Chapter 32 Who Is He?
Chapter 32 Who Is He?
DAVINA'S POV
There was something about the way Caspian's shoulders were set with his jaw clenched, and his eyes darting ahead that made it impossible for me to lag behind. The easy warmth he usually radiated was completely gone, replaced by a focused intensity.
We didn’t say a word until the old storage buildings faded into the distance.
I glanced back once. The door was now hidden behind trees and stone, but the image of the journal was still vivid in my mind. The worn leather cover, the crescent moon pressed deep into it, and the seven stars surrounding it. That strange, unsettling recognition had settled in my chest the moment I laid eyes on it, and it hadn’t left since.
“What was it?” I finally asked.
“What was what?” he replied, his gaze still fixed ahead.
“The journal, Caspian.”
He kept walking, his pace steady. “I don’t know.”
“I know you’re lying.”
He hesitated, just for a moment, then quietly admitted, “Yes.”
That stopped me in my tracks. He took a few more steps before realizing I wasn’t beside him and turned around.
“Some things are safer not knowing,” he said.
“Just give me an answer.”
He held my gaze, unwavering. “I’m sorry, I can't provide you with one.”
Frustration bubbled up inside me. Since I came here, it had been like this, half-truths, careful pauses. Everyone in this compound danced around the truth as if it were something I needed to be shielded from. I was so tired of it.
“I’m not a child,” I said firmly.
Something changed in his expression. “I know that.”
“Then stop treating me like one.”
He looked away toward the tree line, taking a moment to gather his thoughts. When he spoke again, his voice was softer. “There are things in this world that become dangerous the moment certain people find out they exist. That journal is one of them.” He met my gaze again. “That’s all I can give you right now. I’m sorry.”
It wasn’t enough. But the way he said it told me that pushing harder wouldn’t change anything, so I let it go, and we resumed walking.
The compound came back into view, with wolves crossing the yard, a training group heading toward the eastern field, and the ordinary rhythm of the morning continuing as if nothing had happened. It felt surreal, like stepping out of a storm into a bustling café.
“Caspian,” I said, breaking the silence.
“Mm?”
“Someone led me there.”
He turned to me sharply. “What do you mean?”
I recounted everything, the figure in dark clothing slipping between buildings, staying just out of reach, the deliberate turns, and how he vanished the moment I rounded that last corner.
By the time I finished, the relaxed demeanor Caspian usually wore was gone. His jaw was tense, and he looked at me with an intensity I hadn’t seen before.
“You didn’t see his face?” he asked.
“No. Just his build. Tall, dark clothing, and he moved like he knew the place well.”
He muttered something under his breath.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“That wasn’t nothing.”
He stopped walking and faced me fully. “Only very few trusted people knows about that journal, and we haven't seen it in years,” he said. “That building hasn’t been used in years either. The people who know it exists? I can count them on one hand.”
His words landed heavily, each one sinking in deeper than the last.
“So if very few people knows about it,” I said cautiously, “then who is it that just made sure I found it?”
“Why me?” I asked again.
He didn’t answer, and the silence spoke volumes. Someone had specifically chosen me. Out of everyone in this compound, every wolf, every warrior, every person with actual history in this world they had picked the human who didn’t know anything.
I was still grappling with that when noise from the training ground broke the morning calm. Voices swelled into a crowd gathering around something that shouldn’t be there.
Caspian noticed it too and his expression shifted instantly.
He started moving and I followed, reaching toward the sound. Wolves were converging from all directions, drawn together by the gravity of something wrong.
When we reached the edge of the crowd, Caspian’s presence parted them. Wolves stepped aside, creating a path, and I trailed closely behind him until we broke through to the front.
Something had been nailed to one of the central training posts.
My brain registered it in fragments. First, the size, then the texture. Finally, the smell, copper and raw, unmistakable even from several feet away.
Animal hide, or not just any animal.
Wolf skin.
Words had been carved into it.
SEND THE HUMAN BACK NOW.
The crowd fell completely silent.
The wolves stood in absolute stillness, and I felt every single one of them turn toward me at once. They were waiting, watching, some glancing at the hide, others at me, all calculating something I couldn’t quite grasp.
My pulse thundered in my ears.
This wasn’t a note tossed across a dining hall or a graffiti on a wall.
This was something placed right in the center of the compound where every wolf would see it, by someone unafraid to be seen doing it. Someone who wanted the pack to know they were bold enough.
Beside me, Caspian swore under his breath, quiet enough that only I could hear.
I kept my face neutral. I had learned that much at least, whatever I was feeling, this crowd didn’t get to see it.
That’s when I felt it.
Not just the weight of all the pairs of eyes. Something different.
I turned slowly, scanning the gathered faces. Warriors, hunters, pack members I recognized and some I didn’t. My gaze moved through the crowd until it caught a figure near the back, partially hidden by the people in front.
Tall, dark clothing with hood pulled up.
The same build, the same height and the same stillness as the figure I had chased through the compound just an hour ago.
He was looking directly at me.
For one brief second, neither of us moved.
Then he smiled, like someone who had orchestrated every single thing that had happened this morning and was pleased with the outcome.
Then he stepped back, and the crowd swallowed him, and just like that, he was gone.
Like he had never been there at all.