Chapter Four
1046 Words
Grace
Saul spun around so fast I barely saw him move.
Two men stood in the mouth of the corridor. His brothers.
The one who had spoken leaned against the stone wall with his arms crossed and a wicked grin on his face. He was leaner than Saul, with sharper edges, and his dark eyes glittered like he found the whole world to be one big joke. The other stood quiet and still beside him, hands folded, watching me with a soft, unreadable expression that somehow scared me more than the grinning one did.
"Rook. Cael." Saul's voice was a warning. "Stay out of this."
"Oh, I don't think so," said the grinning one, Rook. He pushed off the wall and strolled toward us, and I felt the bond tug toward him too, gentler than with Saul but undeniable. He stopped in front of me and tilted his head, studying me like I was a puzzle he wanted to take apart. "I felt it the second the fire moved. We all did. Right here." He tapped his own chest, over his heart. "You can't reject what the Tri-Heart claims, brother. You know that. The bond isn't yours alone. It's all three of us, or none of us."
I stared at him. "All three of you?"
"Afraid so, little ember." His grin widened, showing teeth. "One soul, three bodies. When the fire chose you, it chose us. And we, lucky girl, chose you back. Whether the grumpy one likes it or not."
"This is impossible," Saul snarled. "She's a Cinder. A nothing. The Keystone is supposed to be the strongest of the highborn. Not a glassworks rat who can barely stand."
"And yet." The quiet one finally spoke. Cael. His voice was soft, almost kind, and that made me trust it less. He stepped closer and his gentle eyes moved over my face. "The fire has never lied. In a thousand years, it has never once reached for the wrong wolf." He paused. "Tell me, Grace. Your wolf. What is her name?"
I shouldn't have answered. But the bond loosened my tongue, and the truth slipped out before I could stop it. "Vesper."
Cael went very still. "A Cinder," he murmured, "who knows her wolf's name. A Cinder whose wolf woke at the Emberlight." He glanced at his brothers, and something passed between the three of them, fast as a thought. "She is not what she appears to be."
My blood went cold. They know. They'll find out about Marwood. They'll find the moonstone.
I clamped my arm against my side, feeling the hard little lump of the pendant hidden in my sleeve.
"It doesn't matter what she is," Saul cut in. "We are not bonding to a tithe-servant. Send her back to the basin. Bind the wolf again and bury this whole night. The realm can never know the Emberlight chose a Cinder."
"And let our power keep burning?" Rook's grin finally dropped. For the first time, he looked deadly serious, and somehow that was worse. "You felt the eastern ridge, Saul. You felt that village go up. Three more seasons without a Keystone and there won't be a realm left to embarrass. We are running out of time, and you want to throw away the first true bond any of us has ever felt because you don't like where she comes from?"
Saul said nothing. His jaw worked.
"She stays," Cael said quietly. It wasn't a suggestion. There was steel under the softness now. "Until we understand what she is, she does not leave these walls. The bond is real. We cannot afford to waste it."
"I am not staying," I said.
All three of them looked at me at once, and the weight of three alpha gazes nearly knocked me off my feet. But I held my ground. I thought of Wrenna. I thought of the truth Sorrel had died trying to give me.
Maybe this is good, a small voice whispered inside me. They want to keep you inside the Emberhold. That's exactly where you need to be.
So I changed my answer.
"I'll stay," I said. "But not because you command it. I'll stay on one condition."
Saul actually laughed. "You don't make conditions, Cinder."
"I want to be allowed to move freely through the household," I said, ignoring him, looking at Cael instead, because Cael was the one who decided things. "No locked doors. No chains. If I'm going to be your... whatever I am... then I won't be your prisoner."
Cael studied me for a long, long moment.
"Done," he said.
"Cael," Saul hissed.
"She is the Keystone, brother." Cael's eyes never left mine, and there was something behind them I couldn't read, curiosity, maybe, or hunger, or both. "We will need her to trust us eventually. Better to start now." A faint smile touched his lips. "Besides. A wolf with nothing to hide does not bargain for open doors. I want to see where she goes."
My stomach dropped.
Saul stepped close to me one final time, so close the bond flared white-hot between us, and lowered his voice until only I could hear.
"I don't know what you are," he breathed, "or what you're hiding. But I will find out. And when I do, ash-rat, you had better pray it's nothing, because there is no mercy in this house for liars."
He turned and walked away without looking back.
Rook winked at me. "Don't mind him. He's like that with everyone. Welcome to the family, little ember." And he sauntered off after his brother.
Only Cael lingered. He reached out, slow enough that I could have stopped him, and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. His fingers were cool. The bond purred.
"Rest tonight, Grace," he murmured. "Tomorrow, everything changes."
Then he was gone, and I was alone in the dark corridor with my heart slamming and Vesper howling and three impossible mates I could never, ever have.
I pressed my hand to my sleeve, to the moonstone hidden there.
And that was when I felt it. The pendant wasn't just warm anymore.
It was glowing. Bright enough to shine through the cloth.
Bright enough that anyone walking past would see exactly who I was.
- Writer
