Border watch

The riders come fast, hooves tearing up the frozen dirt. I don't run. There's nowhere to run to anyway. Something in me, maybe just tired instinct, tells me standing still is safer than giving three armed strangers a reason to chase.

"Hands where I can see them!" the lead rider shouts. He pulls his horse up hard just a few feet from me. Broad guy, dark beard, crossbow already pointed at my chest.

I lift my hands slow, palms open. "I'm not armed."

"That's not what I asked." His eyes go over me, the mud, the borrowed cloak, the boots two sizes too big. "State your business on Rook land."

"I'm trying to reach Blackridge House," I say, keeping my voice steady even though my heart's pounding hard enough that I figure he can hear it. "I need to speak with Alpha Rook."

The younger rider laughs under his breath. "Sure you do. Everybody wants an audience with the Alpha."

"I'm not lying," I say, sharper than I mean to.

The lead rider gets down off his horse, boots hitting the dirt hard, and walks a slow circle around me, like he's deciding if I'm worth the trouble of hauling back with them. "You got a name?"

"Selene Voss."

He stops walking. Something crosses his face. Not quite recognition. More like he's turning the name over, checking it against something he half remembers.

"Voss," he says. "Don't know that name offhand. Where do you hail from?"

"Grimwood, originally," I say, borrowing the lie Torin gave me without even meaning to. "I was attacked near the border. Don't remember much before that."

"Convenient," the young one mutters.

"It's the truth," I snapped. It comes out with more heat than I want, more me than Selene, and I catch myself, swallow it back.

The lead rider studies me another second, then looks over at the third rider. A quiet woman who hasn't said a word since they showed up, still on her horse, watching me like she's reading something written under my skin.

"What do you think, Wren?" he asks her.

She tilts her head a little. "I think she's telling half the truth and hiding the other half. But I also think she's not carrying a weapon, and she's not strong enough right now to fight off three of us if she tried." She looks right at me. "Are you strong enough to fight off the three of us?"

"No," I say, because there's no point pretending otherwise.

"Then I say we bring her in," Wren says. "Let the Alpha decide what to do with her."

The lead rider thinks about that, jaw working, then nods once. "Fine. But she rides bound. I'm not taking chances on some stranger who crawled up out of nowhere."

They tie my wrists in front of me with rough rope. Not cruel about it, just quick, like they've done it a hundred times. 

They hoist me up onto the back of the young one's horse. I grip the saddle with both hands and try not to think too hard about what it means, riding in bound like a prisoner to a place I used to belong to.

"You don't have to be scared," Wren says, riding close beside us. "The Alpha's fair. Harsh, but fair."

"Is he?" I say, and I can't quite keep the bitterness out of my voice.

She glances over, curious. "You say that like you already have an opinion on him."

"Everyone's got opinions on Alphas," I say quickly, covering the slip. "Just heard stories, that's all."

She doesn't push, but I catch her watching me a few more times as we ride, like she's keeping a list of every strange little thing about me.

The land changes the further we go. Thick forest thins out into open fields. Stone fences cutting up the pasture. Smoke rising from farmhouses in the distance. 

It looks the same as I remember. It looks nothing like I remember. Both at once, somehow, the way grief works.

Then the trees open up all the way, and there it is.

Blackridge House.

The fortress rises out of gray stone, tall and hard, ivy climbing up one whole side like it's trying to soften something that won't be softened. Smoke curling out of a dozen chimneys. Guards walking the outer wall, sharp-eyed, armed. It looks peaceful from far off, the same way a held breath looks peaceful right before it breaks.

My chest goes tight. My eyes burn. I hate that this place still feels like home to me, even now, even after everything.

"First time seeing it?" the young rider asks, mistaking what's on my face for something simpler.

"Something like that," I managed.

We ride through the outer gate and I feel eyes land on me right away. Pack members stop what they're doing in the courtyard, watching the bound stranger get hauled in like cargo. Whispers start before we've even gotten off the horses.

"Who is that?"

"Where'd they find her?"

"Selene Voss," Wren calls out, loud enough to carry, and I watch the name hit different faces in different ways. Confusion on some. On one older woman by the well, something closer to fear.

They pull me down off the horse and my knees almost buckle, exhaustion finally catching up to me, but I force myself to stand straight, chin level, because whatever's coming next, I'm not walking into this house looking broken.

The lead rider grips my bound wrists and walks me toward the main doors. I focus on breathing. On keeping my face still. On reminding myself, over and over, that no matter what name they call me, I'm still Mara Quinn underneath it. And Mara Quinn does not flinch.

The big doors swing open before we even reach them, and a man steps out onto the stone landing above us.

Black hair. Broad shoulders. Amber eyes that land on me right away, sharp enough to cut.

My breath catches so hard it hurts.

Cassian.

Four years, and he looks harder than I remember. Colder. Like something in him got worn down to nothing but edges. He doesn't move. He just stares at me like I'm something he can't quite make sense of. Something that shouldn't be standing in his courtyard.

"Alpha," the lead rider says, dipping his head. "Found her near the eastern border. She says her name's Selene Voss."

Cassian doesn't answer him. He's still looking at me, and something crosses his face I've never seen on him before. Not suspicion. Not anger. Something closer to fear.

Then his eyes narrow, and his voice comes out low and dangerous, aimed straight at me.

"Bring her inside," he says. "I want to know exactly who thought it was a good idea to send her here.”