it too.

Mira had told me to keep quiet about it, which meant Thornfield could easily become hell for me if things were to go south.

In order to give myself something else to focus on, I decided to fully blend in to what was going to be my new home.

I had expected Thornfield to feel like a graveyard. Not of bodies, but of spirits.

I had expected hollow-eyed people. The kind who shuffled more than walked, the kind who carried exile like a permanent stoop in their shoulders,but what I found was something far more unsettling.

Competence.

On my fourth morning, I woke to the steady thud of an axe splitting wood. The rhythm was clean, and without even realizing it, I followed the sound and found him near the fence line.

Caden.

He was twenty-six, I’d learned the night before, though he carried himself older. He worked without an audience, which made watching him feel like an intrusion. Each swing of the axe was precise, and the log split neatly down the center every time.

“You’re staring,” he said without looking up, his deep baritone pulling me back to the present “Some people might consider that creepy.”

“I was appreciating the efficiency.” I murmured slowly.

“That’s a polite word for it.”

“Most people miss on the first swing,” I said as he drove the blade down again, hitting another perfect split.

“Most people hesitate.” He set the axe into the stump and finally looked at me. His eyes were thoughtful, observant in a way that made me feel briefly examined.

“You don’t,” I said.

He shrugged. “Hesitation is expensive.”

There was something in the way he said it that told me it wasn’t about wood.

I leaned against the fence post. “Mira told me why you’re here.”

“Did she.” It wasn’t a question.

“You stood between your Alpha and a rogue female.”

“I stood,” he corrected calmly. “That was the problem.”

“You didn’t attack him.”

“No.”

“You didn’t challenge him.”

“No.”

“Then what did you do?”

His jaw shifted slightly. “I didn’t move.”

The simplicity of it hit harder than if he’d described a fight.

“He wanted her punished for trespassing,” Caden continued. “She crossed the boundary looking for food, she was starving.” He picked up another log. “I told him she’d leave if we fed her.”

“And?”

“And he said that wasn’t the point.”

The axe came down harder this time, and the log cracked unevenly.

“The point was obedience,” I said quietly.

“Yes.”

“I didn’t growl, I didn’t bare my teeth.” He wiped his brow with his forearm. “I just stood there. Apparently that was worse.”

“What happened?”

“I was told to leave before sunrise the next morning.” His voice never shifted. “I left.”

“You regret it?” I asked.

“No.” He met my eyes again. “Not one bit”

And I believed him.

The next on my list was Helga. She ran the food stores like a battlefield, I learned that quickly.

She stood behind the long wooden table during breakfast, arms crossed, and watching portions like a hawk watches prey. She had broad shoulders, silver threaded through her thick braid, and a voice that could flatten arguments before they formed.

“You,” she barked at a younger male reaching for a second roll. “You hauled water yesterday?”

“Yes.”

“And you?” she pointed to another.

“Fence repair.”

“Fine.”She nodded once. “Take it.”

Then her eyes cut to me. She didn’t say anything, she simply added another ladle of porridge to my bowl.

It had been happening every morning, so I waited until the fifth time.

“Thank you,” I said carefully.

“For what?” She stared at me as if I had spoken in a foreign language.

“For… that.” I gestured at the clearly larger portion.

“You’re eating for two,” Her eyes narrowed as she said. “Sit down.”

That was it. There was no smile,no softness, but when I turned to carry my bowl away, I heard her snap at someone else for trying to skip breakfast entirely.

“You don’t get to starve yourself because you’re brooding,” she growled. “Sit.”

The command brooked no argument.

Later that afternoon I found her in the storage room reorganizing sacks of grain that were already perfectly aligned.

“You’ve been here twenty years,” I said.

“Yes.”

“They removed you because you couldn’t have children.”

“No.” She didn’t look up. “They removed me because I didn’t produce what they valued.”

The correction was sharp.

“Did it hurt?” I asked before I could stop myself.

She finally straightened, meeting my gaze directly.

“Of course it hurt,” she said. “But pain is not a personality.”

The words struck something deep in me.

“They said I took up space that could be used for someone more productive.”

My jaw tightened.

“You built this place,” I said.

She shrugged. “I organized it.”

“You feed everyone.”

“Yes.”

“You remember exactly who needs what.”

“Yes.”

“And they called you unproductive.”

She stepped closer then, close enough that I could see the fine lines at the corners of her eyes.

“Freya,” she said evenly, “people in power measure value by usefulness to themselves.”

The truth of that sat heavy and familiar in my chest.

“I was inconvenient,” she continued. “So I was removed.”

She reached past me to grab a jar. “But they made a mistake.”

While I continued my investigations, I realized the others spoke in fragments.

At the well, a broad shouldered male with scarred knuckles told me his story without looking at me.

“My Alpha’s son wanted my mate,” he said.

“And?”

“And the Alpha let him try.”

“Oh.” My stomach turned. “You fought?”

“Yes.”

“Did you lose?”

“No.” His mouth twitched grimly. “That was the issue.”

“Oh.” I understood immediately. “They couldn’t have you stronger than him,” .

“No.”

“So they exiled you.”

“Yes.”

“It doesn't matter.” He hauled up the water bucket like it weighed nothing. “My mate left with him anyway.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He shrugged. “She chose security. I don’t blame her.”

But his jaw was tight.

Later, a young she-wolf sat beside me on the steps, her legs swinging nervously.

“They said my wolf was late,” she told me. “Seventeen and still nothing. They said that meant I’d never be strong.”

“When did she surface?” I asked.

“Not long.” She smiled shyly. “Three months after they cast me out.”

I couldn’t help it, so I laughed softly and she grinned. “She’s loud.”

“I imagine she has opinions.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Do you regret leaving?” I asked, and her expression shifted into something thoughtful.

“They left me,” she said.

The more I dug into people's past, the more I realized that every story had the same spine.

No one here had failed, they had simply refused to bend in the correct direction.

Or they had been too slow, or too strong, or not fertile, or too moral, or inconvenient to someone who required obedience.

I listened over dinners, over morning chores, over shared bread and quiet glances, and slowly something inside me rearranged.

I had always thought exile meant rejection, that it marked you as lesser.

Here, it felt like a pattern.

Every single one of them had been discarded by someone who needed compliance more than integrity, and none of them were broken.

Caden repaired roofs before storms without being asked, Helga rationed supplies so precisely no one went hungry, the scarred male reinforced the well frame so it would last another winter, the young she-wolf ran patrol at dusk with her chin high.

One evening, as we sat around the long table, I found myself watching them all.

Helga correcting someone’s grip on a knife, Caden listening more than he spoke and the others trading dry humor like currency.

A thought formed slowly, solid as stone, not one of these people were weak and the realization sank into my bones.

They were not failures, they were threats, threats to men who required quiet submission.

Threats to systems that valued obedience over strength of character, and for the first time in my life, I was surrounded by people who understood what it meant to be discarded.

Discarded.

Eliza stirred inside me, not with anger this time, but with something steadier.

Recognition.

I wasn’t the only one who had been labeled defective to make someone else comfortable, I wasn’t the only one who had been sealed, silenced, or set aside.

I looked around the table again. No one here was defeated. They had been thrown away, and instead of shattering, they had built something of their own.