登入Nerissa POVKaelor walked fast.We moved through the inner corridor and past the eastern staircase and I expected him to go up. Toward Zayden's study. Toward the upper floors where authority lived inside this fortress.He went down the staircase and where he turned into was narrow,darker than the others. The torches set into the walls here were spaced further apart and the stone under my feet changed texture, rougher.The air changed too. It was cooler with something underneath it that I couldn't immediately name but that made my wolf press forward inside me with her ears flat."Where are we going?" I asked."Below," Kaelor said."I gathered that," I said. "Below what specifically.""The cells," he said.I kept walking but something tightened in my chest.Darius had mentioned rogue prisoners in passing the day before and moved on quickly. I filed it then and kept moving.Now apparently the filing was about to become relevant.The staircase ended at a heavy iron door.Kaelor pushed it
Nerissa POVThree days after the kitchen corridor incident, Petra was gone.I saw her twice in the eastern passage carrying supply inventory ledgers. She was gone from the southern corridor and gone from the kitchen doorway.Lena avoided my eyes completely whenever we passed.The quiet one whose name I still didn't know had started moving to the other side of whatever corridor she spotted me in first.Nobody told me what happened.The fortress had its own way of communicating. Just the sudden adjustment of behavior that happened when wolves understood that something had changed in the order of things and they better change with it.Something changed and it has something to do with Zayden.I didn't ask Mira about it because she would only give me the careful version and I was tired of the careful version of everything inside these walls. So I filed it.My shoulder is nearly healed now. Edna examined it with her usual complete absence of warmth and declared me cleared for full movemen
Zayden POVI heard things before I saw them.That was how it always worked inside Obsidian Keep. Sound traveled through stone differently than it traveled through wood and open air. The voice was Petra's,I recognized it immediately. She decided her small authority inside a kitchen corridor made her untouchable.I had been walking toward the eastern staircase when it reached me and I changed direction without breaking pace.I turned the corner into the southern corridor just as Mira was pulling Nerissa away from the kitchen doorway.I stopped,neither of them saw me.Nerissa's shoulders were straight and her chin was level and she was looking directly at Petra.Petra said something I caught the tail end of.‘Wolves like you don't stay in places like this for long.’I stayed where I was until they disappeared around the far corner.Then I looked at the kitchen door.Petra was back at the preparation table when I walked in.The two younger ones were beside her. Lena and the quiet one who
Nerissa POVMorning came loud inside Obsidian Keep. I barely slept.Zayden's voice coming through the gathering below stayed with me long after the corridors went quiet and the torches burned low and the fortress settled into silence a little bit.Mira came early with breakfast and fresh bandaging."How was the gathering?" I asked."I wasn't in it," she said."You heard things," I said.She unwrapped my shoulder without answering and examined the wound."The eastern border situation is being handled," she said."That's not what I asked," I said."That's what I'm answering," she said.She rewrapped the bandaging efficiently and stepped back."You can do light duties again today," she said. "Your shoulder is nearly closed. Another two days and Edna will clear you for full movement.""Mira…""Kitchen corridor first," she said. "The head cook needs linens sorted before midday." I sighed. I recognized a closed door when I walked into one.The kitchen corridor ran along the entire southern
Nerissa POVMira didn't explain herself,she just pulled me away from the corridor window and back toward the linen storage room without another word and her grip on my arm stayed firm the entire way. I waited until the storage room door closed behind us."Who is he?" I asked.Mira set the empty linen stack down on the shelf and kept her back to me for a moment longer than necessary."Mira."She turned.Her expression was carefully neutral in the way I was beginning to recognize she was deciding how much to say."His name is Soren," she said finally. "He's been a senior warrior inside Obsidian Keep for four years.""And?" I said."And nothing," she said. "Just stay away from him.""That's not nothing," I said. "You pulled me away from a window because he smiled at me.""I pulled you away from a window because Zayden saw you standing there and the last thing you need right now is Alpha Zayden asking questions about which wolves you've been paying attention to." Mira said I opened my m
Nerissa POVMira gave me a task in the morning. Folding and distributing clean linens to the upper corridor rooms. Simple enough that my shoulder could manage it. Boring enough that my mind had nothing to do but notice everything around me and there was plenty to notice inside Obsidian Keep.The fortress ran on discipline the way Red Claw Pack ran on hierarchy. Every wolf had a place,servants kept to the inner corridors,warriors owned the lower halls and the training grounds. The upper floors belonged to Zayden and whoever he permitted near them.Nobody crossed those lines.I carried the first stack of linens down the east corridor keeping my injured shoulder angled away from the weight. Mira walked ahead of me, nodding at doorways as we passed them."Storage at the end of this hall," she said. "Warriors quarters are below us. You don't go down there alone.""Noted," I said."I mean it Nerissa," she said. "Not because of rules but because some of those wolves have been inside this for







