Fern
The pack house feels different after Grace was thrown out.
Not quieter, Blackmoor is never quiet, but steadier. Like something sharp has been removed from the air, something that never belonged here in the first place. Wolves move through the halls with purpose instead of tension, their voices low but not fearful. Laughter drifts from the lower levels again. Life resumes.
And somehow, impossibly, it resumes around me.
I sit near the window in the common room, a blanket draped over my shoulders, watching snowmelt drip slowly from the eaves outside. My body still aches in places that haven't quite forgiven me, my ribs especially, but Maelis insists that movement will help more than bedrest now.
So I sit. I watch. I breathe.
People pass me constantly.
Some nod in g
