Chapter 86: The Missing
Chapter 86: The Missing
The kitchen windows rattled in their iron frames as the wind howled through the courtyard, carrying the bitter bite of snow behind it. Winter was no longer creeping in. It had arrived.
I stood at the sink, sleeves rolled past my elbows, scrubbing the last of the dried root vegetables from a battered basin. My knuckles were chapped, my shoulders tight. Talon was strapped to my chest, dozing gently against me as the warmth of my body lulled him into a calm sleep.
Across the long wooden table, Dessa sliced through a pile of flatbread with her usual efficiency, though her eyes kept flicking toward the open doorway.
Something was wrong.
The tension in the air was a pulse, steady and strange. Wolves passed the threshold of the kitchen too quickly, speaking in voices that were too low, too sharp. No laughter. No chatter. Even the betas kept their heads down.
“Did something happen?” I asked softly, not lifting my gaze from the basin.
Dessa’s knife paused mid-cut. “Third patrol didn’t come back last night.”
I stopped moving. Water sloshed over the edge of the basin and soaked the hem of my apron, but I didn’t notice. “How long overdue?”
“Should’ve returned by moonrise.” She wiped her blade on a cloth. “That was eight hours ago.”
Talon stirred faintly in his wrap, one hand curling into the fabric of my shirt.
I turned to her fully. “Who was on it?”
“Kai. Sorren. Mae.”
Mae. The quiet one with the long braid and the bruised knuckles. She had helped me lift a boiling pot off the hearth just last week when no one else moved to assist. She hadn’t spoken more than five words to me since I arrived, but there had been something in her expression that made me feel less like a ghost.
“Have they sent anyone after them?”
“They’re about to.” Dessa looked at me, brows drawn. “And before you say anything, the answer’s no. You don’t have to throw yourself into it.”
“I’m not.” My voice was steady, quiet. “But I want to help.”
She didn’t speak for a long moment. Then she sighed and glanced toward the window. “You’ll have to talk to Roran.”
“I planned to.”
I wiped my hands, untied the apron, and passed Talon gently into her arms. He didn’t even wake.
Dessa held him close, brows tightening. “This isn’t the kitchen, Lyra. If he says no, you don’t argue.”
“I understand.”
“You do more than understand. You listen. That’s how you survive here.”
I nodded, then turned for the door.
The wind hit me like a blade. I pulled my hood low and crossed the yard toward the steps leading to the command hall. The sun was still low, barely more than a smear of pale light through gray sky. Roran stood on the landing, flanked by two sentries and his Beta, Kalen. His voice carried—calm, clipped, efficient.
I stopped a few paces away.
His gaze snapped to me the moment I entered his line of sight. It was instant. Focused.
“I want in,” I said before he could speak.
Silence met me.
Kalen arched an eyebrow.
Roran didn’t move. “In what?”
“The search. The patrol. Whatever you’re sending to look for them.”
“I already have a team.”
“Then make room for one more.”
He descended the stairs slowly, boots crunching over frost-hardened gravel. He stopped just in front of me. Not close enough to threaten. Just close enough that I could feel the weight of him.
“Do you even know the terrain?”
“No. But I know how to track. And I know how to fight.”
“You’ve been stirring soup for weeks.”
I held his stare. “And before that, I crossed rogue territory with a newborn strapped to my chest. I killed to get him here. I bled to keep him alive.”
“I’m not questioning your desperation,” he said. “I’m questioning your utility.”
My jaw tightened. “You gave me ten days to prove myself. Let me start now.”
Roran’s eyes flicked to Kalen, who gave a subtle nod without a word.
“You’ll stay with the middle line,” Roran said at last. “You don’t break formation. You don’t speak unless addressed. You do exactly what I tell you, when I tell you. If you hesitate, I leave you behind.”
“Understood.”
“If you lie to me, if you compromise the safety of my team in any way—”
“I don’t lie,” I cut in, quieter now. “Not about this.”
A long pause passed between us. The kind that holds the shape of something unspoken.
Roran studied me. Not my face—my stance. My posture. Like he was measuring the weight I carried and asking himself whether it was going to slow him down.
Then, with a nod, he stepped back.
“Gear up. You leave with us in an hour.”
I nodded and turned to leave.
As I reached the edge of the courtyard, I heard his voice behind me. “You said ‘them.’”
I paused.
“You said, ‘whatever you’re sending to look for them.’ Not ‘the patrol.’ Not ‘the bodies.’ You think they’re still alive?”
I turned just enough to meet his gaze again. “I have to.”
He didn’t answer. Just watched me walk away.
And I let him wonder what else I was holding onto.