CHAPTER SIX

The air in the human city smelled different—less of pine and soil, more of metal and ash and smoke. The scent lingered on Rhea’s skin, clinging to her like the identity she was slowly trying to wear. No. Not Rhea. Rian. She had to remember that now. It was more than just a name. It was a shield.

The inn she stayed at was small and forgotten by time, tucked between a butcher’s shop and a crumbling clock tower. Its windows were cracked, its halls dim. But it was quiet. That mattered more than comfort. No one looked twice at a quiet, scrappy boy with a heavy hood and a handful of silver.

Each morning, she ventured into the city.

At first, she moved cautiously—head down, shoulders hunched, breath held tight when anyone passed too close. But her caution only made her stand out. She noticed it immediately. Men in this city didn’t shrink. They swaggered. They stomped. They laughed with their mouths wide and their arms swinging. So, little by little, she tried to do the same.

She found a spot near a blacksmith’s forge, where apprentices hauled ore and called out to each other over the ringing of hammers. She watched them for hours. Not just what they did—but how they did it. They scratched their chins when they thought. Spat when they were frustrated. Clapped each other’s shoulders instead of smiling. They swore without hesitation, stretched without modesty, barked out jokes without fear.

Rian copied all of it.

In the privacy of her rented room, she practiced. She pushed her shoulders back, widened her stance, and let her limbs go loose, uncoiling the stiffness drilled into her from years of etiquette training. She practiced walking from one end of the room to the other, trying different rhythms, different gaits. Sometimes cocky. Sometimes silent and brooding. She watched her own eyes in the mirror as she repeated phrases like incantations.

“You got a problem with that?”

“No one tells me what to do.”

“Back off.”

The voice wasn’t perfect yet. Not low enough. Not steady enough. But she was getting there.

Still, there were moments when her disguise fractured—when she caught her reflection and saw Rhea again, the girl with too much grief in her eyes. The girl who had sat at her mother’s deathbed. The girl who had been promised to a monster.

Garrick Stormclaw's name felt like a curse she could never fully spit out. Even here, in this city where his influence barely reached, the weight of him hung heavy in her chest.

She remembered the fire in his eyes when he’d spoken of the betrothal. “You will do your duty, as your mother once did. No daughter of mine defies our bloodline.”

And then her mother, whispering with shaking fingers, “Don’t let this world cage you like it did to me.”

That memory was the only thing that kept her upright some nights.

It became her anchor.

---

On the third day, Rian ventured deeper into the city’s western district, where men gathered near taverns and public sparrings. She sat on crates and leaned against alley walls, listening and observing. Her eyes flitted from posture to posture, learning how they carried themselves like they owned every inch of air around them.

She noticed the subtle things too—how they rubbed the back of their necks when nervous, how their laughter dropped into chuckles instead of giggles, how they touched their belts or their weapons without realizing.

So Rian mimicked them all.

One afternoon, while watching a group of dockworkers argue over a shipment, an older man eyed her from across the square. His voice cracked the air like a whip.

“You looking for work, boy?”

She froze. Every inch of her screamed to run. But she forced her breath low in her chest and replied, “Just watching.” Her voice rasped, deeper than usual.

The man scoffed. “Then watch with your hands, not your mouth.”

The comment was crude, dismissive—but it filled Rian with cautious pride. He’d seen her. Spoken to her. And still believed she was one of them.

The disguise was holding.

---

That night, she returned to the inn with a strange hunger—not for food, but for more. She scribbled notes in the back of her old journal:

- Don't walk too quickly.

- Talk like you don’t care what anyone thinks.

- Laugh from the chest, not the throat.

- Don’t flinch.

- Take up space.

She read the list over and over until it burned behind her eyes.

The following day, she began practicing the more nuanced details. How to pitch her voice in casual conversation. How to relax her jaw. How to let her gaze drift instead of snapping to attention. She even paid a tailor to adjust the stolen clothes she’d picked up—adding more room to the shoulders, tapering the waist to give her a more masculine frame.

In the mirror, she began to vanish.

Not entirely.

Not yet.

But enough.

She was no longer Rhea, grieving and betrothed.

She was Rian—quiet, confident, and unremarkable.

She would be ready.

The city had taught her much—how to wear the mask of a boy, how to listen with purpose, how to silence the scream in her chest long enough to survive. But time was running out. The forged letter, folded carefully inside the lining of her satchel, had a date scrawled in ink. The Alpha Training Academy’s acceptance ceremony loomed near. If she didn’t make it there within the next few days, her chance to disappear into its walls would vanish.

