Chapter 7: The Wrong Side of the Gate

Adrian reached the eastern passage with the keys cutting into his palm.

Two patrolmen were dragging a third away from the gate.

Beyond them, something struck the iron bars hard enough to shake loose a shower of rust.

A wolf.

Too thin, its gray coat hanging unevenly over its ribs. Blood darkened its muzzle. One foreleg bent badly when it landed, but it gathered itself and lunged again.

The bars held.

The light between them did not.

Amber flared along the gate’s edge, flickered, then left a narrow strip of darkness above the latch.

“Keep back!” Captain Hale shouted.

Adrian dropped the keys into his coat pocket and drew his sword.

“How did it get this close?”

“Through the outer line.”

The wolf threw itself against the gate again.

This time, its head passed through the gap between two bars.

They were too narrow.

Adrian knew they were too narrow.

Then its shoulders followed, bones compressing with a sickening crack as the creature forced an incomplete shift.

“Move!”

He caught the nearest guard by the collar and hauled him aside.

The wolf fell through.

It struck the ground on twisted forelimbs, staggered, and turned toward the injured man.

Adrian stepped into its path.

---

By the time it was over, blood covered his left sleeve.

Most of it belonged to the wolf.

Some did not.

He stood over the body, breathing hard, while Hale knelt beside the fallen patrolman.

“Pressure here,” the captain told another guard. “Keep it there.”

The man on the ground was named Beck.

Adrian knew him from the training yard. Broad shoulders. Terrible footwork. A habit of apologizing whenever he struck a harder blow than intended.

Now he was staring at the blood beneath his own hand.

“Am I—”

“No,” Hale said firmly. “Look at me. Stay with me.”

Adrian crouched beside them.

“The healer is coming.”

He had sent the order through the pack bond.

He had also called for reinforcements, closed the eastern road, and ordered every household near the boundary to remain indoors.

All the things he knew how to do.

The marker beside the gate remained cold.

“What happened?” he asked.

Hale looked toward a guard standing near the wall.

“I ordered the passage closed this afternoon.”

“It was closed,” the man said.

“Then why was Beck inside the approach?”

The guard swallowed.

“A delivery arrived.”

Adrian stared at him.

“What delivery?”

“Flowers, sir.”

Behind the gate, abandoned wheel tracks led into the forest.

---

The wagon had arrived shortly after sunset.

The driver, delayed by a broken wheel, had carried an order bearing the household seal. The flowers were to be brought directly to the reception pavilion before the night frost damaged them.

The guards had explained that the passage was closed.

A servant had gone to the house.

Then permission had come to open it.

“From whom?” Adrian asked.

The guard’s eyes shifted.

“Lady Celeste.”

Hale rose slowly.

“She countermanded a boundary closure?”

“She said the wagon was expected. That she would answer for the delay if we refused.”

Adrian looked through the bars.

Beyond the gate lay a discarded whip and a scattering of white petals.

“The driver?”

“Made it through. We got him and the horses into the yard. Beck was closing the gate when that thing came out of the trees.”

“And the seal?”

The guard pointed to the marker.

“It wouldn’t take.”

Adrian remembered the thin amber line beneath the stone that morning.

He had closed the passage.

Then he had returned to the house.

He had assumed the order would be enough.

“Get everyone clear of the approach,” he told Hale. “Put a double watch on the inner road.”

“What about the gate?”

Adrian took the keys from his pocket.

Seven iron keys.

None could make the light return.

---

Garrick arrived as the healer’s assistants lifted Beck onto a stretcher.

His gaze moved over the blood, the dead wolf, and the unlit stone.

“Report.”

Adrian gave it.

His father listened without interruption.

“An isolated rogue,” Garrick said when he finished.

Hale glanced at the body.

“A desperate one. It may have followed the wagon.”

“Then increase the patrols.”

“The outer line should have turned it away,” Adrian said.

His father looked at him.

“And yet you dealt with it.”

“Beck nearly died.”

“He’ll be cared for.”

Garrick stepped around the blood soaking into the gravel.

“Have the carcass removed before morning. The delegation need not arrive to this.”

Adrian watched him turn toward the house.

“Celeste ordered the gate opened.”

His father stopped.

For a moment, only the sounds of the stretcher wheels broke the silence.

“We’ll discuss that inside.”

“The guards need to know whose orders take precedence.”

“They know.”

“Apparently not.”

Garrick turned fully.

His presence pressed against Adrian’s chest.

Hale lowered his eyes.

Adrian made himself remain still.

“We will discuss it inside,” his father repeated.

---

Celeste was waiting in the drawing room.

She rose when she saw the blood.

“Adrian!”

“It isn’t all mine.”

Mother came toward him immediately.

“Sit down. Someone fetch Dr. Mercer.”

“It’s a cut.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“So is the man being carried to the infirmary.”

Mother stopped.

