Prophecy Of The Silver Born

Chapter 3: Borders No One Draws Twice

The two low, flat blasts of the Skarrhold horn cut through the wind before the mountain fog could fully swallow the sound. It was the signal for wounded returning from the eastern ridges. It was rare, and it stopped the fortress cold.

Morwyth of Skarrhold stood at the edge of the cliff-face platform, her fingers curled tightly over the freezing timber railing. Below her, the massive rope-and-timber lift was rising. It was a slow, agonizing crawl. The iron gears groaned under the strain, a shriek that vibrated up through the soles of her boots. The thick, grease-darkened hemp ropes hummed with tension, fraying slightly where they rubbed against the stone pulleys.

The lift usually carried grain sacks, iron ingots, salted fish. This morning it carried the scent of hot, fresh blood.

The lift plate finally cleared the lip of the gorge, landing with a heavy, timber-shuddering jar. The gearsmen threw the locking bars into place with a series of metallic clangs.

Morwyth stepped forward, tunic snapping in the wind. Her eyes fixed on the three huddled figures lying on the stained planks. Grenn of Skarrhold lay in the center. Yesterday she had let him win. The right side of his leather breeches had been sheared away, revealing a thigh torn open by deep, clean bite marks that could only have been left by a massive wolf. His coat was matted with freezing crimson. His chest rose and fell in shallow, rattling gasps.

"Get them up!"

The voice belonged to Vargan of Skarrhold. The Pack Alpha stepped onto the platform, his heavy broad shoulders draped in a dark wolf-pelt collar. His eyes swept over the liftheavers, the bloody planks, and the freezing horizon—skimming right past Morwyth as if she were nothing more than a shadow cast by the timber railing.

"Carry them to the lower healing cells," Vargan barked at the liftheavers. "The cold is already stiffening the wounds. Use the wool blankets."

Morwyth grabbed the edge of a heavy, blood-soaked wool blanket, assisting the healers as they hoisted Grenn's dead weight onto a pine stretcher. Her knuckles brushed his cold skin. His muscles shivered under her hands. The coppery steam of fresh blood rose from his torn thigh into the freezing air.

She kept her head down, her plain dark hair falling forward to cover her face as she blended in with the circle of lower-ranking pack members carrying the stretchers through the limestone archways.

They carried the wounded into the vestibule of the war hall. The air here was damp and heavy, smelling of river-clay and burnt birch soot. It was the plains wolves' war-paint. It clung to the patrol members' matted fur.

The healers worked quickly, the metallic hiss of water on iron needles echoing off the damp limestone walls as they began to sew the ragged tears in Grenn's flesh.

"A Roggarth vanguard did this, Alpha," the patrol leader rasped, his voice breathy and thin from blood loss. He lay on a parallel bench, his left shoulder wrapped in a tight linen bandage that was already turning dark. "Ten of them, their coats caked in white ash. They crossed the red-stone marker at dawn. They didn't retreat when we drew iron."

Vargan stood in the center of the vestibule, his thumb tracing the deep notches left by a plains-forged axe in one of the broken staves the patrol had brought back. His jaw set, unmoving.

"The red-stone marker is three miles within our line," Vargan said, his low, rumbling voice vibrating through the limestone archway. "Kaddoc's wolves do not wander that far from the plains by accident. They crossed with purpose."

"They knew the patrol's rotation," the injured leader muttered, his head falling back against the wood. "They were waiting in the birch thicket."

Vargan threw the broken wooden stave onto the stone floor with a clatter. "Go to the lower passages," he told the guards standing at the doors. "Bar the war hall gates. No one leaves Skarrhold until we know if their main force is following. And keep the girl in her quarters. If Kaddoc has scouts on the ridge, I want her name kept behind barred oak."

Morwyth stepped back into the shadows of the vestibule, the air catching tight in her lungs. They hadn't crossed the red-stone marker for timber or territory. They'd crossed it for her.

The guards began clearing the vestibule of servants and non-combatants. One of them tapped her shoulder. "To your quarters, girl. Alpha's orders."

Morwyth gave a slow, compliant nod. She turned and walked down the cold corridor toward the living quarters. But the moment the guard's footsteps faded toward the lower stairs, she stopped.

She turned on her heel and slipped into a narrow, unlit maintenance passage that ran parallel to the war council chamber. It was a tight, drafty crawlway used by the hearth-keepers to clean the chimney flues, smelling of ancient soot and damp stone. She moved with absolute silence, squeezing behind the heavy wool arras that covered the war hall's outer limestone wall.

Through a narrow seam in the stone, she looked directly into the war council room.

Vargan sat at the long pine table, surrounded by four of the pack's senior elders. Tallow lamps guttered, throwing the elders' shadows long against the limestone.

