Chapter 5 — Banished
1819 Words
IRIS
Six days later, Roman still has not answered my letter.
I tell myself I stopped checking the delivery confirmation.
This is a lie.
4:23 p.m.
PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE RECEIVED — ALPHA HOUSE.
Every time I look at those words, something inside me gets colder.
Mara catches me doing it over breakfast.
“Again?”
“I was checking the time.”
“There is a clock above your head.”
“I don’t trust it.”
“It has one job.”
“So did the courier.”
The joke dies between us.
Mara pushes toast toward me.
“Eat.”
“I will.”
“You said that ten minutes ago.”
“I’m building suspense.”
“You’re pregnant. Eat the toast.”
I take one bite because arguing with her before coffee is a form of self-harm.
The border house was supposed to be temporary.
Seven days.
A narrow bedroom. A kitchen that smells faintly of old wood and cinnamon because Mara burns everything she bakes. A porch facing the eastern road.
Today the separation order ends.
I should be able to go home by noon.
Home means my room, my clinic, my mother’s garden, my patients. Roman is not part of that definition anymore.
I have spent six days trying to decide whether Silvercrest can still be home when half the pack watched me collapse and then applauded another woman.
I have not decided.
Nyla is stronger this morning.
She curls protectively around the faint new presence inside me and refuses to discuss Roman.
I cannot blame her.
A car stops outside.
Mara looks through the window.
“That’s Felix.”
Something in her voice makes my stomach turn before he reaches the door.
He comes in without his uniform jacket.
His hair is damp from the cold. A thin folder is tucked beneath one arm.
Mara does not kiss him.
That scares me more than if she had.
“What happened?”
Felix looks at me.
“We need to leave.”
I almost laugh.
“We were going to.”
“No. You need to cross the border.”
The room goes quiet.
Mara takes the folder from his hand.
“What did they do?”
Felix pulls out two pages.
The first one I recognize.
Temporary separation.
Seven days.
Roman Blackwood’s signature at the bottom.
The second page is new.
BANISHMENT FOR THREAT TO SUCCESSION STABILITY.
My eyes stop there.
Then force themselves lower.
Loss of residency.
Loss of political rights.
No access to pack-affiliated clinics.
No return to central Silvercrest without Council approval.
No expiration date.
I read it twice.
The letters do not rearrange themselves into something less insane.
“He signed this?”
Felix rubs a hand over his mouth.
“The first page.”
“I can see that.”
“The second page has no signature.”
“His name is attached to the order.”
“I know.”
“Did Roman see it?”
“I don’t know.”
A laugh comes out of me.
Mara flinches.
Of all the sounds I have made this week, that one frightens her.
“Of course you don’t.”
“Iris—”
“He signed something against me, handed it into a system controlled by his father, and never checked what came back out.”
Felix’s jaw tightens.
“I’m not defending that.”
“Good.”
“I’m telling you I saw one page six days ago. There are two now.”
Fear creeps beneath my anger.
“When does it take effect?”
“Noon.”
Mara looks at the clock.
10:37.
“We have time.”
Felix shakes his head.
“Maybe.”
“What does maybe mean?” I ask.
“The east checkpoint already has four enforcement guards.”
“The order starts at noon.”
“I know.”
“So why are they there?”
He does not answer.
That is when I get scared.
This is not heartbreak anymore.
The fear is colder and more practical.
I am scared.
My hand moves to my stomach.
Felix notices.
His eyes narrow.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“You went pale.”
“I’m fine.”
Mara looks at me.
We have had six days to decide how many people know about the baby.
The answer was almost no one.
I look at Felix now and change the answer.
“I sent Roman a letter.”
Felix frowns.
“When?”
“Six days ago.”
“About what?”
Mara goes still.
I meet Felix’s eyes.
“The pregnancy.”
All the color leaves his face.
“You’re pregnant?”
“Yes.”
“With—”
“Do not finish that question unless you want Mara to hit you.”
He looks at her.
She is already considering it.
Felix focuses on me again.
“You told Roman?”
“I sent medical confirmation and a letter marked for personal delivery.”
“When?”
I show him the confirmation on my phone.
His eyes move over the screen.
4:23 p.m. Received — Alpha House.
“Roman never mentioned this.”
The words hit harder than I expect.
“Maybe he didn’t think it was important.”
Felix looks up sharply.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t need to.”
