Chapter 13 : After the Fire

Delph's POV 

Smoke and silence, that’s all the aftermath of power ever leaves behind.

The air still trembles with heat. Smoke curls above the courtyard like ghosts unwilling to leave, carrying with it the stench of burnt wood and blood. Wolves move among the wounded, their paws dark with ash. The cries of the injured blend with the crackle of dying flames.

I stand on the stone steps, halfway between command and collapse. My body wants to tremble, to grieve, but the Alpha in me refuses. The weight of a pack’s survival sits heavy on my shoulders.

Corin’s boots scrape against the ground as he approaches, his once-golden fur matted with soot. “Half our warriors are down,” he reports hoarsely. “The northern barracks are gone. And the Council elders escaped through the tunnels before the blast.”

His words echo in the hollow that used to be my chest. The elders, always slipping away when their schemes burn too bright.

“Get the healers to the courtyard,” I murmur, though my voice sounds far away. “Count the dead. Bury them with their marks intact.”

Corin bows and turns to bark orders. Around us, loyal wolves pause between tasks to glance my way, waiting for direction, for reassurance. I see the question in their eyes, What now, Alpha? but all I hear is the crackling ruin of what used to be home.

I nod once, the signal they need, and they move again. But my ears aren’t listening to them anymore. My wolf, Draven, growls low inside me, restless beneath the surface. Something is wrong, something beyond smoke and fire.

Then I caught it.

A scent.

Faint. Sweet. Sharp. Impossible to forget.

Afnan.

My heart stutters. The world narrows to that single trace cutting through the ash. She shouldn’t be here, she wasn’t supposed to be here. The last I saw of her was rejection and ruin, a bond severed with pain so deep it split the moonlight in my chest. And yet… she came back.

I move before I realize it, down the cracked steps, past the wounded, through corridors still thick with heat. Each turn of the castle brings her scent sharper. I reach the east wing, the air is colder here, quieter.

At the cellar door, it stops.

The lock dangles open, metal twisted. Beneath the smoke, faint footprints trail downward, leading into darkness.

Corin catches up, breath ragged. “Alpha, what are you doing down here?”

I kneel, fingers brushing the prints. “She came this way.”

“Who?”

My voice breaks before I can stop it. “Afnan.”

He flinches, eyes flickering between loyalty and disbelief. “The elders… they took her?”

A young guard steps forward, trembling. “N-not exactly, Alpha. She went willingly but only because one of the young elders, Ruhn, said he’d help her escape. He told her it was the only way to end the fighting.”

Ruhn. I should have known. The Council’s golden boy. Clever enough to spin loyalty into treason.

Draven’s growl deepens until it thrums in my bones. We chase now.

I swallow hard, gripping the stone for balance. Every instinct screams to follow that trail, to tear through the forest until I find her. But another voice quieter, heavier, whispers of duty.

If I leave now, the pack could splinter. They’ve already lost too much. An Alpha disappearing in the night might break the last thread holding us together.

I close my eyes. I can feel the bond again thin, trembling, stretched northward like a heartbeat calling from miles away. Not broken this time. Just fragile. Still alive.

“She’s running north,” I whisper.

Corin looks at me. “Then we’ll send the scouts”

“No.” I straighten, the decision already cutting through me like glass. “No one follows. You’ll stay here, rebuild the defenses. Protect the civilians first.”

“Alpha”

“That’s an order.”

His jaw tightens, but he bows his head. He knows better than to argue when the wolf in me speaks.

I turn away from the ruined hall and climb the stairs back to my study. The walls here are cracked, the shelves half-burned, but one desk drawer survived. Inside lies my seal silver, carved with the crest of our line. I pull parchment from beneath the rubble and begin to write.

To Corin, son of the Moonfang line,

By this decree, you act as Alpha in my stead until my return.

Lead with mercy. Defend with honor. And remember our strength was never in the walls, but in the hearts that built them.

I sign it with blood from a shallow cut across my palm, press the seal, and fold the paper. When I hand it to Corin, he doesn’t meet my eyes.

“Bring them home, Alpha,” he says softly.

I nod. “If I can.”

The courtyard is quiet when I return. Most of the fires are out now, leaving only smoke curling into a gray sky. My horse waits near the gate, her mane streaked with ash, her breath clouding in the cold.

Draven prowls inside me, impatient. She’s out there.

I swing into the saddle, the bond tugging faintly, a string tied to my ribs. North. Always north.

As the gate creaks open, I glance back once. Wolves stand at attention, eyes reflecting the firelight like shards of gold. They deserve a leader who stays. But I’m not that leader tonight.

I whisper to the wind, “Hold them together, Corin.”

Then I ride.

The forest swallows me whole, trees bending like mourners, the night thick with the scent of rain and pine. The moon hangs broken above the treetops, its light silvering the world in sorrow. Each hoofbeat matches the rhythm of my heart: Find her. Find her. Find her.

Draven surges beneath my skin, his instincts sharp, his need raw. She is ours, he growls. They cannot take her again.

I remember her eyes the night I rejected her,how they didn’t weep, only shattered silently. How she whispered, “You’ll regret this, Delph,” not as a curse, but as truth. And I did. Every dawn since.

The bond pulls harder now, pain threading with hope. I can almost feel her heartbeat, faint but alive, somewhere beyond the ridges.

Smoke fades behind me. The pack, my pack will heal without me. They have to.

But as the trees close in and the cold seeps through my armor, one truth settles in my bones like the echo of a vow I can’t unmake.

The pack could heal without me…

But I could never heal without her.