Chapter 12

Briony's POV

I lay frozen, staring at the window, listening to that scrape work its way slower and more careful than any wind or branch could manage. My heart was going so hard I could feel it in my ears.

The latch gave with a soft click.

The window slid open an inch, then wider, cold air pouring in around a shape pulling itself over the sill, black-clothed, face covered, moving with the kind of quiet that only comes from practice. I didn't think. I didn't have time to think. My body just reacted, rolling off the far side of the bed as his boots hit the floor.

"Where is she…" His voice cut off the second he spotted me crouched against the wall.

He lunged.

I threw my hands up, not to fight, just to stop him, some desperate animal instinct screaming got back away from me and the mark on my palm exploded to life so fast it lit the whole room gold. It wasn't gentle. It wasn't the warm pull I felt healing Faro. This was raw, ugly force, a wall of pressure slamming into him mid-lunge and throwing him backward like he'd run full-speed into something solid.

He hit the window frame hard enough to crack the wood, folded halfway through it, and scrambled the rest of the way out with a strangled grunt before I even got my feet back under me.

"Kieran!" My voice tore out of me raw. "KIERAN!"

By the time I made it to the window, he was already dropping over the outer wall, quick as anything, disappearing into the dark tree line beyond it before I could get more than a shape and a direction. Boots pounded down the hall a second later,the guard posted outside, coming around the corner too late, and behind him Kieran, half-dressed, already shifting the closer he got.

"He's gone," I said, breathless, pointing toward the wall. "Went over the top, right there.."

Kieran didn't wait for the rest. He was out the window before I finished the sentence, four other wolves close behind, all of them tearing across the yard toward the wall in a blur of motion and low growls.

I stood there shaking, both hands pressed flat against my chest like I could hold my heart still by force, staring at the broken window frame and the cold night pouring through it.

"Where's the guard who was supposed to be watching this window?" Kieran's voice, sharp, cutting through the noise once he came back a few minutes later, empty-handed, breathing hard.

"Found him behind the woodpile," someone called back. "Alive. Knocked cold. Whoever it was must've taken him out first, before going for the window."

Kieran's face went tight in a way I hadn't seen since the night of the binding stone. He climbed back through the broken frame instead of using the door, straight to me, hands checking me over before either of us said a word, my arms, my shoulders, my face, like he needed to confirm with his own eyes that I was actually whole.

"I'm fine," I said, before he could ask.

"You're shaking."

"I'm allowed to shake. Somebody just climbed through my window."

That got a short, humorless breath out of him, almost a laugh, nowhere close to one. "Fair enough." His hands settled on my shoulders, steady, grounding. "What happened? Exactly what you remember, all of it."

"I woke up to the lock being worked. Waited, thought maybe it was nothing, then he came through and lunged straight at me." My voice cracked on the last part. "I didn't even decide to do anything. It just happened. Threw him halfway through the window before I even understood what I was doing."

"That's not healing," Kieran said, half to himself, eyes dropping to my palm where the gold light was already fading back down to nothing.

"No." I flexed my fingers, still buzzing faintly, like static clinging to my skin. "That was something else."

"We'll figure out what later." His hands tightened on my shoulders. "Right now I want to know who sent him."

We didn't have to wait long for an answer, or at least the start of one. Sage came through the broken window a few minutes later, breathing hard from running the wall line, something small clutched tight in her fist.

"Found this by the base of the wall," she said, holding it out. "Right where he must've dropped it climbing over."

Kieran took it from her palm and turned it toward the lamp light. It was small, dark iron, no bigger than a coin, stamped with a crest none of us had ever seen worn openly inside Ashvale, a jagged shape, half wolf, half thorn, worked into the metal with craftsmanship.

"That's not Ashvale made," Sage said. "Not anything from the market either. I've seen every trade mark that passes through here and it's not one of them."

"It's Blackfen." Kieran's voice had gone very quiet, very still. He turned the token over once more, jaw locked tight. "Their sigil. I've seen it on captured gear before, years back."

The room went silent around us. Rowan, who came in somewhere at the last minute without me noticing, let out a low breath. "So it wasn't Petra passing gossip to some random trader."

"No." Kieran closed his fist around the token, knuckles white. "It was Blackfen, sending somebody straight into my pack, straight to her window, to take her by force." He looked up, eyes finding mine across the room, something dark and furious burning behind them that had nothing to do with me this time. "This isn't a rumor problem anymore.”