“I’m saying I have been with him in patrol meetings, Council sessions, and security briefings every day this week. If he knew Iris Vale was pregnant, I would know something was wrong.”
“Something is wrong,” Mara says. “Look at the paper.”
Felix closes his eyes for one second.
“I know.”
Hope tries to open inside me.
I crush it.
Hope is dangerous when someone else controls the evidence.
“The letter was delivered,” I say. “The order has his signature. I am leaving.”
“That part we agree on,” Felix says.
Mara grabs the car keys.
I go upstairs.
There is no dignified way to pack a life in forty minutes.
I take underwear, two sweaters, three pairs of pants, medical instruments, documents, medicine, chargers.
Then I stand in front of my bag and forget what people need to live.
Mara appears carrying my healer’s case.
“Shoes.”
“I have shoes.”
“You have one pair on your feet.”
“Oh.”
She puts two more pairs in the bag.
My eyes burn.
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“If you hug me, I’m going to lose it.”
“Noted.”
She turns around and starts pulling books from the shelf instead.
That is worse.
I cry anyway.
Quietly at first.
Then hard enough that I have to sit on the edge of the bed.
“I didn’t do anything,” I say.
Mara drops the books.
“I know.”
“I didn’t hurt anyone.”
“I know.”
“I did everything the right way. I told him about the baby.”
She sits beside me.
“I know.”
“And I’m still the one packing.”
That is the sentence that breaks me.
Mara holds me until the crying passes.
Then she wipes my face with the sleeve of her sweater because neither of us can find tissues.
“You are going to hate that you let me do this with a sweater.”
“I already do.”
“Good. You’re recovering.”
I laugh through the last tears.
A horn sounds outside.
Once.
Then again.
Felix shouts from downstairs.
“They’re early.”
Mara and I look at each other.
The fear comes back instantly.
We carry the bags down.
Four guards stand at the edge of the property.
The same blond guard who blocked me from the family corridor on the morning of the Choosing is among them.
He cannot meet my eyes.
Felix is arguing with the captain.
“It is eleven nineteen.”
“We received an updated enforcement time.”
“From who?”
“The Alpha’s office.”
“Gideon or Roman?”
The captain’s expression hardens.
“Move aside, Reed.”
Felix does not.
His wolf rises close enough that the air changes.
“You touch her before noon and I put my name on the complaint myself.”
The captain laughs.
“You think paperwork is going to save her?”
Mara sets my bag down.
“Oh, I already dislike him.”
“Mara.”
“What? I’m coping.”
The blond guard takes one step toward my healer’s case.
“That equipment belongs to a pack clinic.”
“No,” I say. “It belongs to me.”
“Your clinic access is suspended.”
“My hands are not.”
He reaches for the case.
Nyla explodes forward.
My claws break through before I can stop them.
The guard freezes.
So do I.
For six days, my wolf has been weak.
Now she stands inside me with every tooth showing.
Pup.
Mine.
I step between the guard and my bag.
“Touch it.”
My voice shakes.
My claws do not.
He backs away.
Felix looks almost proud.
“Car,” he says.
Mara loads the bags.
I get in.
The enforcement vehicle follows us to the east checkpoint.
The electronic gate is still open when we arrive.
11:46.
Nolan Mercer is working the station.
The same man whose blood covered my clinic floor the night before everything ended.
He looks at me, then at the enforcement guards behind us.
“Iris.”
“Please open the gate.”
His jaw works.
A red notice flashes across his screen.
BANISHMENT — PENDING ACTIVATION.
For one second, he does nothing.
Then he reaches beneath the desk and presses the manual release.
The gate begins to rise.
The captain behind us shouts.
“Nolan!”
Nolan never looks away from me.
“You treated my brother during the fever winter.”
I remember.
“Drive.”
Mara does.
The gate clears the roof with inches to spare.
We cross.
Behind us, someone yells for the patrol vehicle to follow.
It rolls forward.
Stops at the territorial line.
The captain cannot enforce a Silvercrest banishment in neutral land.
Mara keeps driving until the checkpoint disappears.
Only then do I look at my phone.
No call.
No message.
The delivery receipt is still there.
Received.
Alpha House.
I place one hand over the life inside me.
“He knew,” I whisper.
Mara grips the steering wheel.
She does not agree.
She does not argue.
I look back once at the road behind us.
Silvercrest is gone around the bend.
I make myself a promise because I need one thing in my life that no Blackwood can rewrite.
My child will never have to beg to be chosen.
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