When the Silenced Wolf Spoke Back

Winnie’s POV

​The High Tower was a beautiful prison, but it was a prison nonetheless, a golden cage designed to keep the world safe from me as much as it was designed to keep me tucked away from the world.

​It was a circular room at the very peak of the palace, filled with velvet cushions, silk tapestries that depicted the ancient wars of the North, and a panoramic view of the entire territory that stretched out like a map of everything I was now forbidden to touch. The air up here was thin and cold, smelling of old stone and the faint, lingering scent of the incense the priests used to sanctify the royal chambers. But the heavy oak door was locked from the outside with ancient runes I could not break even if I had the strength of ten men, and the guards stationed outside were the Alpha’s personal elite.

​I sat by the window for hours, watching the stars begin to pierce the velvet sky and feeling the strange, cold heat still humming in my veins like a restless swarm of bees. What had that truly been in the ballroom? I had no wolf. I had no magic. I was Winnie, the girl who served coffee at the diner and worried about making rent. Yet, the shadows had answered me.

​A sharp, metallic click at the door made me jump, my heart suddenly hammering against my ribs. I expected the guards with a tray of food or perhaps a Council interrogator.

​Instead, Jason walked in.

​He looked haggard, his face pale and sickly under the flickering torchlight. He closed the door behind him softly and just stood there in the center of the room, looking at me like I was a ghost he did not know how to exorcise.

​“You should not be here, Jason,” I said, turning back to the window. “Lila would not like you visiting the traitor in her tower. She might think you still care about the girl you left behind in the dirt.”

​“I had to see you,” he said, his voice thick with regret. “Winnie, tell me the truth. Just once. For old time’s sake, for all the years we spent together. Did you do it? If you did, I could try to talk to Cassian. I can tell him it was my fault, that I drove you to a moment of madness because of the engagement. I can take the blame if it means you do not hang.”

​I let out a harsh, jagged laugh. “You really think everything in this world revolves around you, do you, Jason? You honestly think I would risk my mother’s life, my own freedom, and my very soul just because you decided to marry a tiara instead of a girl from the diner? You are not that important. You never were.”

​“Then how do you explain the vials?” he demanded, stepping closer. “The guards found them in your medical bag. Marta saw you mixing them late at night, whispering over the herbs. The evidence is irrefutable, Winnie. Why would they all lie?”

​“Marta saw me mixing lunar lily and silver root for the Alpha's actual medicine!” I said, standing up to face him, my anger finally overriding the weight of my grief. “If those vials were switched for wolfsbane, it happened after I left my room. And we both know who has the keys to the servant quarters, Jason. We both know who has the most to gain from me disappearing.”

​“Lila would not do that,” he whispered. “She is a Princess. She is good. She has been nothing but kind to me. Why are you trying to drag her into this?”

​“She is a predator who wears silk to hide her claws,” I corrected him, my voice cold. “And you are just her latest trophy, Jason. She did not want me dead because of you. She wanted me dead because Cassian was starting to look at me like I mattered. Because I was healing the one person she could not control. And she cannot have a wolfless girl having any influence over the Alpha of the North.”

​Jason shook his head. “You have changed, Winnie. You are cold. You are different. There is something dark inside you now that was not there when we were kids. I can feel it. It makes my skin crawl. You are not the girl I loved.”

​“I had to grow a spine because you broke my heart and left me for dead, Jason,” I said, stepping into his personal space. “I had to become someone else because the girl you loved was not strong enough to survive your betrayal. Now get out. Go back to your Princess. I have a trial in the morning, and I would like to face it without your stench on me.”

​“Winnie, wait,” he reached for my hand, his fingers grazing my wrist, but I flinched away with a violence that surprised both of us.

​“Do not touch me,” I said.

​A spark of that cold shadow, like a needle of pure ice, jumped from my skin to his. Jason let out a sharp, high-pitched yelp of pain, pulling his hand back as if he had been burned by a hot coal. He looked down at his palm, where a small, blackened mark was forming.

​“What was that?” he gasped, his eyes wide with terror. “What are you?”

​“I do not know,” I said, my voice trembling as I realized the shadows were answering my anger again. “But I think you should leave before I find out what else they can do when I stop trying to hold them back. Get out, Jason! Now!”

​He backed away from me, stumbling over the corner of the heavy rug before turning and fleeing the room. The door slammed shut with a thunderous boom, and the runes glowed a bright, mocking blue as they relocked the world away from me.

​I sank to the floor, my hands shaking.

​“You are doing it again,” a voice said from the shadows of the corner.

​I whirled around, my heart nearly stopping. Cassian was sitting in the high-backed velvet chair, hidden by the gloom. He had been there the whole time, watching my exchange with Jason.

​“How did you get in here?” I breathed, my pulse racing.

​“I am the Alpha, Winnie. I go where I please,” he said, standing up and stepping into the silver moonlight. He moved with a predatory grace. “Why did you let him in? Why give that coward the time of day?”

​“He had a key. I did not have much choice,” I said, wiping a stray tear from my cheek. “I did not want him here. I never want to see him again.”

​“He has a mark now,” Cassian said, his voice dropping to a low rumble. “My wolf is very unhappy about that. Only I should be allowed to touch you enough to be burned by your shadows. Only I should be allowed to see that fire.”

​“Cassian, what is happening to me?” I asked, my voice small. “I am scared. I feel like I am breaking apart.”

​He reached out slowly and took my hand in his large, warm one. He raised it to his lips, kissing my knuckles. There was no spark. There was no burn. Just a deep, radiating warmth.

​“I think,” Cassian whispered, his golden eyes burning into mine, “that the legend of the Silenced Wolf is not about a wolf that died at all. It is about a power that was hidden so deep it became a myth to protect itself. And Lila just made the grave mistake of waking it up in a woman who has nothing left to lose. You are a Shadow Wolf, Winnie. A protector of the bloodline that the world tried to forget.”

​“A Shadow Wolf?” I whispered. “But I have no wolf.”

​“You have something far more dangerous,” he replied. “I will teach you, Winnie. I will not let them break you. The Council will try to make you crawl tomorrow. They will use every trick to make you feel small.”

​“Will you be there?” I asked.

​“I will be the only one there that matters,” he promised.

​He turned and melted back into the shadows, vanishing. I was left alone in the High Tower with nothing but the stars and the echoes of a power that was now starting to roar.

​I woke up to the sound of the heavy iron bolts sliding back. The sun had not even cleared the horizon. Four guards entered, their faces grim.

​“It is time, wolfless,” one of them spat. “The Council is waiting.”

​I stood up, smoothing my tunic. I felt the cold hum in my blood. I walked out the door, my head held high.

​The walk to the Council chamber was a blur of hostile faces. I was led into the great hall, a massive room of dark stone. In the center sat a long table of polished obsidian, behind which sat the twelve Elders. To the side, Lila sat with a veil of black lace over her face.

​And there, at the head of the table, sat Cassian.

​“Winifred Godfrey,” the lead Elder began. “You stand before this Council to answer for the crime of attempted regicide. How do you plead?”

​I looked at Lila, then I looked at Cassian. I felt the shadows stir at my feet, a dark, loyal dog waiting for the command.

​“I plead the truth,” I said, my voice ringing out clear and strong. “And the truth is going to set this palace on fire.”