Zephyr
For three days after the kitchen, I was, by unanimous silent agreement of my entire pack, unbearable.
No one said so. No one had to. I watched it move through the mansion the way weather news moves through farmland. The morning captains started answering in half-sentences and leaving quickly. The training yard went quiet when I entered it, and not with respect, with the particular hush of men checking the exits. A second-year warrior dropped his guard during drills, an error worth one correction, and I gave him five, in front of everyone, in a voice I heard coming out of me like a stranger's, and afterward Berta materialized at the edge of the yard with her arms folded, watching me the way she watched me at fifteen. She did not bring me hot chocolate that evening. In eleven years,