Celeste’s hands clasped at her waist.

“Is he badly hurt?”

Adrian looked at her.

“Why did you open the eastern passage?”

“The flowers—”

“The passage was closed.”

“The driver had come all that way. No one told me it was dangerous.”

“There were guards at the gate telling him he couldn’t enter.”

She looked toward Father.

“I thought it was a misunderstanding.”

Adrian remembered the hearing.

The cream shawl.

The scratch on her cheek.

You said you would take care of it.

He had accepted that explanation because Celeste had looked frightened and Elara had sounded angry.

Now Celeste was frightened again.

He could see it in the way she kept rubbing one thumb over the other.

He could also see that she had given an order without understanding why the first one existed.

“Next time a captain closes a passage, you leave it closed.”

Her eyes filled.

“I was trying to help.”

“Then ask.”

“Adrian,” Mother said.

He waited.

“She understands.”

He looked from her to Father.

“Does she?”

Celeste took a breath that caught halfway in.

Father stepped between them.

“That will do.”

Adrian felt the sting in his arm for the first time.

It was deep enough to need stitches.

He had not noticed.

---

Dr. Mercer found him in the study.

The physician carried the same black leather case he had brought to their rooms throughout Adrian’s childhood.

“Your mother said you were refusing treatment.”

“I was waiting.”

Mercer examined the cut.

“Fortunately, it’s clean.”

Adrian looked at the blood on his cuff.

Mercer followed his gaze.

“Compared with a bite.”

He threaded a needle.

On the desk, the red ledger lay open beside the household accounts.

Adrian watched the physician’s hands.

“Did Elara ever come to you with burns?”

Mercer did not look up.

“Occasionally.”

“From the wards?”

“She said so.”

“What did you do?”

“Treated them.”

“Was she fit to keep working?”

Mercer’s fingers paused.

“Your sister rarely took advice well.”

Adrian remembered Elara turning up late to dinner with her sleeves buttoned tightly over her wrists.

Father asking whether she could manage to be punctual once.

Adrian himself telling her that everyone had duties.

The needle passed through his skin.

He barely felt it.

“Where is she?” Mercer asked.

“We don’t know.”

“If she’s gone without her medicine, finding her should be a priority.”

Adrian looked up.

“Father has already sent inquiries.”

“Good.”

Mercer tied the stitch.

“She may appear more alert initially. That won’t necessarily mean she’s well.”

“What does that mean?”

“Patients sometimes mistake the return of symptoms for an improvement.”

“What symptoms?”

The physician reached for another length of thread.

“I’d prefer to discuss her condition with the Alpha.”

Adrian watched him bend over the wound.

Until that moment, he had never thought to question why everyone understood Elara’s condition except Elara.

---

After Mercer left, Adrian went to the infirmary.

Beck was sleeping.

His wife sat beside the bed with both hands wrapped around one of his.

She tried to stand when Adrian entered.

“Please don’t.”

He put a chair beside hers.

For several minutes, neither spoke.

“He asked whether he’d lose the hand,” she said at last.

Adrian looked at the bandages covering Beck’s forearm.

“What did the healer say?”

“She won’t know until the swelling goes down.”

“I’ll make sure you have anything you need.”

The promise sounded painfully easy.

He stayed until Beck’s wife began to doze.

When he stepped into the corridor, Mara Fen was waiting.

She had blood on one trouser knee.

“I helped Hale clear the approach,” she said.

Adrian nodded.

“Thank you.”

Her eyes moved to his bandaged arm.

“Was it the same fault?”

“What?”

“The eastern foundation. The one Elara was blamed for.”

He looked toward the closed infirmary door.

“The attack on Tomas happened beyond the boundary.”

“I know where my brother died.”

Her voice remained quiet.

Adrian had no answer.

Mara stepped closer.

“Who authorized the gate tonight?”

“Celeste. She didn’t understand the closure.”

Mara studied him.

“And the festival?”

His chest tightened.

“That was investigated.”

“By whom?”

“My father questioned the—”

“Did you see the statements?”

Adrian stopped.

Through the wall came the faint scrape of a chair beside Beck’s bed.

Mara reached into her coat and took out a folded patrol roster.

“Tomas wasn’t assigned to the eastern gate that night,” she said. “He was assigned to the north road.”

Adrian looked at the page.

Beside Tomas’s name, a change had been written in different ink.

“Someone sent him east,” Mara said. “I want to know who.”

He stared at the altered line.

Then he remembered Elara in the council chamber, looking past him toward the doors.

Where is the watch captain?

Adrian lifted his eyes.

“Who had the watch that night?”

“Captain Venn.”

“Then we’ll ask him.”

“I tried this morning.”

Something in her expression made him go cold.

“What did he say?”

“He left at dawn.”

“On whose orders?”

Mara unfolded the second page.

His father’s seal caught the lamplight.