ALPHA’S MATE: SWORN ENEMIES

The Northern Post

"Three long and one short," she said. "That's the signal for a full rotation. The first one sounded two mornings ago, when the council changed the line without warning the treaty watch. This makes the third."

Kaelen looked up from the table in the watch house, where the ledgers lay spread across the wood. "You're sure of the date?"

"Yes. I signed the order the day before the first horn. The rotation began that morning, and today marks the third."

"Or someone wanted the whole line to look changed," Alder said from the doorway. He had slept in a chair by the hearth, and his coat was still damp from the yard. "Does the schedule say anything about the northern post?"

Rowan turned to the treaty copy, its edges worn soft from handling. "It says the northern post is not part of the border watch. It sits past the treaty stones on the Ironridge side of the ridge, and the council mans it for hunting parties only."

"Then why was a rotation order sent there?" Kaelen asked.

"Because someone wanted the northern post to look like part of the border," Rowan said. She heard the bitterness in her own voice and didn't bother to hide it. "My signature put it on paper."

They rode out before the sun cleared the ridge, Bran and six Blackthorn wolves behind them. The road to the stones was a narrow track through frozen pines, and the snow was marked with more horse tracks than Rowan liked to see. Some were shod in Ironridge iron. Others were older and rougher, shoes worn down as if they had carried riders for years.

"Those tracks lead to the northern post," Bran said.

"Then we go to the northern post," Kaelen said.

Rowan rode beside him, and every time their knees brushed, the pull under her ribs tightened like a drawn cord. She kept her eyes on the trees.

The post came into view at midday, a low building of weathered logs at the edge of a clearing above the stones. Smoke rose from its chimney, and the door stood open to the cold.

Bran signaled the wolves to fan out. Rowan dismounted and moved through the trees on foot, Kaelen a step behind her.

Inside, the fire burned low. Three bedrolls lay near the hearth, and a pot of stew sat on the iron hook. Rowan touched the iron and found it still warm. She laid her palm on the nearest bedroll, and the wool was warm too, creased where someone had lain down recently. No one was there.

"Someone was here this morning," she said quietly. "Maybe within the hour."

Kaelen looked at the open door, then the empty clearing beyond it. "Then where are they?"

On the table, a stack of wax tablets lay in plain view. Rowan picked up the topmost one and tilted it toward the light. Rows of marks were carved into the wax, nightly tallies in the same spaced pattern as the ledger.

"Watch shifts," she said. "Except these don't match the treaty schedule. They match the marks in the ledger."

She ran her thumb over the tablet and found a set of initials scratched in the corner. R.V.

Her breath stopped in her throat. "I recognize the hand," she said slowly. "The R is closed at the top, the V is cut sharp, the way I've written my initials since I was a girl. But I can't swear I made these marks. I don't remember writing them, and I don't think I did."

Kaelen came to the table and looked down at the tablet. "Then someone here has been signing your name for a long time."

"Or someone was taught to copy it. The steward, or whoever took his place." She tucked the tablet inside her cloak, against her ribs, where she could feel its edge through the wool. "Someone who watched me sign things for years."

Kaelen nodded once, then turned to the door. "Bran. Secure the post. Nobody touches the stew, the bedrolls, or the tablets until we're back."

Behind them, Bran's voice called from the clearing. "Alpha. Riders on the north road."

They slipped out through the trees and reached the edge of the clearing as the riders came into view. Four of them, cloaked in Ironridge grey. Their horses moved at a steady pace, and one of them carried a lantern, though it was still daylight.

Rowan's hand went to her sword before she thought about it. Then she saw the rider in front, and the breath left her in a rush.

Maren.

Maren rode without her braids tied back, her hair loose and tangled from the wind. She reined in at the clearing's edge, her eyes sweeping the trees until they found Rowan's face. The three riders behind her stayed silent.

"You shouldn't be here," Maren said.

"Neither should you," Rowan said.

Maren's gaze went past them to the cabin, and something in her face shifted. "Then you've seen the fire," she said. "And the bedrolls."

"Where are the men who slept in them?" Kaelen asked.

Maren didn't answer. She only looked at Rowan, and the silence between them said more than words would have.

Rowan looked back at the post: the open door, the warm stew, the bedrolls still creased from sleep. Nobody had been left behind by accident. The post had been emptied before they ever rode up the track. Whoever had been here had left the evidence behind and taken every witness with them.

They had not stumbled onto a forgotten camp. Someone had arranged for them to find it. But what the conspirators wanted them to see inside, Rowan could not yet tell.