Chapter 69: Trust Flickers

We didn’t speak much the first day.

Fenn kept his distance, walking ahead of me on narrow game trails, his ears sharp for the crackle of branches, the hush of wind that meant more than weather. He didn’t push for conversation. Didn’t question the way I held Talon closer whenever the forest darkened.

But on the second day, when I nearly tripped on a hidden snare, he cursed under his breath and turned back to help me up. “You walk like a noble girl in a war zone,” he muttered, grabbing my elbow. “You need to watch where your feet land. Light and wide. Think like prey—but move like a predator.”

I glared. “I was pregnant less than six weeks ago.”

He had the grace to flinch. “Right. Sorry. Just—if you want to stay ahead of the wrong kind of eyes, you need to vanish. Not announce yourself like a marching band.”

“I’m not trying to vanish,” I said. “I’m trying to keep my son alive.”

He didn’t argue with that. Instead, he showed me how to move without leaving tracks—how to bend saplings behind me to obscure our trail, how to read broken moss for signs of recent passage. He even taught me how to listen.

“Rogues don’t just survive on brawn,” he said, crouching beside me as Talon slept in his sling. “It’s the little sounds that save you. The rustle of cloth where it shouldn’t be. The shift of breath in the trees.”

By the third day, we fell into rhythm.

He taught. I learned.

I asked questions.

He answered when it suited him.

But it was around the fire that night, when Talon was bundled between us and the pine needles crackled under our cloaks, that I finally said, “You never asked why I was exiled.”

Fenn’s brow rose. He passed me a chunk of dried venison. “Didn’t figure you’d want to talk about it.”

“I didn’t.”

“So why now?”

“Because it matters,” I said. “Because if we’re traveling together, you should know who you're walking beside.”

He didn’t answer immediately. Just waited.

So I told him.

Not everything—but more than I had told anyone since the night they tore the Luna title from me.

I told him about Kael’s death. About finding his body alone in the woods, the blood, the silence in our bond. I told him about the funeral pyre, about lighting it myself, about the way my Luna mark faded from my skin while the flames swallowed what remained of the only man I ever loved.

Fenn didn’t speak.

His jaw tightened, but his hands didn’t move.

I told him about the council. About Coren. About the forged seal naming Kael’s so-called successor. About how I stood before them with Talon in my arms, pleading, accusing—and no one said a word.

“I was Luna,” I said, voice low and flat. “And they erased me like I was a footnote in Kael’s story. Like I didn’t bleed beside him through every war. Like I wasn’t his mate.”

Fenn exhaled slowly. “Gods.”

“That seal,” I said bitterly, “was supposed to be his word. His choice. But Kael would never name Coren. He didn’t even trust him.”

“And you think it was forged?”

“I know it was.”

His voice dropped. “Then they’re more corrupt than I thought.”

“You weren’t there when it all fell apart,” I said. “Why?”

He hesitated. Stirred the fire with a stick. Then finally said, “I left before Kael died. A moon before, give or take. I was tired of being passed over for command. Bran didn’t like me. Coren loathed me. Thought I was too blunt, too violent. I spoke against him in council once—Kael shielded me, but I knew it wouldn’t last.”

I blinked. “So they pushed you out?”

“They gave me a choice,” he said. “Resign quietly, or be tried for ‘insubordination and excessive force.’ You know the kind of force we used under Kael. Brutal, when necessary. And always justified. But under Coren? That became a liability.”

I let silence fall between us for a while. Then: “Why did you come back?”

“I didn’t,” he said. “I was tracking rogue movements near the edge of the south range. Figured I’d find some clue about who’d breached the barrier the night Kael fell.”

He glanced at me then. “I didn’t know he was dead until I saw your face.”

I turned to the fire. “You’re not the only one who feels guilty.”

He nodded once.

The next morning, he showed me how to make a snare from twisted root fibers. How to steal meat from another camp without alerting a sentry. How to melt snow between stones instead of using fire.

“You’re getting sharper,” he said as I spotted a break in the tree line. “Your instincts were soft. But they’re coming back.”

“I was never soft,” I muttered.

“No,” he said. “But grief makes us stupid.”

That stopped me.

He shrugged. “Ask me how I know.”

Later that day, I caught us both two rabbits using one of his snares. He watched me dress them with careful hands and said nothing—until I offered him half.

“You didn’t have to,” he said.

“I know.”

We didn’t eat in silence after that.

I asked about the border territories. He told me where the rogues were growing bolder. He warned me of trade routes near the canyon—“Too exposed. Good for traps, bad for pups.” He made me laugh once by impersonating a pompous Nightfall Elder who used to drone on about the “glory of pureblood lineage.”

But when night fell and Talon cried—loud, sharp, cold from a sudden breeze—I saw something shift in Fenn’s eyes.

“Let me,” he said quietly.

I blinked. “You want to—?”

“Warm him while you get the fire built.”

It was a small thing. A simple thing.

But when I handed Talon over and watched Fenn curl around him with a kind of reverence, I felt something unfamiliar twist in my gut.

Not affection.

Not yet.

But the ache of trust, trying to take root again.

That night, I let myself fall asleep first.

And when I woke, Talon was still nestled safe between us, Fenn’s knife resting on the log by his side, as if he'd kept watch the whole night.