Chapter 3

“Evander is not doing well. I need to return to the healer’s den for a while. Will you sign the travel parchment?”

Viktor did not even look at it. He took the parchment, pressed his seal without reading a single line, and handed it back.

“Go,” he said lightly. “Take care of our pup.”

He did not ask what ailed Evander. Did not ask how grave it was. His attention had already drifted elsewhere, his mouth curving faintly as if my leaving were a convenience rather than a plea.

I left the estate before first light. The broth I had prepared still sat upon the table, untouched and cold. Just like everything else between us had become.

Viktor did not bid me farewell.

**

The journey to my father’s domain took six hours by carriage through old wolf roads and forest paths marked with carved stone totems. The gates of House Blackthorne rose ahead of me—tall black iron bound with ancient sigils, the crest of our bloodline set at its center. Guards in gray stood motionless like carved statues.

Everything was as I remembered.

And yet I was not.

I had grown thinner. Quieter. Worn in places no healer could mend.

When I stepped down from the carriage, no servants came forward. No attendants announced my return. The estate simply watched me as if it had already decided what I had become.

Then the doors opened.

Duke Rafe Blackthorne stood there.

He did not smile.

He did not embrace me.

His silver hair was tied back with precision, his gaze sharp as tempered steel.

“You,” he said coldly. “The daughter who cast our house’s honor aside for a man.”

I stood straight despite the ache in my body. I did not cry. I had spent all my tears in another man’s house.

Looking him in the eye, I said, “The marriage pact you once offered me… eight years ago. Does it still stand?”

Silence stretched through the marble halls. Even the wind outside seemed to pause. Somewhere behind him, the servants gathered like quiet shadows, listening without breathing.

At last, my father spoke.

“No. That man is already bound in marriage—to a house that did not disgrace mine.”

He began to close the door.

I did not step back.

I only held his gaze.

Then he stopped.

“But,” he said after a moment, voice measured, “his younger brother remains unwed. Your sister was once promised to him, though she delays her duty for studies.”

His eyes studied me—not as a daughter, but as a piece on a warboard.

“If you are willing,” he said, “the seat is open.”

I did not hesitate.

I only nodded once.

I would marry whoever he chose.

Not for pride.

Not for love.

Not even for Evander anymore.

Only for survival.

**

They gave me a guest chamber deep within the eastern wing. It smelled of aged wood and lemon oil. My old portraits were gone from the walls. Even the servants avoided my gaze, as though I had already been written out of the house years ago and had only returned as a lingering spirit.

That night, I was summoned.

The younger son.

The one who was never meant to inherit anything.

Ronan Ashclaw.

He waited in the old observatory where moonlight spilled through arched glass. The room was quiet, filled with dust and pale silver light. He wore black, simple and unadorned. His face was refined, almost fragile, yet there was something unbroken behind his eyes.

I had expected weakness.

Illness.

Stillness.

Instead, he stood when I entered.

Slowly, but firmly.

His gaze met mine and did not waver.

“So,” he said, voice low, “the runaway bride returns.”

I could not answer.

He tilted his head slightly.

“Tell me,” he continued, “did you come here seeking redemption… or revenge?”

My throat tightened, but I forced myself not to tremble. He noticed anyway. Of course he did.

A faint, almost indifferent smile touched his lips before he turned away toward the moonlit glass.

“Go back,” he said. “Return when your bond is severed properly.”

I wanted to speak. To thank him. To explain that nothing about this was simple.

But no words came.

So I left.

I closed the door behind me and returned to the empty chamber that held no warmth, no memories, no trace that I had ever belonged anywhere at all. I sat on the edge of the bed and stared into the dark.

Just breathing.

Trying to remember who I had been before grief hollowed me out.

Before love broke me.

Before I became something forgotten.

**

I did not sleep.

Morning came, though it did not feel like dawn—only another layer of silence settling over an already silent world.

I moved because my body remembered how.

The same way it had moved every day since Evander first grew ill.

At the long dining table, I ate dry bread that turned to ash on my tongue. No one spoke to me. No one met my eyes.

Then the mindlink came.

Viktor.

His presence brushed against my thoughts like it had never been severed.

“We’re heading out,” he said casually. “Elric wants to ride the sky beasts. Nyra couldn’t refuse him.”

A short laugh followed, light and careless.

“As for my parents, they’ll visit the estate later. Make sure they’re accommodated.”

I swallowed.

“Alright,” I answered.

“Good,” he said, and the link closed.

No mention of Evander.

No hesitation.

No memory.

Today was his birthday.

Evander’s birthday.

I told my father I would return to the estate to fulfill my duties. That I would come back once the bond was formally dissolved. He did not respond. Only turned another page of his scroll as if I had never spoken.

When I returned to the glass estate, I remembered the date before I even stepped inside.

Evander’s birthday.

My hands trembled as I walked through the halls.

I went straight to my chamber—the only place in that house that still felt like it once held him.

I lit a small flame beside his portrait and placed the moonstone urn beneath it. His carved wooden wolf toy still sat where he left it, leaning against the wall as if waiting for small hands that would never return.

No one remembered.

No offering.

No mourning chant.

No presence.

Not from Viktor.

Not from his kin.

Only silence—

and the sound of a pack celebrating another child while mine was already ash.