Chapter 279
Chapter 279
Elara’s POV
“State your name.”
The yard went quiet. Wind tugged the new flag and snapped cloth. Miela stood on the flat stones with her hands bound in front, rope plain, no knots for show. Her hair hung loose, pins gone since the hall. Two women from the rogue ranks flanked her, eyes forward. Elder Briar held the ledger open. His pen waited.
Miela lifted her chin. “I do not have one.”
“Correct,” Elder Briar said, writing the line. “By judgment of the alliance and witness of the packs, the woman who bore that name is exiled. No title. No voice to command. No rights beyond water, bread, and work where offered.” He closed the ledger and looked at me. “Alpha.”
I stepped onto the stone. Boots rasped. My wolves held the ring. The exiled crowd watched from the edge, some with anger, many with relief they did not know how to wear. The small bowl flame burned by the steps, steady as a drumbeat.
Miela met my eyes and did not blink. “Say it clean,” she said.
I kept my voice even. “You walk out under guard at first light. You walk past Wyrmshade and down to the low road. You do not cross a pack border without leave. If you do, you are a thief and we treat you as one.”
“I expected chains,” she said.
“You earned work,” I said. “Live long enough to hate the time you wasted.”
Vessa shifted her weight and stepped forward with a small bundle. A plain linen dress. Rough shoes. A cord for her hair. “Change on the road,” Vessa said. “The cloak stays in the dirt.”
Miela huffed a breath that almost let itself be a laugh. “Even your mercy scratches.”
“It holds,” Vessa said.
Eden walked to the far post and drove an iron spike into the stone with three sharp blows. He hung a wooden tag on it. The tag had no name. Only a single line cut through the center. He looked at me. I nodded.
“Walk her,” I said.
The two women from the rogues took the rope. They were not gentle. They were not cruel. They moved like people who had carried heavy things before. Miela looked once more at the flag. The white cloth. The two moons. She looked back at me.
“Will you say goodbye,” she asked.
“I already did,” I said. “In the hall when I did not kill you.”
She blinked, once. “You think this ends me.”
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Chapter 279
65 vouchers
“No,” I said. “I think it starts you.”
She held my gaze for two breaths. Then she turned. The rope led. She walked. No one cheered. No one jeered. Boots whispered. The low gate opened with a groan and swallowed the party into morning haze.
Elder Briar touched the ledger with two fingers. “Witnessed,” he said quietly.
Cael stood at the steps. He looked pale but steady. He watched the gate close and then faced me. “Do you need the hall today,” he asked.
“Not yet,” I said.
“Then go where your hands want to go,” he said. “I will hold the paper until sundown.”
Vessa raised a brow. “Where do your hands want to go.”
“Home,” I said. “The old one.”
Mira pulled her shield onto her back. “I will walk you to the ridge.”
“I want to go alone,” I said.
“Not happening,” she said. “You get the first mile. I get the rest.”
I smiled at that. Small. “Fine.”
We left by the north path. The yard fell behind us with the drum beat and the work orders, with Ruvan chained to the pump and cursing into a bucket he had to lift anyway. The second moon hung thin. The first rode high. Dust rose on our boots and fell again.
Wyrmshade Bluffs opened where the trees cut back and the stone showed its ribs. The air smelled like pine and old ash. The path bent and dropped into the hollow where the Gamma cabin used to tighten its seams against winter. It was ruins now. Half wall. Black stone. A pile of iron nails in one corner, rusted to the shape of the hand that had thrown them there.
Mira stopped at the lip and looked down. “You want me to wait up here.”
“Yes,” I said.
She nodded and stood with her back to the wind, eyes on the trees.
I slid down the slope and stepped onto the old floor. The past creaked even though there was no wood left to complain. I crouched and touched the hearth stone. Cold. Smooth in the center where too many hands had warmed themselves and lied to each other about tomorrow.
“Talk to it,” a voice said at the top of the slope. Mira. “It listens better than people.”
“I know,” I said.
I pulled a small canvas bag from inside my jacket and set it on the hearth. Vessa had tied the mouth with thin cord. I tugged it free and eased out what I had carried too long. A strip of black cloth from my first Gamma
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Chapter 279
sash. The blue ribbon I had untied from that fake schedule. The scrap of paper with my fake name, Elina. Alara, scraped clean at the edge where I had rubbed it when I lied with it. A coin Thorne had left under a cup the day he made me eat when I wanted to work. The shard of glass I had kept from the old ring window after the raid that took our girls. A tiny twig pressed flat in a book the day I said I would be done letting other people write over me.
Mira’s boots slid on the slope. She came down halfway and stopped where she could still see the trees. “How deep.”
“Hand deep,” I said.
She pulled a small spade from her belt and tossed it. I caught the handle and knelt at the edge of the hearth. The earth gave like it had been waiting. I dug until my wrist disappeared. Dirt worked into the cracks on my knuckles. Sweat stung my cut. The spade clicked on old brick. I widened the hole.
Footsteps came from the top path. I looked up. Eden slid into view with a small clay jar under his arm. He raised it like a toast. “Seeds,” he said. “From the ridge. They take in bad soil.”
“You could have sent a runner,” I said.
“I wanted to see you put them in,” he said, jumping down the last shelf. He offered the jar.
I took it and set it by the hole. “You are a terrible spy.”
“I am a decent friend,” he said, settling on a rock. He did not come closer. He looked away when my hands shook.
