All Chapters of The Debt of the Unmarked : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

The doors closed and there was no noise. But it wasn’t a peaceful quiet. This was a solemn, suspicious silence. It waited. Elara was standing directly in the centre of the room and she was hyper-conscious of her breath and the places Silas had just touched on her arms. He was grasping her tightly and comfortingly, with a kind of uncertainty at the same, as though he were afraid to hold a fragile and dangerous thing in his hand. “You're hurt,” Silas said again. I was worse, I answered, but that was no excuse to have a shaky body. He was letting her go gradually, lest she should disappear, should he move too fast. He turned his head, and heard not what was going on around him, but what she was doing, his breathing, his heart. You smell of smoke, he said, and of metal. Elara stared at the wound on her arm as the dried blood stained her. Some one has made an effort to ensure I do not see morning. A cheek muscle twitched and a tightening of the jaw took place in Silas. He walked

The night was irony-rainy.Elara walked after Silas in the small walk under the keep, and she laid her hand on the cold-building wall as she tried to balance herself. Each of the steps sounded too loudly in her ears. The relationship between them was now close as a pulled thread - taut, humming, vital.Silas, without batting an eyelid, walked on.Had any other person looked at him, he would have been seen a blind Alpha walking with unbelievable assurance. But Elara knew the truth.He was strolling over her eyes.“Slow down,” she whispered.He adapted instantly, and kept in step with her. “You’re shaking.”It was something that she had never thought to herself. Her hands were trembling not through the cold, but through the thought of Kayan being in chains somewhere in the darkness.“I’m fine,” she lied.Silas didn’t call her out. He rarely did. Rather, he said, you stay behind me when we get to the tower.“And if they surround us?”“They won’t,” he replied. “They want me talking. Not

The steps leading to the bottom rooms were small and oily. The lighting was draining along the walls, and with a weak and crippled line, the shadows lengthened and distorted like living creatures.Elara kept her steps slow.Not that she was afraid to move but that all her instincts said that this was a place that knew pain.Silas passed by her side, one hand sweeping over the stone wall, the other tightly held at his side. His head was thrown back in the effort to hear something more solemn than sound.Draven led the way.“No guards?” Elara whispered.Draven didn’t look back. “I sent them away.”That made her uneasy.They reached the final door. Thick iron. Scores made by old marks on it, desperate, desperate, claw marks.Draven stopped. It may not be clean what happens next.Silas looked over his shoulder at Elara. “You don’t have to be here.”She didn’t hesitate. “Yes, I do.”Silas said nothing more.Draven opened the door.The cell reeked of blood and damp stone.The killer was cha

The laughter of the elder still rang in their ears faintly in the fortress over which they were already behind, as a reminder that some of the threats did not so readily perish.He lay injured, blood slicking the cold stone, but his presence lingered like a shadow over every decision, every heartbeat. Somewhere, his eyes watched, calculating, waiting.Outside, snow fell in heavy flakes, covering tracks and blood alike. The world felt quieter, but only for a moment. Elara’s eyes caught something—a thin line of red on the white snow.The first thing she noticed was blood. Not fresh. Not dark. Thin lines stiffening like the ground was trying to swallow the truth before anyone noticed.Her breath caught. She stopped walking.Behind her, Silas’s steps slowed. He didn’t ask why. He only tilted his head slightly, listening to the way her breathing changed.“What is it?” he asked quietly.Elara swallowed, fingers tightening around the tray she carried. “Someone was hurt,” she said. “Not far.

The mark looked fresh, still kind of wet in the torchlight.Elara was right there at the inner gate, staring at this carved symbol on the stone. It was cut deep, like whoever did it took their time, made sure it would stick around.She swallowed hard, feeling uneasy.It wasnt a regular pack mark, nothing like that.And not some threat either, you know, the usual scary stuff.This seemed older, way older.Draven ran his gloved finger along the edge. He said it wasnt meant for just anyone to see.Silas was hanging back a bit, head tilted like he was listening close. He wanted an explanation.Draven pointed out how low it was placed, hidden in the shadows. "Someone specific was supposed to find it," he thought.Elara's skin started to prickle, that uncomfortable feeling.The bond between her and Silas stirred, faint but off somehow.Without really thinking, she stepped up closer. Her fingers got near the mark, and bam! , something sharp hit inside her chest.Like recognition, sudden.He