The City Inside the Walls
1175 Words
The convoy slid under the North Gate, and everything changed.
Outside the walls, there were mud, reeds, and running. Inside, the streets were lined with old stone—cobbled lanes, black iron lamps, and carved doorways—but nothing felt antique. Clear glass street signs glowed softly at the corners. The lamps hummed on as the cars passed. Small lenses blinked from the brackets. What looked like decoration was doing a job.
Talia stared. So did Alina.
Amalia laughed. “Close your mouths, children, or the flies will move in.”
From the front seat, Casius glanced back. “Yeah,” he said, amused. “We’re more high-tech than we look.”
They rolled through the first square. Discs set into the paving clicked under the tires—sensors counting cars and checking plates. Slim poles on the rooftops turned like they were listening. Thin metal plates sat on door frames where house numbers should be. It hit Talia at once: the city wasn’t just pretty; it was wired. Lights, lenses, plates—stitched together into a safety net. Old protections folded into new systems, all built into everyday things.
They turned off the main road. A low, modern building sat behind clean ironwork and a modest sign: EMERGENCY. The doors parted without a sound.
Inside, the hospital was bright, organized, and built for efficiency and speed. No shouting. No panic. A team in gray pushed a bed toward the ambulance bay before the truck even stopped.
“Bed two,” the doctor in charge said. “On my count—three, two, one.”
Lucian was on the table in a blink. Monitors came alive. A nurse snapped on gloves. Another spiked a bag and hung it. A third checked the line. Everyone moved like they’d done this together a thousand times.
Amalia matched their rhythm at once. “Avoid sedation if you can,” she told the doctor. “He responds better when he can hear me.”
“Understood,” the doctor said. She nodded to Talia. “Don’t lift—keep your pressure exactly where it is.”
Talia’s palms didn’t move. “In…two…three. Out…two…three.” He watched her mouth and matched his breath.
Alina—now wrapped in Casius’s leather duster—took position between Casius and the curtain, her shoulder almost touching Talia’s. Casius stayed at her side. He spoke into Hale’s radio, then to Rocco at the door. Without drama, a ring formed around the bed: the medical team inside, quiet protection outside.
“Scan in five,” the doctor said. “Quick imaging to check depth and confirm nothing’s left inside.”
“Good,” Amalia said. She checked the dressing, then Lucian’s color, and finally Talia’s face. She handed her a paper cup. "Drink."
The water was cold, with a faint mineral taste. Talia drank. She hadn’t realized her hands were shaking until they weren’t.
Outside the glass wall, life kept going. A couple hurried past with a toddler. A bike messenger cut across the lane and vanished under a camera. A woman in a blue coat argued with a stubborn parking meter. The city held thousands—human and not—and everyone went on with their day while the king bled two rooms away.
“You can breathe,” Casius said to both women, eyes on the door. “He hates hospitals. He’s also the best one we have.”
“I can see that,” Talia said.
This place ran on planning and discipline.
On the drive through the city, they’d passed small houses with bright doors and window boxes. They looked welcoming. Up close, the second layer revealed gateposts with silent scanners, doorbells with twin lenses, and old iron grates that were actually locks. Home on the outside. Security underneath. Alina had caught Talia’s eye, mouths open; Amalia’s giggle had snapped them back. “Close your mouths,” she’d scolded. “The city is quaint, not naive.”
The curtain rattled, and the doctor stuck her head back in. “Whatever you did out there, keep doing it,” she told Amalia and Talia. “Bleeding is controlled. We’ll take a quick scan and bring him right back.”
Inside Lucian’s room, Casius stood guard at the door but watched Alina closely. She bent her head toward Talia. “You’re steady?” she whispered.
Talia nodded, eyes never leaving her mate. “And you?”
“I’m good,” Alina sighed. Talia took a look at her. In two months, she is mated to the Royal Beta, a legendary white wolf and a fighter in her own right. Their father would be proud. “Your wolf is beautiful. What’s her name?”
Alina smiled. “Kara.”
Talia’s wolf, Kaela—quiet until now—stirred. We are proud of Kara, she said softly.
Rocco spoke low into his mic. “North corridor clear. Guard on the stairwell. No press at the gate.”
“Ring holds,” Hale answered from the hall.
Elder Neris stood at the foot of the bed, hands folded on her staff, eyes on the doorway like a grandmother who had watched a lot of doorways. “Do you feel it?” she asked, still looking forward.
“Feel what?” Talia asked.
“The city,” Neris said. “It’s awake.”
Talia listened. Under the hum of the monitor, the building itself breathed. Not tricks. Systems. A protected place is doing its job. She was certain now the central hub sat below these streets, tied to the palace network in a loop that never slept.
They wheeled Lucian out and back in less than ten minutes. The scan was clean. No fragments. A deep, straightforward cut.
“Good work,” the doctor said. “He’ll scar.”
“He’ll live,” Amalia said, taping the dressing with neat, firm hands.
Lucian never took his eyes off Talia. The anger from last night—Roland’s letter, the dagger she had kept—was still there, but now it sat beside something steadier: the choice he’d made in the Whitewood to trust their link and let her hold him up. He carried both at once and didn’t seem confused by it.
“War room in twenty,” Hale said to Casius and Rocco. “Debriefing. We planned arrangements to bury our own; we brought Roland's body back.”
Amalia was silent.
“After,” Talia said again, firmer. “Five minutes. Then he’s yours.”
Hale hid a smile. “Five minutes,” he agreed.
The machines hummed. Somewhere down the hall, a bell rang—just a cart rolling over a threshold. Talia’s shoulders let go of a knot she hadn’t known she was holding.
She looked out the window. The city welcomes at the door and a watch list behind it. No wonder it survived.
They got inside the walls alive. Now they had to hold it.
Talia smoothed the tape on the dressing at her mate’s side one more time and let herself breathe.
- Writer
