Chapter 8 — The Arrow That Wasn’t Meant to Miss
1483 Words
The training field was empty at dawn.
That was why Linda preferred it.
No watching eyes.
No whispered conversations.
No politics disguised as casual remarks.
Only distance.
Only breath.
Only aim.
She stood at the far end of the field, bow steady in her grip. The early light stretched pale gold across the clearing, dew still clinging to the grass. Somewhere beyond the barracks, a rooster called once—too far to be relevant, too familiar to be comforting.
A row of straw targets waited fifty paces ahead.
Linda exhaled slowly.
Draw.
Release.
The arrow sliced cleanly through air and struck dead center.
She did not smile.
She drew again.
Release.
Another center.
Her muscles remembered every movement. The bowstring hummed beneath her fingers. The weight of the arrow was familiar enough to feel like part of her hand. She made a small adjustment to her stance—barely a shift of heel and hip—and fired again.
Perfect.
She liked mornings like this. Not because they were peaceful, but because they were honest. An arrow either hit or it didn’t. No lies. No council voices. No careful words with double edges.
Yet her thoughts refused to stay disciplined.
Marcus.
Council.
Morgan.
The western ridge.
And the dream—the promise that never returned.
She inhaled, reached for another arrow—
A sudden whistle cut through the air.
Not from her bow.
The sound came fast. Sharp. Close.
An arrow struck the ground directly in front of her boots.
It buried itself deep enough to vibrate once—like a warning.
Linda didn’t flinch.
Her body reacted before thought.
Knife out. Bow raised. Eyes scanning.
Silence.
The field remained empty.
The forest line beyond the clearing stood still, trees motionless in the morning calm. No birds startled. No leaves scattered. No deer bolted.
That bothered her more than the arrow.
Someone had been close.
Close enough to shoot cleanly.
Close enough not to miss.
Close enough to want her to see it.
Linda stepped back slowly, eyes tracking the angle of impact. She crouched, examining the shaft.
Dark wood. Unfamiliar. Not carved by the clan’s fletchers.
The fletching was different too—stiffer, trimmed with obsessive precision.
Not the work of a trainee.
Something was tied beneath the fletching.
A strip of leather.
Wrapped around a folded piece of paper.
Linda scanned again—upward, outward, along the treeline, across the hill beyond the targets. She listened for breath, for the faint crack of weight on a branch, for anything.
Nothing.
She cut the leather binding with the edge of her knife.
Unfolded the paper.
The handwriting was uneven. Deliberately distorted, as if the writer had tried to imitate someone else—or hide the natural rhythm of their hand.
There is only one wolf who knows the truth about your parents.
Marcus.
The words seemed to hollow the air around her.
She read them again.
And again.
Marcus.
Her grip tightened on the page until the paper bent slightly.
Her heartbeat did not race.
It dropped—like something inside her had slipped loose.
Marcus.
Why Marcus?
He had always been loud. Suspicious. Confrontational. A wolf who never accepted anything at face value.
But connected to her parents?
Her mind moved quickly, searching for old memories—fragments, stray conversations, half-heard arguments from when she was young and still allowed to sit near the edges of adult rooms.
Marcus had never been gentle.
But he had looked at her differently than the others.
Not with pity.
Not with contempt.
With something like… calculation. Assessment.
As if weighing what she might become.
Linda’s jaw tightened.
She turned sharply toward the treeline and moved without hesitation.
The moment she crossed into the forest, the world changed.
Sound dampened. Light fractured through branches. The air cooled, thick with damp earth and moss. Her steps became quieter—not because she tried, but because her body knew how to vanish.
She tracked by instinct first.
Where had the arrow come from?
The angle suggested a position just beyond the first line of trees—close enough for accuracy, far enough for escape.
She advanced slowly, scanning the ground for disturbances.
A snapped twig.
Compressed leaves.
A scuff in soil.
Nothing obvious.
She moved in a widening arc, careful not to create a trail of her own that could hide another’s.
Minutes passed.
Then more.
