Forbidden Temptation

Chapter Six

The pull beat in me all morning, a soft, steady rhythm, as if some inner tide were washing the shores behind my chest. Meanwhile the forest’s face slowly changed. The bark of the trees grew darker, a silvery dust settled on the tips of the needles that the mist had not laid there. On the edges of stones old, mossy signs emerged that were not our packs’: tiny, angular notches, almost imperceptible patterns, as if an impatient hand had pressed fingertip-marks into soft rock. Even the wind’s scent turned strange; behind the fir resin came a dry, iron breath that ran along my skin like a cold needle.

On one stretch the hillside smoothed out unexpectedly, like the moment a wave draws back before it breaks upon the shore. The trees thinned; hard-packed bands cut across the soft carpet of needles. My wolf inside me stopped, listening. It didn’t tell me to slow, didn’t urge me on—only watched with the kind of attention that has already decided, and doesn’t yet know the price.

“It’s here,” it said at last, so softly my own breath drowned it. “The edge.”

I stopped. Before me, at first glance, there was nothing. Firs and beeches stood here as anywhere, the undergrowth stirring now and then in the wind, blades of grass clapping together as if tiny hands were trying to grasp something. But in the ground—if I looked straight—fine, almost invisible hairline cracks seemed to run out like spokes. If I turned my head, they vanished.

I took a step. Nothing. But the pull in my chest tightened by a shade, just as a string does when you give it that final twist before it’s in tune. I lifted my palm into the air—a childish gesture, I knew—and felt some film-like, unseen substance kiss the surface of my skin. As if the air were thicker in a hand’s-width strip. It was toward this band that the taut thread in my chest drew me.

“It doesn’t let just anyone in,” my wolf rumbled. “But it doesn’t shut just anyone out, either.”

“And us?” I asked.

“It called you,” it answered. “You know that.”

My body was weak, my ribs protested with every breath. Beneath the strip of cloth around my belly the pain throbbed dully—the sort my body could bear now; it didn’t bite so hard, only reminded. The brook’s chill still sat in my bones, a bitterness in my mouth. I stepped again, and the film lay against my skin as if I were breathing inward.

Crossing the edge isn’t a spectacle. There are no bangs, no light that stabs your eyes. Only a shift of substance and scent. First the air grew colder—not much, just enough to raise the fine hairs under my skin. Then the iron tang sharpened, and behind it slipped something spicy, dry—oil and old leather. The trees within seemed to stand half a notch closer together—or else their motionless watch enclosed me according to some older order. The pull in my chest loosened—not releasing me, but no longer needing to lead. I crossed.

After the first step my knee buckled for a heartbeat, as if my bones were trading ideas with my inner weights. After the second my heart skipped a beat, and when it caught again, it drummed half a tone deeper. On the third I felt, at the world’s edge—behind my ear, at the nape—a quick, sharp nip, like someone sliding a hair off your skin. Then quiet.

Farther on the ground was darker. Not because there was less light on it, but because the deeper scent of soil rose: earth and stone and water; the imprint of mingled old animal paths. At the roots of trees, worn marks: short strokes, rounded cuts—made by a hand once, but without the will behind the hand. My wolf growled and sniffed inside me at once.

“Another pack,” it pronounced, without fear—only matter-of-fact. “King’s land. Rules.”

I walked two steps into it. My body breathed as if I were climbing a constant, gentle slope. Dormant pains rose higher—my muscles groaned, my ribs knew only the rhythm, and under my belly it felt as if the earth-bound stillness pressed even flatter. In the next instant the world shifted. It didn’t spin, didn’t slam shut—it shifted. The light stalled before my eyes. Everything at once too far and too near. Strength ran out of my knees.

“Hold on,” said my wolf, but already from far away, as if speaking underwater.

I would have knelt if I’d had time. I didn’t. My body pitched forward. The stones I aimed for didn’t catch me. My shoulder struck the ground, my head slid to the side, and my mouth filled with the taste of earth and something metallic—blood, perhaps, or rust. The last thing I saw wasn’t an image but substance: brown and black grains of dirt, the green of moss, the shadow of a dead needle along the rim of my eyelid. The world drained out of me. The pull let go. The dark didn’t collapse upon me; it sketched my absences within.

