Chapter Twenty

It had been three weeks since the fight with Lucian. Three weeks since Callus' leg cracked like old timber. Three weeks since the room had been reset by whatever magic governed Ashmoore’s cruel walls.

And still, every evening without fail, Azpen and Baron came for her.

Sometimes they made her clean the floor thrice on her knees, with the same rag. Sometimes, she’d be asked to sit still for hours after lights-out, back straight, holding a sword in outstretched arms until her muscles screamed.

Sometimes she'd cry. Sometimes she'd not.

She used to shake at the sound of their boots. Now she simply prepared. Not out of courage. Out of will.

Will to survive.

Will to change the ending written for her.

In morning drills, she no longer fumbled her steps.

Her limbs moved sharper, her lungs held more air, and her eyes learned how to track the commands faster.

She wasn't great — but she was less pitiful. And among these strong cadets, that counted for something.

Cadets began to whisper. Not about her scent — that was still curiously missing — but about how she hadn’t quit.

“The little thing's still breathing?”

“He doesn’t break.”

“Maybe he’s got a death wish.”

“Or worse... a plan.”

They didn't know him name. But they noticed him.

★★★

★★★

On a grey Saturday noon when cadets sprawled across the gravel clearing for break, the blue-eyed Riven Thorney sat beside her like he’d always belonged there.

He didn’t speak at first. He simply passed her a piece of bread and bit into his own, looking straight ahead.

“You dodge too well to be average,” he finally said, not looking at her. “Where did you learn that?”

Elowyn blinked. “I don't know.... Instinct.”

He raised a brow. “Instinct doesn’t keep you alive in Ashmoore.”

“I’m learning.”

She didn’t trust him. Not really. He had too many secrets behind his princely jawline and lean limbs. But she didn’t push him away either.

They shared silence. And bread.

And eventually, a smirk.

Riven started showing up more. Never hovering. But always close enough. And when other cadets pushed Elowyn too far, they began to realize Riven’s silence was protective.

It was strange for Elowyn to process.

Elowyn began joining drills with fewer stumbles. She helped a younger cadet bind a sprained ankle without being asked.

She started speaking less awkwardly to the cooks, eating without shaking hands.

Sometimes, even laughing when a cadet made a bad joke.

She didn't make friends. That would be stupid. But she navigated. Which, in Ashmoore, was its own form of power.

★★★

★★★

Lisa Ortega sat beneath the carved shadow of a lavender tree, combing and braiding her youngest sister’s hair.

The courtyard buzzed faintly with the sound of lazy bees and gentle clinking of teacups from the table behind.

"Lisa." Mariabeth whispered, her cheeks flushed, "if you had to marry between a prince and a stable boy who writes poems, who would you choose?"

Lisa smiled, amused. "Is the stable boy rich?"

"No! But he's got dimples and his scent is divine," the middle sister chimed in, twirling a long braid in her fingers.

"A stable boy with dimples and divine scent... Sounds like trouble." Lisa leaned closer, whispering with a sparkle in her eyes. "You'd marry him and regret it every time it rains and he tracks mud into your chambers."

They all burst into giggles.

But inside, Lisa’s mind drifted.

She had married young, chosen by her father to secure her place beside the Alpha Mark.

Love hadn’t been offered; only duty. And while Supreme Alpha Ortiz Ortega was honorable, the absence of romance had left his daughters seeking in daydreams that they never received.

The conversation faded as she glanced over to a lone pigeon landing on the courtyard edge.

Her husband’s meeting with the Supreme Council lingered in her thoughts—more arguments about the Villages, more tension about rogue Omegas being hunted again.

But in this moment, she stayed present—with her sisters, with laughter, with softness. Because once the sun dipped, there would be no softness left.

★★★

★★★

The ache in her lower belly had been creeping in since the dawn run, but she ignored it like every other discomfort. But by the time she returned to the dorm, her inner thighs felt wet and strange. She peeled off her underlinen and saw the streak of blood.

The moment came quietly, almost like a betrayal.

Blood.

Not the kind she was used to in this place. Not from bruises or lashes or knuckles split open in training. This was hers. Monthly. Inconvenient. Unforgiving.

Her breath caught.

It was fear and a reminder.

A reminder that she was still a girl — a girl hiding beneath coarse uniforms, swallowing her voice, masking her scent, pretending every day to be a boy the world wouldn’t bother watching too closely.

She reached under her cot and dug into the bundle of rags she kept hidden in the loose floorboard.

Among the odds and ends was her mother’s soft, reusable cotton pads — stitched by Ariya Froste’s hands long ago. The same ones that once wiped her tears, cleaned her scrapes, held her tight. Elowyn paused.

She missed her. Gods, she did.

But she also remembered the coldness. The way Ariya always seemed to look just past her, as though trying to focus on some faraway responsibility.

Like Elowyn was part of a plan… but never the point.

Elowyn folded the cloth in place and wrapped it between her legs. It would do. It had always done.

She hated that it made her think of Ariya.

Even now, crouched awkwardly, scrubbing a bloodied cloth in silence, Elowyn could hear her mother’s voice from years ago: “An Omega’s body doesn’t wait for safety. You care for it, even in war.”

Her voice had been calm then. Practical. Distant.

But it still stung.

Ariya had taught her how to fold the cloths, how to boil them clean, how to bite into dried ginger root when the cramps became unbearable. But she hadn’t stayed.

Not when it mattered.

Not when the men came with promises and threats.

Not when Elowyn was bargained off like cattle.

Her jaw clenched. She rubbed harder, as if scrubbing the blood could erase the memory.

Then she panicked. What if someone could smell it?

They were Alphas—trained to catch scent from meters away. She poured water over the cloth again, rubbed it with crushed mint leaves from her pouch. She’d learned that trick from a girl back in Somberwoke Village.

She paused.

Baron had looked at her strangely earlier. Lucian had too. What if they already suspected? What if they smelled the change in her scent and knew she was no male?