She found the faintest indentation in mud near a root—almost nothing, quickly softened by dew. She crouched, touched it lightly. Too shallow to belong to a heavily armored wolf.
Someone light on their feet.
Someone who didn’t linger.
She lifted her head.
A faint scent flickered on the wind.
Male.
Wolf.
Not pack.
But it vanished almost immediately, swallowed by morning air.
Linda went still.
Her eyes narrowed.
The smell was too faint to trust—too clean to be accidental.
It felt like someone had let her catch just enough to keep her chasing.
A trap, then.
Or a test.
She stayed in the trees longer, moving deeper, checking routes back to the clearing. She circled behind the targets, then climbed partway up the slope to check for a vantage point.
Still nothing.
Whoever had sent the arrow was skilled.
Or wanted her to believe they were.
She returned to the clearing with controlled steps.
The targets stood waiting. Innocent. Unmoved.
Linda stared at them for a long moment, as if they might answer.
Marcus knows.
The words burned in her mind.
If it was a lie, it was a dangerous one.
If it was true—
Her throat tightened.
Her parents had gone on a mission beyond the western ravine.
The clan said it had been an accident.
A patrol gone wrong.
A misstep, a fall, a ravine that swallowed bodies.
But ravines did not erase scent.
They did not erase blood.
They did not erase truth.
She thought of Morgan’s voice, calm and certain whenever he spoke of inconvenient deaths.
She thought of Alpha Damien’s command: Say nothing more of it.
She swallowed.
Then she lifted her bow again.
Drew.
This time, she did not exhale slowly.
She released with force.
The arrow struck slightly off center.
Her jaw clenched.
She shot again.
And again.
And again.
Each arrow driven harder than the last.
Straw tore.
Wood cracked.
Her breath came faster.
Her shoulders burned.
Her thoughts collided, sharp and relentless.
If Marcus knew—why had he never told her?
Why had he never hinted?
Unless he believed she was part of it.
Unless he thought she already knew.
Unless he didn’t want her to know—until she was useful.
The final arrow split the center of the target completely, tearing the straw core.
She lowered the bow slowly.
Her chest rose and fell sharply.
Anger flooded in now.
Not grief.
Anger.
At the Alpha.
At the silence.
At the years of obedience.
At Morgan.
At herself, for still wanting him.
She unfolded the letter again, smoothing it with her thumb despite the crease.
The ink was slightly smudged in places, like the writer’s hand had hesitated—or tightened in emotion.
There was no signature.
No mark.
Only that name.
Marcus.
She stared toward the forest line again.
Someone had been there.
Close enough to know she trained alone.
Close enough to aim at the ground in front of her feet and not pierce her boot.
A message, not an assassination.
Which meant the sender wanted her alive.
Wanted her thinking.
Wanted her turning.
Toward Marcus.
If this was manipulation, it was calculated.
Someone wanted her destabilized.
Someone wanted her looking at a certain man.
But if she ignored it and it was true—
Then she would be choosing blindness.
She crumpled the paper slowly in her fist.
The sound of crushed parchment was louder than the arrows had been.
Her loyalty had always been simple.
Protect the throne. Protect the clan.
But what if the throne had betrayed her blood?
She tucked the crushed letter into her belt.
Turned sharply.
And walked toward the barracks.
Her steps were measured.
Controlled.
Inside her chambers, she stripped off her training tunic and pulled on darker clothes—more practical for moving unseen. Light armor. Knife at her thigh. Second blade at her back.
Bow secured.
If she was going to confront Marcus, she would not do so unprepared.
She paused at the mirror.
Her reflection looked unchanged.
Same eyes.
Same hard line to her mouth.
Same controlled posture.
But something behind her gaze had shifted—like a door she’d kept locked for years had finally cracked open.
She clenched the letter once more.
Then shoved it deep into her pocket.
Marcus.
If you know something—
you will tell me.
And if this is a lie—
someone will bleed for it.
She opened the door.
And stepped into the corridor.
- Writer