I placed the strip of black cloth into the hole. It looked like a shadow that forgot to go. I set the blue ribbon beside it. It curled like it wanted to tie something mean and thought better of it. The Elina slip went next. I pressed it down with my thumb until the letters smeared. I dropped the coin. It clinked, soft. I set the glass shard last so it faced up like an eye and then turned it over so it did not.
Mira watched from the slope, quiet. Eden rubbed a thumb over the jar and did not speak.
“What about the locket,” he asked after a while.
“That stays,” I said. “It reminds me of a promise, not a lie.”
“Good,” he said.
I took a breath and poured the seeds into my palm. Small. Pale. Tough. “What are they.”
“Night bloom,” he said. “They open when the air cools.”
“Of course they do,” I said.
I let the seeds fall into the hole between cloth and coin. They made no sound. I covered them with the soil and pressed until the ground was flat, then pressed again until my palm left a shape the size of truth.
Mira slid the last steps down. She pulled a wooden stake from her pack and set it at the edge of the patch. She carved a mark with her knife. Two curves crossing low. No crown. She hammered it in with the heel of her
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Chapter 279
hand.
“No names,” she said.
“No names,” I agreed.
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Wind slipped down the bluff and pushed my hair across my mouth. I tucked it back and stood. My knee popped. My thigh throbbed where Miela’s blade had drawn that thin line. I felt tired and not broken.
Eden squinted at the sky. “You have an hour before the parley riders try to test you again.”
“They can test the flag,” I said.
“Thorne sent a hawk,” he added, casual like that did not knock my ribs. “Message is short. ‘North road. Doors closed. Two more to go. Fenna says you eat.”
A laugh snuck out of me. It sounded rusty and right. “Tell her I will.”
“I did,” Eden said, smiling. “She sent a second note that says, ‘She will lie.”
Mira shook her head. “Fenna sees through everyone.”
“She does,” I said.
Boots scraped the upper ridge. Cael came into view with Elder Briar at his side and Jory two paces back, carrying a basket that smelled like soup. Cael looked down at the hollow. “I told you to go where your hands wanted to go,” he called. “I did not say go there alone.”
“Not alone,” I said, glancing at Mira and Eden.
He nodded and came down slow, careful with his side. He took in the stake. The soil. My hands. His mouth softened. “Did you say words to it.”
“Yes,” I said. “I told it to hold what I am done carrying.”
“Good,” he said. He held out a cloth. I wiped dirt from my fingers. He did not try to hold my hand. He did not need to.
Elder Briar opened the basket. “Soup,” he announced. “Salad. Roasted meat. Bread that does not fight your teeth.”
“Bless you,” Jory said, already chewing.
I took a bowl. Steam rose. The smell was honest. I ate standing, elbow on my knee, eyes on the stake. Mira took a seat on a low stone and pretended to be a wall. Eden drank and made a face when he burned his tongue. Cael sat and watched the tree line as if history might step out and ask for a second try.
Elder Briar folded his ledger on his lap. “Do you want me to mark this place in the book,” he asked.
“No,” I said. “Let it be ours without paper.”
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Chapter 279.
He nodded like that made his hand happy.
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We finished soup and wiped bowls with bread. Jory collected the spoons and tried to stack them in a way that made sense only to him. Mira checked the path up. Eden repacked the jar, now empty. Cael stood with a small wince and looked me over.
“Ready,” he asked.
“Almost,” I said.
I walked to the stake and crouched again. I pressed two fingers to the dirt and then to my brow. Simple. Honest. I stood and breathed in. The hollow held the breath and let it go.
Mira swung her shield down and strapped it tight. “We should move. They will try to drag you into a long talk.”
“I know,” I said.
“Do not give them that,” she said.
“I will not,” I said.
Cael waited at the slope, hand out. I took it and climbed. My boots found grip where once they had slid. At the rim I looked back one last time. The stake stood plain. The soil lay dark and new. The ruins were still ruins. That was fine. Seeds work slow.
Eden hopped up after us. “One more thing,” he said, digging in his coat. He pulled out the graphite stick from the night we dragged the schedule from impressions and held it out. “Trash it here or keep it. Both are right.”
I took the stick. It was worn to a nub. I weighed it. “Keep,” I said, sliding it into my pocket. “It reminds me not to trust clean pages.”
He nodded. “Good call.”
We turned for the path. The wind shifted and carried voices from the yard, far and small. Work sounds. Not war. The new flag would show on the rise as we came back in. It would not glitter. It would just hold.
Cael fell in at my right. Mira took left. Eden walked ahead, whistling a line that did not tug at any memory I hated. Jory trailed with the basket and tried not to trip on his own optimism. Elder Briar trudged with the patience of a man who knew paper could wait an hour.
Mira bumped my shoulder once, light. “You good.”
“I am done,” I said.
“Good done or bad done,” she asked.
“Both,” I said. “Mostly good.”
We reached the top where the trees thinned and the path widened. The yard spread below, busy and loud. The pole with two moons cut the sky. The parley riders waited at the gate with their stained scarf and their
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last try. Ruvan’s chain clinked at the pump. The small bowl flame burned by the infirmary. Life made room.
Cacl touched my elbow. “One order before we go down,” he said.
“Say it.” I said.
“Tell them what you buried,” he said. “They will keep you from having to carry it again.”
I looked at the yard. I looked at the stake behind us. I looked at the men and women who would test us until their bones learned new habits.
“Gather the hall,” I said. “Then bring me a spade.”
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