And someone would surely come looking.

So on the morning of the fifth day, Rian left the city.

She dressed in a patched gray tunic and a worn leather jacket she’d bartered from a grizzled soldier. Her satchel was stocked with dried meats, riverfruit, a blunt dagger, and a flask of water. Not much, but enough to keep moving.

As the city walls faded into the distance behind her, she didn’t look back.

She walked with purpose, but not speed. Fast enough to make progress, slow enough to blend in. The well-trodden road curved between thick woods and rolling hills, and she avoided the main route when she could. She had no coin for a horse, no desire to attract attention, and far too much to lose if anyone recognized her.

If Garrick sent trackers…

She forced the thought down. He doesn't know where I am. He wouldn’t look here. Not among the humans.

Still, every rustling bush made her flinch. Every snapped twig, every crow’s call, every voice carried on the wind—her heart leapt at them all. She kept her dagger close, though she doubted she could do much with it yet.

At night, she found hollow trees, shallow caves, or abandoned barns to rest in. Sleep came in stolen fragments—always with one ear open, always ready to run. She dreamed of her mother sometimes. Her voice. Her tears. Her warmth. Then she'd wake up clutching the pendant hidden beneath her shirt, heart pounding, breath shallow.

In the stillness of those moments, doubt crept in like fog.

What if this doesn't work? What if they see right through you at the Academy?

She had no plan beyond reaching the gates. No allies once she was inside. The thought should have terrified her. And it did. But something deeper pulsed beneath the fear—something like defiance.

You are not your father’s pawn. You are not his offering.

That was the promise she made herself, whispered into the cold earth each night before sleep.

---

One morning, a trader’s cart rumbled past her on the forest trail. The driver, a broad-shouldered man with dark skin and an easy smile, called out to her.

“Need a lift, boy? Heading east.”

Rian hesitated, her instincts clawing against the idea. But her feet ached, and the ache in her spine was worse.

“Yeah,” she rasped. “Thanks.”

She climbed into the back of the wagon, settling between burlap sacks of grain. The driver didn’t ask questions. Just offered her a half-eaten apple and let her be.

She rode with him for nearly a day. He spoke little, only humming a song she didn’t recognize as the wagon creaked along the uneven road.

At dusk, he stopped near a split in the path.

“Road forks here,” he said. “East goes to the border towns. North winds up near those wolf camps.” He glanced back at her. “You military?”

“Something like that,” Rian muttered.

The man nodded like that explained everything. “Good luck then, lad. Roads get dangerous up that way.”

She climbed down and offered a grateful nod. “Thanks for the ride.”

He gave a wave and cracked the reins, the wagon disappearing into the dying light.

Rian stared after him for a long moment.

Then she turned north.

---

The days blurred.

She walked through forests blanketed in moss and mist. Through valleys where the wind sang mournful songs. She passed no one for a while—only deer, owls, and once, a slinking black-furred creature she didn’t recognize. Her senses sharpened. Every snapped branch sent her leaping behind trees. Every strange scent made her pulse spike.

She passed burned-out campsites and old, forgotten shrines—relics of a world she barely understood. Once, she came upon a shallow stream and washed the dirt from her face. In her reflection, she barely recognized herself. The boy who stared back had sharper lines. Eyes harder than they should’ve been. Hair short and uneven from her own trembling hands.

But it was working.

She was becoming Rian more with each step.

She spoke aloud to herself at times—not as Rhea, but as the persona she was carving into flesh and bone. Practicing a different voice. A different cadence. Testing lies like they were truths.

She even made up a history.

“Rian, orphaned son of a minor Alpha. Grew up near the eastern wilds. Quiet. Disciplined. Keeps to himself.”

She whispered it like a prayer, molding her memories to match.

---

On the ninth day, the trees thinned, and she found herself overlooking a vast stretch of land where distant mountains kissed the sky. Somewhere out there, behind those ridges and lakes, stood the Alpha Training Academy. Her destination. Her sanctuary. Her gamble.

She clutched the forged letter tighter.

One more stretch of wilderness.

One more night alone.

And then she'd walk through those gates not as Rhea Stormclaw, betrothed daughter of a tyrant…

…but as Rian.

An alpha in training.

A ghost with something to prove.