Chapter 7: Questions No One Will Answer

The lodge doors slammed open hard enough to crack against the wall, and the body came in on a stretcher of crossed spears, four Betas carrying it at a near run, boots pounding across the packed dirt floor loud enough to rattle the hanging lanterns.

"Set him down there. Now." The Alpha's voice cut across the hall before Wren had even crossed the threshold, and every wolf inside snapped to motion at once, clearing a wide space near the hearth. Someone kicked a bench out of the way. Someone else was already barking for more light.

Wren followed at the edge of the crush, Darius a silent step behind her, and the lodge was already loud with too many voices layered on top of each other, Betas reporting, Elders demanding, someone shouting for Ilsa though Ilsa had come in with them and was already kneeling at the body's side, fingers pressed against a throat that had nothing left to give back.

"He's gone," Ilsa said, straightening. "Whatever he had left to say, he said it out there. There's nothing left to pull out of him now."

A few of the younger wolves near the door were still shifting anxious weight from foot to foot, casting glances at Darius that lingered too long, the same wary half circle from the clearing reforming itself here inside four walls instead of open ground.

The Alpha turned, and for the first time since Wren had walked in, his attention landed squarely on her. He was a broad, grey-templed man who filled a room without trying to, and right now every line of him was drawn tight with something between fury and fear.

"You were both there," he said. "Start talking. Now."

Wren opened her mouth, but one of the senior Betas, a broad-shouldered man named Corwin who had never once in her life addressed her directly, spoke over her before she got a word out.

"Alpha, the scout came through the northern tree line, Black Fang markings confirmed on the flank. The outsider engaged first, subdued the target, and it shifted and died shortly after."

"I was there too," Wren said. "I saw the whole thing."

"We have the account we need," Corwin said, not unkindly, but not looking at her either, already turning back toward the Alpha. "The wound patterns are consistent with a defensive engagement. I'd recommend we double the northern watch tonight regardless of what the scout said, given how deep he came before anyone caught him."

"He said something," Wren said, louder this time. "Before he died. Something none of us understood."

That got the room's attention, for exactly as long as it took the Alpha to shift his gaze from her to Darius instead.

"Did he," the Alpha said.

"He did," Darius said. Nothing more.

"And?"

"It wasn't pack tongue. I didn't recognize the dialect." Darius's voice was even, controlled, giving away exactly as much as he wanted to and not a syllable more. "Could have been fever talk. Wounded men say strange things before the end."

Wren felt her jaw tighten. That wasn't what his face had looked like out there. She'd seen it go still in a way that had nothing to do with fever talk.

"You understood it," she said, before she could stop herself. "I saw your face. You understood every word of it."

A few heads turned toward her. Darius didn't look at her at all.

"She's overwrought," Corwin said smoothly, already moving past it. "It was her first real fight. Understandable if the details are muddled."

"Nothing about what I saw is muddled," Wren snapped, loud enough that a few of the wolves nearest the door turned to look.

Near the back of the crowd, Rurik snorted loud enough to carry. "She got thrown on her back twice out there. Forgive us if we want a steadier account."

A few low laughs answered him. Wren's face burned, but she didn't let her eyes drop, didn't let herself shrink the way some part of her still wanted to every time a room decided together that she wasn't worth listening to.

"I got thrown," she said evenly, "and I got back up. Ask him how many times he did either."

Rurik's grin faltered. Nobody laughed at that, and for a moment the hall felt smaller, quieter, like the whole room had noticed something shift that no one wanted to name out loud.

The Alpha's voice dropped, quiet in the way that was somehow louder than shouting. "Corwin. Post the extra watch. I want a rider sent to the eastern border by morning to confirm there's no second breach point we've missed."

"And the outsider's account, Alpha?" the Elder asked, refusing to let it go entirely. "Are we simply accepting it?"

"For tonight," the Alpha said, "we accept what keeps this pack alive until morning. Whatever else is true can wait for daylight." He didn't sound satisfied saying it. He said it anyway.

"Alpha, if I may," one of the Elders said, stepping forward, an older woman Wren didn't recognize by name, "the outsider was the only one who engaged the threat directly. If there's something to be understood about what that creature said, wouldn't it serve us to hear it plainly, rather than take his word that it meant nothing?"

A ripple of agreement moved through a few of the gathered wolves. The Alpha's eyes settled on Darius again, harder this time.

"Well," the Alpha said. "Was there something to understand?"

"No," Darius said. "There wasn't."

"You're certain," the Elder pressed, not backing down the way Corwin had. "Because from where I stood, outsider, it looked like you understood plenty. Your face doesn't go that quiet over nonsense."

"My face," Darius said, "is not evidence of anything."

"Perhaps not." The Elder's gaze didn't waver. "But I've lived a long time, and I've learned that men who say a thing meant nothing usually mean the opposite."

A few of the Betas shifted uncomfortably, unwilling to be caught staring too openly at either of them. The Alpha's jaw worked, some private calculation playing out behind his eyes, weighing the cost of pressing further against a night that had already cost him a border he no longer trusted, and an outsider he couldn't afford to alienate.

The Alpha studied him for a beat longer, then exhaled, some of the tension draining out of his shoulders in favor of exhaustion instead. "Fine. Corwin, take statements from the rest of the watch. Ilsa, see to the body properly before nightfall. I want this hall cleared in ten minutes, I have a border to secure and no patience left for anything else tonight."

The room broke apart into motion, Betas dispersing toward their assignments, the Elder who'd spoken up exchanging one last unreadable look with Darius before she turned away. Ilsa lingered a moment near the body, murmuring something to two younger wolves about preparing it properly before the pack could argue over what to do with a dead enemy's remains, and then she too was gone, leaving the hearth to burn down low and untended.

Wren stood rooted near it anyway. She watched Darius move toward the door without looking back at her, unhurried, like the whole meeting had cost him nothing at all, and something about that easy calm made her angrier than Rurik's laugh had. He'd stood in that hall and let an Elder call him a liar to his face, and he hadn't so much as blinked.

She caught his arm before he could slip out into the dark with the rest of the crowd, her grip tighter than she meant it to be.

"Tell me," she said. "What did he say. The truth this time, not what you told the Alpha."

Darius went still under her hand, and for a moment she thought he was going to give her the same flat nothing he'd given the whole room. The lodge had emptied enough around them that no one else was close enough to hear, just the two of them and the dying fire behind them throwing long shadows across the packed dirt floor.

"A name," he said finally, quiet enough that only she could hear it.

"Whose."

His eyes met hers, and whatever was behind them had nothing to do with fever talk or wounded men saying strange things.

"Vesper," Darius said.