Wren
The study smelled like old paper and pine smoke, and Zephyr told me everything.
That's the part I'll remember. Not the news itself, though the news was a stone dropped straight through me. What I'll remember is that he sat me in the deep chair by the fire, put the letter itself in my hands, and let me read every word my brother had written. No softening. No editing. No deciding what the little woman could handle.
Kellan had been watching me. Not once, in a market crowd. Four times, maybe five, from a hollow above the road, since before the banishment. And the trail led into the rogue lands.
My hands shook on the paper. My wolf did not shake. She stood up inside me, slow and cold, and bared her teeth at nothing, and her steadiness was the strangest comfort.
"Why show me?" I asked