Sounds returned as when you draw air to embers and the ash puffs lightly. First the clink of iron on stone; not a blade’s edge, but a studded heel. Then a rough, hoarse cough; a chest that has been carrying cold for long hours. Words followed: they spoke the same tongue we do, but the vowels and the lilt were ground harder. The smells came later: leather, oil, cold iron, and beneath them all the dull wolf-scent that wasn’t my pack’s.

“I told you something stirred the film,” said a voice above me, dryly. “It wasn’t wind-pressure.”

“Even so—that’s impossible,” answered a younger one. “The King’s border doesn’t let just anyone through.”

“It doesn’t let through, no,” a third, deeper voice growled. “But when it calls, it delivers. Look at her.”

I didn’t want to open my eyes. My body still lay under the weight of night, my bones wanting to settle into the matter of the earth. But my wolf tugged once at the thread of silence behind my ear; it didn’t hurt, only drew me outward.

Yellowish light seeped under my lids—lanternlight, with oil-scent and wisps of smoke. I opened them. At first I saw only boots: thick leather, slightly upcurved toes, buttons along the sides; patches caked with old mud, elsewhere fresh grime. Above the boots hung dark cloaks, metal fittings at the shoulders, some device on the chest: a three-pronged, stylized tree or crown, crossed by two blades. The air shifted; a hand jutting from one cloak nudged the earth at my shoulder with the edge of his heel. Not roughly—only to see if I reacted.

“She’s awake,” said the first voice. “See her eyes?”

“Purple,” the deep one rumbled.

My throat was dry. My tongue clung to my palate. I tried to wet my lips. They moved. Lifting my head would have been foolish—the world wasn’t ready to stay steady—so I only turned it sideways to bring an eye to a face. I found one. Angular features, a cap pulled low over short dark hair; a nose like a knife’s hilt, broad and sure. In his eyes was not the wild rage I had seen lately in the fortress. Rather caution, and an old, tired discipline.

“Holy—” the younger began, then bit it off. “How could the film let her through?”

“Because it wanted to,” said the capped man. “Not our concern. Our concern is to take her.”

“What’s your name?” asked another, leaning closer—the one whose voice had only been a background growl. A scar ran from his temple to the corner of his mouth, as if something had torn at the wrong time, long ago.

At first no sound came from my throat. My wolf brushed the nerves around my vocal cords lightly from within; not as when it takes over, but as when it helps. “Seraphine,” I said. My own name sounded as if spoken by a foreign mouth.

“Seraphine,” the scarred man repeated. “What kind? Pack?”

Cold wandered down my spine. My scent would tell them everything anyway, I thought. Blood, smoke, the fortress stone’s damp, the bitter trace of Robert’s grip—I cannot lie so well that their noses won’t lift. Still, the word “pack” clicked against my fresh loss and knocked the breath from me for a heartbeat.

“Not yours,” my wolf answered for me, quietly; I only flicked my lashes and let them take that as reply.

“Not ours,” the capped man nodded, as if he’d known it on his first breath. “And yet she crossed the film. No small thing.”

“Spy,” the younger put in, impatient. “Or exile. Or witch. Look at her eyes.”

“I’m looking,” said the capped man, and for the first time his gaze fell not on my hand or shoulder but on the bloody strip of cloth around my belly. “And not all the blood is hers.” His voice, for a heartbeat, lost its military edge. Not pity—such men don’t pity—but a careful, nameless restraint.

“By the King’s order, all border-breakers go alive to the watch,” the scarred man growled. “From there, higher. We don’t judge in the forest.”

“That’s the order,” the capped man nodded. “Iron on, bandage the wound. Whoever crosses the film like this doesn’t get free hands.”

The word—iron—tightened my wolf. Its fur bristled inside me, teeth met, and for a moment I felt the vibration along the jawbone. I wasn’t afraid of pain—the chill of iron snaps fast at wrist and ankle—but of the silence it draws around the wolf: it dulls the voice, makes the movement late.

“Not too tight,” I whispered, surprised myself that I could force sound through a throat still slick with memory.

The capped man looked at me as though weighing whether he’d truly heard. Then he tipped his chin to the scarred one. “We don’t want her lost before we ask. ” He turned to me. “You’ve stepped on the King’s land, girl. I don’t yet know how. But you’re under the King’s order now.”

