Chapter 23 The Price Of Silence
Two days had crawled by in the keep like wounded animals. Snow piled against the windows, wind howled through the arrow slits, and every wolf walked softly, afraid to disturb the fragile balance between life and death that now ruled the tower.
In the infirmary, Alberto opened his eyes to a world that felt both too bright and too quiet.
Pain lived in every joint, every breath, but it was distant, muffled, as though someone else carried the worst of it. He lay still for a long moment, staring at the timber ceiling, trying to remember how he had come to be here. Memory returned in sharp, jagged pieces: chains, silver, Vargus’s smile, Liana’s scream, the cleaver falling, and then Fernando’s voice cutting through the dark like a blade of light.
He sat up too fast. The room tilted. Mira was there instantly, hands gentle but firm on his shoulders.
“Easy,” she said. “You have been gone a long while.”
Alberto’s throat was sand and rust. “Fernando,” he rasped. “Where is he?”
Mira’s face told him everything before she spoke. “He performed the soul-bond. He took your poison into himself to keep you alive. He has not woken since. He may not wake for days. Maybe longer.”
The words struck harder than any whip. Alberto tore free of the blankets, bare feet hitting cold stone. The stump of his missing finger throbbed, but he ignored it.
“Take me to him.”
Mira tried to protest, but he was already moving, swaying but upright, driven by something deeper than strength. She followed, half-supporting him through corridors that blurred past.
The north tower door stood guarded by two silent wolves. They stepped aside when they saw Alberto’s face.
Inside, the chamber was dim, the fire burned low, and Fernando lay on the great bed like a statue carved from grief. Black veins threaded beneath his skin, more visible now than when the bond was first forged. His chest rose and fell in shallow, careful breaths. The pain that should have killed Alberto lived in him now, plain on his sleeping face.
Alberto fell to his knees beside the bed and seized Fernando’s hand with both of his own.
“Please,” he whispered, voice breaking. “Do not do this. Do not die for me. I am not worth it. Wake up. Please wake up.”
Tears cut clean tracks through the grime on his cheeks. He pressed his forehead to Fernando’s knuckles, shaking.
The door opened behind him.
Darius stepped in, closing it softly. His face was carved from stone, eyes flat and cold.
“You are awake,” he said. No warmth. No relief. Only accusation.
Alberto did not look up. “I never asked him to do this.”
“But he did.” Darius crossed the room in slow, deliberate strides. “He tore his own soul open to keep you breathing. And now he may never wake because of it.”
Alberto’s shoulders curled inward. “I am sorry. I will find Mira. There must be a way to break the bond, to give it back—”
“There is no breaking it.” Darius’s voice cracked like a whip. “You think you can just undo what he chose? You think you can walk away and leave him to carry your death alone?”
Alberto lifted his head at last. “I never wanted—”
Darius moved faster than sight. His hand closed around Alberto’s throat and slammed him back against the bedpost. The impact drove the air from Alberto’s lungs.
“You brought those documents,” Darius snarled, face inches away. “You walked out of the south with maps and secrets no wolfless stray should ever have touched. You let Fernando believe you killed Vargus. And because of that belief he bound himself to a liar.”
Alberto clawed at the hand crushing his windpipe, but he did not fight back. “I am sorry,” he rasped again.
“Sorry does not wake him.” Darius released him abruptly and stepped back. “Guards!”
The door opened. Four wolves entered, faces hard.
“Take him to the lower cells,” Darius ordered. “Chain him in silver. He will speak.”
They seized Alberto’s arms. He did not resist. Only once did he look back at Fernando’s still form, eyes wet and desperate, before they dragged him away.
The lower cells were carved from the bedrock beneath the keep, damp and lit by a single torch. Iron cuffs lined with silver were snapped around Alberto’s wrists and ankles. The metal burned where it touched skin, but the pain barely registered beside the ache in his chest.
Darius followed them down. He dismissed the guards with a flick of his fingers and waited until the door clanged shut.
“Start talking,” he said quietly. “Everything. How a wolf with no beast inside him walked into Vargus’s den, took those documents, and walked out again. Every detail.”
Alberto hung in the chains, head bowed. Blood dripped from the silver burns on his wrists. He said nothing.
Darius waited ten heartbeats. Then he struck.
His fist drove into Alberto’s ribs hard enough to crack bone. The impact echoed off stone. Alberto doubled over as far as the chains allowed, breath exploding from his lungs.
“Speak.”
Silence.
Darius hit him again, and again. Knuckles split against cheekbone. Blood filled Alberto’s mouth. Each blow was precise, calculated to hurt without killing. When fists were not enough, Darius took a short iron rod from the wall and laid it across Alberto’s back in measured, brutal strokes.
“Fernando is not here to save you this time,” Darius said between strikes. “No one is coming. I will break every bone you have. I will peel the skin from your back. And if you die, the bond will drag him down with you. Is that what you want?”
Alberto sagged, blood dripping from his mouth onto the straw. He still did not speak.
The door burst open.
Mira stood panting in the entrance, face white with fury.
“Stop!” she shouted. “Darius, stop this now!”
Darius lowered the rod, breathing hard.
Mira strode forward and shoved between them, placing herself in front of Alberto like a shield.
“Whatever you do to him, Fernando feels,” she said, voice shaking with rage. “Every lash, every broken bone, every drop of blood. The bond does not care who deserves it. You are killing your Alpha while he sleeps!”
Darius stared at her, chest heaving. The rod trembled in his grip.
Slowly, deliberately, he let it fall. It clanged against the stone.
He turned to the guards who had followed Mira down.
“No food,” he ordered. “No water. Nothing until he tells us how he got those documents. A wolfless thing like him did not beat Vargus alone. I want the truth.”
He walked out without looking back.
The door slammed. The torch flickered.
Alberto hung in the chains, blood dripping steady from his mouth and nose, and stared at the opposite wall. Pain rolled through him in waves, but beneath it, steady and strong, he felt Fernando’s heartbeat echoing his own.
He closed his eyes and kept Vargus’s secrets locked behind bruised and swollen lips.
For Liana.
For Fernando.
For the lie that might still keep them both alive.