Chapter 5 : The Trail

Iris POV

Not long after Helena left, I sat down at my desk and began a letter to my father.

I crossed out the first line I had written and took a fresh sheet of paper.

Nora stood beside me, grinding ink.

“Luna, do you still want Ashborne to look for Alpha Rowan?”

I looked up.

“Yes.”

Nora hesitated.

“Your father was just injured because he went looking for him.”

“And those Blackthorn soldiers didn’t even treat you like their Luna.”

“If you hadn’t thought of saying you were pregnant, I don’t know how much longer they would have left your father out there.”

I said nothing.

“Lord Cassian has already postponed the verification. And now you have… another way.”

She left the rest unsaid.

Nora knew what had happened last night.

I had told her everything after I came back.

“He promised to protect Ashborne. And the child.”

“Do we still need to ask Ashborne to keep looking for Alpha Rowan?”

I lowered my eyes to the unfinished letter.

“I know.”

I lowered my pen to the page again.

“But I really do want Rowan to come back.”

Nora looked at me.

“Even now?”

“Yes.”

I wrote my father’s name.

“If he finds out the truth, I’ll answer for it.”

Nora did not argue again.

Ashborne did not have Blackthorn’s military strength, and I had not asked my father to send anyone else into the north.

But our mining crews and transport caravans regularly traveled several northern trade routes. They also knew many of the inns and merchants along the way.

I only needed more eyes on those routes.

If anyone had seen Rowan, or anyone bearing Blackthorn’s insignia, I wanted to know immediately.

In the letter, I listed several transport routes that passed through the north and asked my father to alert the people already traveling those routes.

No changing their routes.

No entering dangerous territory.

If they found anything that might be connected to Rowan, they were to send word immediately.

I was almost finished when I added one more instruction.

If Ashborne produced any iron beyond what was already committed this season, Blackthorn was to be offered it first.

Nora read the line.

“Lord Cassian said the iron stays under the original agreement.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you adding this?”

“The agreement stays the same.”

I finished the sentence.

“If there’s more, Blackthorn gets the first offer. That’s all.”

Nora was quiet.

He had already said he wanted nothing else.

That did not make it easy for me to take more than I gave.

I folded the letter and handed it to Nora.

“Send it today.”

She took it.

“Yes, Luna.”

Before she left, I added, “Have my clothes ready for tonight.”

Cassian hadn’t said when the next time would be. I wasn’t willing to waste a single day.

Nora paused.

“Yes, Luna.”

Rowan might come back.

Or he might never return.

I could not prepare for only one outcome.

Late that night, I was led through the private passage into Cassian’s private quarters.

Edwin, Cassian’s butler, came toward me from the other end of the passage.

Surprise crossed his face when he saw me, but it vanished almost immediately.

“Luna.”

“I wasn’t expecting you tonight.”

“I know. I didn’t send word.”

“Lord Cassian is occupied at the moment.”

He gestured toward the small sitting room outside the study.

“If you wait here, I’ll let him know as soon as he is finished.”

“All right.”

Edwin left, and I was alone.

I sat for a while, then rose.

The fire in the hearth had burned low.

I walked across the carpet to the window, turned back, and eventually stopped beside the same chair.

I had been the one to ask for all of this last night.

But knowing I would walk into Cassian’s study again in a little while, I could not sit there and wait as though nothing had happened.

The clock on the wall ticked on.

At last, footsteps sounded from the other end of the corridor.

I thought Edwin had returned.

But the man who came around the corner was not him.

Gideon Hale.

I recognized him immediately.

After Rowan disappeared, I had seen Gideon leading men out to search for him.

Only that morning, Selene had told Helena—

If anyone could find Rowan, Gideon would.

Dust still clung to his long coat, and dried mud marked the edges of his boots.

I instinctively looked behind him.

No Rowan.

Gideon did not notice me in the side room.

He went straight to Cassian’s study.

The door closed behind him.

I sat down.

Had they found Rowan?

Was he hurt?

Or had Gideon returned alone because Rowan was never coming back?

I stared at the door.

A few seconds later, I got back to my feet.

I knew I should not go closer.

But the man leading the search for my husband was only a few steps away.

I could not keep sitting there.

I hurried down the short corridor toward the study, almost breaking into a run.

The corridor outside the study was empty.

This had always been Cassian’s most private area.

Until last night, even I had no right to be here.

I had barely reached the door when Cassian’s voice came from inside.

“Report.”

Gideon went straight to the point.

“We didn’t lose Rowan’s trail.”

I stopped.

“Then what happened?”

“Someone was erasing it.”

I put a hand against the cold wall beside me.

“Since when?”

“The night he disappeared.”

Gideon continued.

“We traced it back to where he left the northern route. There was no attack.”

“No blood. No struggle.”

“He left the route on his own.”

Cassian did not sound surprised.

“How?”

“A horse was waiting for him.”

“Someone had left it there three days before Rowan disappeared.”

My fingers tightened.

“Who arranged it?”

“A woman.”

The chill of the late night crept up from my feet and through my body.

“Did you identify her?”

“Not yet.”

Gideon paused.

“But we found the inn where they met.”

“We questioned people around the inn.”

“They remembered a woman arriving alone the day before Rowan did.”

“Rowan arrived the next night.”

“And then?”

“They rented one room.”

My hand was still pressed to the wall.

“We were one step behind them.”

“By the time we reached the inn, they had just left.”

“But their scents were still mingled throughout the room, strongest around the bed.”

Silence followed inside the study.

“And the trail?”

“Gone again.”

“Whoever was traveling with Rowan knew how to hide scent.”

Gideon kept talking.

I did not hear another word.

My mind went completely blank.

I smiled and curled my numb fingers into my palm.

So that was it.

I lied and said I was pregnant.

My father had nearly been killed while looking for him.

I had even asked my husband’s uncle to give me a child.

And if the truth ever came out, I was prepared to take all the blame.

But Rowan?

He was ecstatic as he ran off with another woman.