The scarred man knelt and drew a piece of cloth from his pack—cleaner than I’d expected. Through the strip around my belly he pressed gently at my side. The pain wasn’t new—but targeted, it sparked. I didn’t flinch. He wasn’t trying to harm me; not now, at least.

“Bleeding,” he said. “Old and fresh both.” He looked up. “No questioning today. It’s enough she lives.”

“She lives,” said the capped man. “And speaks.” He looked back at me. “Where did you come from?”

The corner of my mouth trembled. To speak anything of Robert—not here, not now. Even the name felt like iron on my tongue. My wolf stroked along my chest from within; not gently, not harshly, rather taking over the rhythm for as long as I might falter.

“From the north,” I said at last. True. And vague enough.

The young soldier snorted, dissatisfied. “Northern forest is full of them,” he muttered. “If they all cross…”

“Not all,” the capped man cut in. “That’s precisely the point.” He stood. “Two ropes. Two shackles. And give me your cloak.”

“Mine?” the boy blurted.

“Yours,” said the capped man. “I don’t want her blood in our cloaks.” There was no coldness in his voice, only the unappealability of order. “The King commanded we do everything in the way that brings answers. Good answers rarely come from cold bodies.”

The scarred man fixed iron around my wrist. It wasn’t silver, but the chill bit into my skin as if the metal had been dipped in winter. My wolf drew smaller, its fur laying along my nerves to offer as little surface as possible. Iron went on my ankle too; at the first step I’d learn how to move in it, I thought—if I moved at all. Then the scarred man draped a broad, warm fabric over my shoulders. The boy’s cloak—inside lining scented of fir oil, smoke, young sweat, sharp soap of the kind issued to soldiers. Warmth ran down my spine, unexpected, an unearned kindness.

“Can you stand?” asked the capped man. Not too close, but so I could see his eyes.

I pictured my legs giving way again. My wolf pushed the thought aside—not roughly, but firm. “I’ll try,” I said.

The scarred man slid an arm under my armpit. It wasn’t a gentle gesture; it held the practiced pragmatism of men who haul others to their feet daily. My belly protested, my ribs too, my head swam, iron bit at my skin—but in the end the world’s sole slid under me. I stood. I let the air out between my teeth so they wouldn’t hear how hard the pain clung to me.

“Walk,” said the capped man. “The watch is near. You’ll get proper bandages there. And water. Then questions.”

“We have to report to the King,” the young one put in, eager to be useful. “About the film too.”

“We’ll report,” the capped man nodded. “Body first. Body always first.” He looked at me once more. “Your name… Seraphine. You said that. We’ll keep it for now. The rest can wait.”

We set out. They took me between them, not tightly, but so that if I faltered there’d be something to hit. With each move the iron chimed softly; its sound followed me like a lid badly set on a pot. They didn’t carry me at a run—only walked. The air grew cooler, and the light among the trees changed as if the sun were sidling behind them. The forest didn’t fall silent; its voices simply turned from familiar to foreign: the same bird, another song.

Before my sight blurred again—because patience cracked in my head and blood pulled the light with it—I still heard the young one murmur to the others:

“If the film lets her in, the King will want to see her.”

“Maybe,” said the capped man. “Maybe not. Such as this belongs under stone first.”

“In a cell,” the scarred one clarified. “Cold, but clean.”

The words didn’t threaten. They gave shape. My body understood shapes, even if it didn’t like them. Pain now came like an echo: something preceded it and something carried it away. My wolf kept watch. The iron spoke softly at my wrist. The forest spoke in my ear. The pull in my chest—that brought me across—now only signaled: good. As if handing me over to another order.

“I’ll hold you,” my wolf whispered, without boast. Just fact. “As long as needed.”

I nodded—perhaps only within. My legs obeyed the soldiers’ rhythm, stones slid under their boots, the cloak’s warmth at my shoulders. The last image before the light evaporated from my eyes again was a metal fitting on the capped man’s cloak: an engraved mark, three branches like a tree without a crown. The King’s. The realm whose film had let me in.

The dark now wasn’t sticky but smooth. It didn’t swallow me—it sat beside me. And as I walked held between three paced steps, for the first time I could remember, my body wasn’t thrashing in the past or clutching at the future. It only moved. Alive. And strangely, that was enough.