Chapter 6:A Ghost in the Market
911 Words
POV: Freya
The old market hadn't changed.
Same cracked cobblestones. Same rust-stained signs hanging above crooked stalls. The same stench of overripe fruit, burning oil, and desperation.
I’d once sold wild herbs here, picked from the forest behind the orphanage. A few copper coins for a day’s work. Barely enough to survive. Now I walked these same streets cloaked in power, shadows clinging to me like armor.
Daemon had warned me. “If you go alone, you risk being recognized.”
“That’s the point,” I told him. “Let them see the ghost they tried to bury.”
Now, my boots tapped against stone that once made my knees bleed. My hood was pulled low, but I didn’t hide my scent. Any wolf near enough would know who I was.
If they dared to remember.
I passed an old stall where a butcher named Grel once threw meat scraps at my feet and laughed, “Here, mongrel. Eat like the dogs you belong to.”
He wasn’t there now. Probably long dead or drunk somewhere in the mud.
Good.
I moved past the leather merchant, past the baker with his over-sweet breads. My eyes scanned the crowd, watching for signs of patrols. The Nightfang enforcers didn’t patrol this far down often. They preferred to police the elite markets near the packhouse.
That was the next stop.
The elite quarter.
A place I once needed permission to even approach.
Now I didn’t wait.
I walked up the hill that split the district in half. The homes here were taller, the windows cleaner. Wolves wore silk here. They spoke in quiet tones and glanced over their shoulders. This was where the powerful came to pretend everything was perfect.
I reached the edge of the town square—and stopped.
Because there, just beyond the black iron fountain, stood him.
Caleb Clayton.
Kade’s golden boy. His firstborn.
The one who used to flirt with me in the kitchen halls, only to mock me when I blushed. The one who lied about us to his friends, then called me “pack w***e” when I cried.
He hadn’t changed much.
Still tall. Still arrogant. Dressed in deep blue with a silver wolf pin gleaming at his collar. He was surrounded by a small group of Nightfang warriors, laughing as if he hadn’t a care in the world.
My fingers twitched.
I could end him right here.
But that wasn’t the plan.
Instead, I stepped forward.
Caleb turned slightly as I approached. At first, there was no recognition. Just a brief glance, the kind reserved for servants and nobodies.
Then his eyes narrowed.
He froze.
“…No,” he muttered.
I pulled my hood back slowly, locking eyes with him. My hair—no longer tangled or matted, but sleek and coiled in dark braids—caught the sunlight.
His mouth fell open.
“Freya?”
The warriors around him turned.
Whispers rose.
I smiled, slow and deliberate. “Miss me?”
One of his guards stepped forward, hand on the hilt of his dagger. “Identify yourself.”
“I think your prince already did,” I said.
Caleb blinked, then laughed—a little too loud, a little too forced. “What is this? Some stunt? You look… different.”
“Better?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. His gaze flicked over me like he didn’t know whether to admire or fear.
That was new.
I crossed the last few feet between us and stopped directly in front of him. I could smell the cologne he wore—expensive, sharp, synthetic.
Not like the earth and blood I now carried.
“I came to see what trash looked like when it aged,” I said quietly.
His jaw clenched. “Careful what you say. You’re still—”
“I’m not yours,” I snapped. “Not your servant. Not your leftover. Not your secret.”
The warriors tensed.
I didn’t flinch.
“I’m a rogue now. And not the kind that scurries in shadows. I walk daylight with fire in my hands.”
“You shouldn’t have come here.”
“I wanted to see your face,” I whispered. “When you realized the girl you threw away didn’t stay dead.”
I turned to leave—but he grabbed my wrist.
Big mistake.
I twisted sharply, flipped him over my shoulder, and sent him crashing into the fountain with a roar of splashing water. The crowd gasped. The warriors started forward.
But I was already gone.
Smoke bombs. Daemon’s idea.
I tossed one to the ground and vanished in a cloud of gray.
Back in the forest, I tore the cloak off and collapsed onto the damp moss. My heart raced, not from fear—but from adrenaline.
From freedom.
I’d done it.
I’d walked into their world. Faced them. Shaken them.
Caleb would report this to Kade.
Good.
Let him know I was back.
Let the king tremble in his throne.
That night, around the fire, Daemon shook his head while the others cheered my story.
“You were reckless,” he said.
“I was effective.”
“You revealed yourself too soon.”
“No. I planted fear. That was the goal.”
He didn’t argue further, but his eyes told me he didn’t approve.
I didn’t care.
The only approval I needed was my own.
And for the first time in years…
…I gave it.
- Writer