"Kaddoc of Roggarth is growing bold," one elder murmured, his fingers tracing a map of the territory carved into the timber tabletop. "First the challenge-fires along the plains, and now this skirmish."

"Osskander's scribes are already drafting the summons," Vargan said, his voice flat and heavy. "The council will demand her placement before the first spring thaw. They want her married to whichever alpha can secure her line. Kaddoc is simply testing if Skarrhold is too weak to hold her. If he believes we cannot defend our own borders, he won't wait for a council vote. He will take the Unifier by force."

"And if he takes her?" the elder asked.

Vargan leaned forward, his hands flat on the map. "A savior stolen by Roggarth is a savior used to write Skarrhold's death warrant. If the plains wolves claim the silver blood, they will use her name to drag the coastal packs into their wars, and they will turn their iron on us first. We keep her walled behind double-barred gates. She does not leave the high fortress. We treat her like a secret until we have enough blades to defend the mountain."

The discussion turned to border fortifications, but Morwyth had heard enough. The air in the narrow crawlway went thin. They were talking about her as if she were a barrel of winter grain, a resource to be guarded, stored, and eventually traded before it could rot.

A sudden sound nearby made her stiffen. Vargan had stood up, his heavy boots clattering on the floor as he headed toward the side door—the very door that opened into the passage where she stood.

Morwyth backed away quietly, her pulse loud in her ears. She slipped through the exit of the chimney passage and into the drafty main corridor just as the heavy oak door creaked open behind her.

"Morwyth."

She stopped, forcing her shoulders to drop. She turned back slowly, forcing her jaw to unclench and burying the sudden, hot spike of acid beneath a practiced, blank stare. She swallowed down the copper taste of a retort before it could pass her lips, letting her hands fold loosely in her lap.

"Hearth-Seer Aethwen sent me to clear my tunic," she said softly, her voice dropping into a rhythmic, soft cadence. "I was on my way to the lower kitchens."

The elder studied her from the threshold. His eyes tracked the grey clay dried on her sleeves, lingering on her bowed head and slumped, unthreatening shoulders. The tension left his frame in a short, dismissive breath.

"Go then," he said, turning back to his advisors. "The halls are no place for a clumsy girl today."

Morwyth turned and walked away, her steps even and unhurried. The moment she rounded the corner and entered the shadow of the drafty corridor, her right hand rose, her fingers pressing hard against the pulse point on her neck. The skin of her throat was hot and fluttering. She looked down at her hands, still trembling slightly, not from fear, but from the sheer weight of the secrets she now carried. They wanted a simple girl; she would let them guard an empty cage.

"Morwyth!"

Fennika of Skarrhold exploded out from behind a stack of empty flour barrels, brushing a frantic hand through her hair and sending a cloud of white dust into the air. She grabbed Morwyth’s elbow, her copper eyes darting down the hallway.

"I decided to stand watch by the pantry, got distracted by a sack of split peas, and now I've let you wander right into the shadow of Vargan's boots," Fennika said, her words rushing out in a single breath. "He has guards at every turn, the war hall is barred, and if he catches us loitering here, he'll have us both scrubbing the salt-vaults until spring. Why were you near the council door?"

Morwyth stopped, pulling her arm back gently. She looked at her friend, her grey eyes narrowing.

"You knew," Morwyth said, her voice dropping into a quiet, dangerous register.

Fennika's gaze dropped to the stone floor, her shoulders slumping as she pulled her wool shawl tighter around her chest. "I didn't know about the skirmish. Not until the horn blew. But I knew about the border tension. I knew Kaddoc's scouts were getting closer."

"They crossed the red-stone marker, Fennika," Morwyth said, taking a step closer, forcing Fennika to look back up. "Grenn is lying in the healing room with a wolf-bite the size of my hand. The elders are talking about locking me behind barred gates. They want to wall me up like a prisoner until the council forces my choice."

"Vargan is trying to keep you alive!" Fennika whispered fiercely.

"I am not something you get to hide until the danger passes," Morwyth cut her off, her voice low and sharp. "If my blood is the price of this pack's borders, I have a right to see where it lands. I will not sit in a drafty room and wait for three alphas to decide which one gets to carry me off."

Fennika stared, her mouth parting slightly, but no words came out. She slowly let her hands drop to her sides.

Morwyth turned away, walking toward the narrow limestone window-slit at the end of the kitchen passage.

She looked out. The storm-wind blew cold and hard, driving heavy white frost across the dark stone. Ice clung to the ledge in thick crusts, piling into cold drifts.

Morwyth pressed her hand against the frozen stone of the sill, letting the biting cold sting her palm. The borders of her world were closing in, but as she looked out over the freezing, cloud-draped mountain peaks, her jaw tightened.

She would not wait inside for the gates to lock.