CHAPTER TWO — AFTERMATH
1373 Words
CHAPTER TWO — AFTERMATH
Isolde Rivenhart’s POV
The morning air in Silverpine bit harder than it did in Bloodvale.
I didn’t know if it was the altitude or if my body was still adjusting to freedom. Or maybe this was what air was supposed to feel like when no one owned your breath.
I pulled my cloak tighter as I crossed the outer yard, boots crunching over a thin crust of frost. Warriors were already sparring on the far side, their laughter and grunts sharp in the crisp dawn. A few of them glanced my way. None of them stared.
Silverpine didn’t care who you were before you arrived — only who you were when you stood in front of them.
I liked that.
I wasn’t the Luna here. I wasn’t anyone’s bonded mate. I was just a woman with a past no one asked about.
And that suited me just fine.
I spent the morning in the training ring, not because I wanted to prove anything, but because the motion helped quiet my thoughts. Blade work. Footwork. Breath. The rhythm was simple, unlike the chaos still clinging to my mind.
The rejection hadn’t erased the years I’d spent tethered to Ronan. It had only severed the string.
I was still bleeding where it snapped.
---
“You hold your stance too long,” Thorne said from behind me as I struck the training dummy for the third time in a row.
I didn’t turn. “You watch everyone this closely, or am I special?”
“Only the ones who fight like they’ve got something to bury.”
I smiled without meaning to. “You planning to offer advice or just commentary?”
“Depends. Are you going to take it?”
I turned to face him then, brushing sweat from my brow. “Try me.”
He stepped into the ring without another word, unsheathing the long blade at his back and tossing me a short dagger.
“Switch hands,” he said.
I frowned. “I’m dominant right.”
“That’s why I want your left.”
I didn’t ask questions. Just flipped the blade and shifted my weight. He circled me once — measured, deliberate — and then lunged.
The sparring wasn’t gentle. Thorne didn’t hold back. He moved like a man with control layered over violence, like a storm hidden beneath calm. I blocked, ducked, twisted, struck — and still he caught me off-balance more than once.
But I never hit the ground.
And when we finally paused, both of us breathing hard, his eyes flicked to mine and held there.
“You learn fast,” he said.
“I have good motivation.”
“Which is?”
I didn’t answer right away. My chest still heaved. My throat tasted like iron and ash.
“I want to forget,” I said finally.
He nodded once. “That’ll do.”
---
That night, I dreamt of fire.
Not Ronan. Not the bond. Just flame — bright and consuming — licking at the edges of my limbs until I woke with my heart pounding and the sheets damp with sweat.
I sat up, breathing through it.
The bond was gone. The connection severed. I knew it in my bones.
But the memories still had teeth.
---
Days passed.
I started running the perimeter trails with the Silverpine scouts — quiet, watchful wolves who didn’t say much and didn’t expect anything in return. I liked them. They reminded me of who I used to be, before Bloodvale had carved me into something ornamental.
Thorne kept his distance most days, but I felt his presence more than I saw it. A glance here. A question passed through one of his seconds. A spare dagger left beside my breakfast plate the morning after I broke the hilt on my own.
He wasn’t subtle.
But he was respectful.
He never asked about Ronan. Never asked why I’d done what I did. And somehow, that made me want to tell him more than if he’d demanded it.
---
It was nearly two weeks before I saw Ronan’s name again.
I found it scrawled on a crumpled parchment, half-buried beneath a pile of reports in Silverpine’s war room. Someone had brought word of movement near the southern ridge — patrols heavier than usual, strange howls heard at the border, a familiar scent left behind.
I didn’t touch the paper. Just stood there, reading the line over and over:
Bloodvale activity increasing. Alpha Ronan Blackvale may be preparing to breach.
My mouth went dry.
He hadn’t come for me directly. Not yet. But he was circling.
Waiting.
Planning.
Thorne stepped into the room a few minutes later. He stopped when he saw me staring.
“He won’t cross the border,” he said. “Not without cause.”
I looked up. “You think I’m cause enough?”
“I think he’s still trying to figure out if he’s more hurt or furious.”
“He’s always been better at fury.”
Thorne crossed the room and took the parchment without reading it. Crumpled it in one fist and tossed it aside.
“You’re not his,” he said.
“No. But I was.”
“You think that means you owe him something?”
“No.” I paused. “But I know what he’s capable of.”
Thorne studied me for a moment. “So do I.”
---
The next day, I found a bundle at my door.
A pair of sleek black daggers, perfectly balanced. A note attached in a hand I didn’t recognize:
You fight better when you stop hesitating. — T
I rolled the blades in my hands, felt their weight, the chill of the steel. The last gift Ronan gave me had been a gold collar.
This felt more like trust.
---
I don’t know when it started.
The shifting in the air between me and Thorne. The glances that lingered a second too long. The way his voice dropped when he spoke only to me, like we shared a secret even we didn’t understand yet.
It wasn’t a bond.
It wasn’t fate.
But it was real.
And for the first time in years, I wasn’t afraid of real.
---
One evening, after a long session in the ring, I lingered.
The others had cleared out. The sky outside was burning down to dusk, casting copper light through the high windows. I sat on the edge of the platform, unwrapping my wrist where I’d twisted it during a block.
Thorne walked in, fresh from patrol.
He paused. Then walked over.
“You should ice that.”
“I know.”
He sat beside me, close but not touching.
We didn’t speak for a long time.
Finally, I said, “I thought it would feel cleaner. The rejection.”
He nodded once, slow. “It never is.”
“You’ve done it?”
“Had it done to me.”
I turned to look at him. “Who?”
He didn’t answer. Just shrugged, gaze focused on the window.
“I’m not used to quiet,” I said. “Bloodvale was all about performance. Appearances. Even our silences were for show.”
“This place doesn’t care what you look like when you bleed.”
“No,” I said. “It doesn’t.”
He looked at me then. Really looked.
“What do you want, Isolde?” he asked.
The question hit harder than it should’ve.
Not what do you need. Not what’s next.
Just that.
What do you want?
I didn’t answer. Not because I didn’t know — but because I wasn’t sure I had the right to want it yet.
---
Later that night, I stood at my window, staring out into the darkness. Somewhere out there, Ronan was still watching. Waiting. Maybe even mourning.
But I wasn’t.
Not anymore.
I thought of Thorne’s voice. His steadiness. The daggers in my hands, sharp and clean. The way my body moved now — not caged, not twisted into submission, but alive.
And I thought of the question he’d asked me.
What do you want?
I wasn’t ready to speak it out loud yet.
But I was getting close.
- Writer
