Chapter 7: What Wren Knows

"You're not leaving until you tell me what that meant."

Wren was already halfway to the gate when I caught her arm. She stopped, but she didn't turn around right away.

"What did you mean?"

"That look on? your face back there. You know something you're not saying."

"I don't know anything."

"You've never once in your life been that bad at lying to me."

"Maybe I'm getting worse at it. Or maybe you're getting better at reading me."

"Either way, something's wrong. Tell me."

"Nothing's wrong."

"Wren."

She turned then, jaw set, the old defensive posture I'd known since we were kids sharing a room too small for both our tempers.

"Let go of my arm."

"Not until you tell me why you really came here."

"I told you already. Diplomatic courtesy."

"Try again."

"Briar."

"Wren."

She yanked her arm free, but she didn't walk away. That was new. The old Wren would have already been gone.

"You want to know why I came?" she said. "Fine. I came because I couldn't stand another week of pretending everything's normal back home while you're out here becoming someone I don't recognize."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the truest one I've got."

"Then give me a better one."

"There isn't a better one, Briar. That's the whole problem."

"That's not a problem, that's a feeling. Feelings don't explain a three-day

"Maybe this one does."

She looked past me, toward the training yard, toward anywhere that wasn't my face.

"Do you remember Mom?" she asked.

The question landed sideways, nothing like what I expected.

"Barely," I said. "I was six."

"I was four. I remember even less."

"Why are we talking about this?"

"Because nobody ever talks about this. Not once, not in twenty years. Have you ever noticed that?"

"I noticed. I just assumed there was nothing to talk about."

"There's always something to talk about when a family goes quiet on purpose."

I had noticed. I'd just never let myself think too hard about why.

"She died in a border skirmish," I said. "That's what everyone always said."

"That's what everyone always said because that's the version the pack could live with."

"Meaning what?"

Wren's arms wrapped around herself, a small, defensive gesture I hadn't seen since she was young enough to still need comforting.

"She was Ironback," Wren said. "Like you."

The words hit somewhere behind my ribs.

"What?"

"You heard me."

"Say it again anyway."

"Mom. She was Ironback, too. Nobody tells you that because it doesn't fit the story they wanted. A skirmish sounds noble. A woman built like you, dying while the pack quietly resented everything she was, that doesn't sound noble at all."

"That's not possible. Someone would have said something."

"Someone decided a long time ago that saying nothing was easier."

"Why wouldn't anyone tell me this?"

"Because I don't think they wanted either of us knowing what we came from."

"That's not their decision to make."

"It was, though. That's exactly what they made it. And it worked for twenty years until you knelt in that courtyard and made it impossible to keep pretending."

"So this is my fault now."

"That's not what I said."

"It's what it sounded like."

"It's not your fault. It's just true. Everything changed the second you stopped being easy to ignore."

I sat down hard on the low stone wall beside the gate, my legs not entirely willing to hold me up through that.

"How do you even know this?"

"I found her records last year. Buried, mislabeled, like someone wanted them lost. It took weeks to piece together."

"Where?"

"An old records room nobody uses anymore. I wasn't even looking for her. I was looking for something else entirely, and her name just appeared."

"Weeks. And you sat on it that whole time."

"I didn't know what to do with it. I still don't, honestly."

"And you never said anything."

"What was I supposed to say? Hey, by the way, our mother was everything the pack taught us to be ashamed of, and I've spent my whole life terrified that someone would look at me and see her instead of the version of me I built to avoid that comparison."

The admission hung there, raw in a way Wren never let herself be.

"You've been ashamed of Mom?"

"I've been ashamed of what she represented. Big difference. Or at least I told myself it was a big difference."

"Was it? A big difference?"

"No. Not really. That's the part I'm still working out on how to live with."

"That's why you've been like this. With me. My whole life."

Wren didn't answer right away. Her jaw worked like she was chewing on something too large to swallow easily.

"You look like her," she said finally. "More than I ever did. Every time the pack looked at you like you were something to be embarrassed by, some part of me was terrified they were right and terrified of what that meant about her too."

"So you decided it was easier to be embarrassed by me first."

"That's not something I'm proud of."

"No. I imagine it isn't."

"I used to practice it, you know. The comments. For example, if I got good enough at pointing out what was wrong with you, nobody would think to look for it in me."

"That actually worked for what it's worth. Nobody ever compared you to her. Not once."

"I know. That was the whole point. I just didn't expect it to cost this much."

"What did it cost you?"

"Yo?, mostly. For a long time."

"I'm still here, Wren."

"I know. I'm trying to figure out what to do with that."

We sat with that for a moment, the gate quiet around us, the training yard sounds carrying faint faint distance.

"I should go," Wren said.

"Wren."

"I've said enough. More than I meant to."

"You can't just drop something like this and walk away."

"Watch me."

She turned toward the gate, shoulders squared the way they always got when she was retreating behind old armour. I let her go a few steps before I spoke again.

"For what it's worth," I said, "I don't think you're anything like her yet. But I don't think that's a bad thing to become."

She paused at the gate without turning around.

"You don't know what you're saying."

"I know exactly what I'm saying."

"You don't understand what it's like being compared to a ghost nobody will talk about."

"Then talk about her. With me. I want to know who she actually was."

Wren's shoulders dropped, just slightly, some of the fight going out of her posture.

"I don't know if I'm ready for that conversation yet."

"You brought her up first."

"I know. Bringing her up and actually talking about her are two very different things."

"Fair enough. I won't push."

"Another time," she said. "I mean it. Not today."

"Fine. Another time."

"You're not going to let me forget I said that, are you?

"

"No? A chance."

She reached for the gate latch, hand hovering there a moment too long.

"He never wanted to reject you," she said, so quiet I almost missed it. "The Prince. He didn't want any of it."

I went very still.

"What?"

Wren's whole body went rigid, as she'd just had her own voice say something she hadn't meant to let out loud.

"Forget I said that."

"Forget it? You can't just say something like that and walk it back."

"Watch me."

"Wren, what do you mean he didn't want to?"

"It doesn't matter."

"It clearly matters. It matters enough that you just froze."

"I have to go."

"Wren."

But she was already through the gate, walking fast, not looking back, leaving me standing there with a sentence I couldn't unhear and no way to chase down what it actually meant.