Chapter 16: Chapter Fifteen

Amaris

After the shift in the council room, Ravencrest changes.

It isn’t dramatic in a way they’d admit. Wolves don’t like admitting fear. They like calling it caution or strategy, and they like pretending their instincts aren’t running the show.

But I can smell it anyway.

Leaving the room assigned to me, I walk down the hallway, and the wolves become quieter when I walk through them, their conversations stopping mid-sentence. Wolves look at me like they’re trying to decide if I’m a miracle or a curse. Some of them look away fast, like staring too long might invite something to happen, but a few stare harder, like defiance will protect them if I’m dangerous.

Nobody touches me.

That part of my terms holds, and I know why. Boone is enforcing it. Ember is enjoying enforcing it. Asher is watching like a hawk and making sure no one with more pride than sense tries to test me.

Kenton keeps his distance physically. He doesn’t keep his distance emotionally. I feel him like pressure in the air, like the room is warmer when he’s nearby. He watches me constantly, and the way his gaze lands on me makes my skin buzz with that pull I still can’t explain.

Maxon stays closer than Kenton does, but he doesn’t hover the way the pack thinks he does. He hovers the way a man does when he has seen the same kind of threat twice in his life, and he refuses to watch it happen again.

I see it in the way he watches the tree line from the windows. I see it in the way he flinches when the old stories get spoken too close to him. I see it in the way his jaw tightens when wolves whisper.

The whispers keep happening, and it never sounds casual. It sounds like disbelief being forced into a mouth that wants to scream.

I hear it again as I move through the training yard near the racks of practice weapons. Two young warriors who must think they’re out of range are talking, their words reaching me without effort, and I stop mid-step and turn, watching as they go still like someone just snapped a leash.

“Say it again,” I tell them, voice calm.

One of them swallows. The other’s eyes flick to the side, looking for help, like Boone or Ember will save him from the consequences of his own mouth.

Ember, leaning against a post with her arms crossed, smiles slowly. “I will not save you,” she says cheerfully. “I might watch, though.”

The warrior’s face turns red. “We didn’t mean anything,” he mutters.

“I didn’t ask what you meant,” I say. “I asked you to say it again.”

He shifts his weight, defensive. “I said, 'She can't be a white wolf,'” he says, louder this time, like repeating it gives him control over it.

The words land and hang in the air.

Maxon is across the yard near a rack of blades, and I see him go rigid from here, spine straightening like a wire just got pulled tight. His eyes turn darker, and the flare of something in his scent is sharp enough that it makes the hair on my arms rise.

Fear, and not fear of me but fear for me.

I step closer to the warrior. “Why can’t it be,” I ask, voice low.

He opens his mouth, then closes it, because the answer is bigger than he is. It’s stories and blood and centuries of absence. It’s the kind of thing people don’t want to explain because explaining makes it real.

“Because it hasn’t happened,” he finally says. “Because it’s lore.”

“Then treat it like lore,” I say. “Stop whispering it like it’s an excuse to act stupid.”

Ember laughs. “She’s going to be my favorite headache.”

I glance at her. “You’re already a headache.”

Ember’s grin widens. “And you’re already fun.”

And the next day doesn’t get any easier. Instead, it gets sharper.

Wolves start to test boundaries indirectly. Not by touching me, but by watching, by crowding hallways and then stepping aside at the last second like they did me a favor. A few try to bait me into anger because anger is easier to label than fear.

I don’t give it to them for free. Instead, I train, and I don’t wait for someone to invite me. I show up in the yard with my boots tied tight and my hair pulled back and my jaw set. Boone looks surprised for half a second, then amused.

“Decided to hit someone,” he says.

“Decided to learn,” I answer.

Boone nods once. “Fair.”

Maxon watches from the edge of the yard, with his arms crossed, and his eyes tracking every movement. Kenton watches too, but he pretends he’s watching patrol rotations. He’s a terrible liar.

I pick up a practice blade and test its weight. It feels familiar, which is ridiculous because I’m not someone who grew up learning sword forms. Still, my body moves like it knows how to hold a weapon, like muscle memory exists from a life I don’t remember.

That thought makes my skin prickle, and I shove it away.

Boone steps into the ring with a training staff. “Show me what you’ve got,” he says.

I do, and end up getting knocked on my ass twice, but I get back up both times without complaining. The third time, I catch Boone’s wrist and twist just enough that he has to shift his stance.

His eyebrows lift. “Okay,” he says, and I can hear the approval under it. “You’re not just angry. You’re learning.”

“Anger teaches,” I say.

Boone snorts. “Anger gets you killed if you don’t know when to stop.”

I lunge again, faster this time, and he blocks me, but my blade slides off his staff and comes around. He twists, barely avoiding it, and his laugh bursts out, surprised and real.

Ember claps like she’s watching a show. “That’s my girl.”

My chest heaves. Sweat runs down my spine, and my knuckles ache.

Maxon’s gaze stays fixed on me, and I can feel him holding himself back, like he wants to step in, and like he refuses because he promised me space.

Kenton finally moves, stepping closer to the edge of the ring. His voice is low. “You don’t have to prove anything.”

I look at him, breathing hard. “I’m not proving,” I say. “I’m preparing.”

His eyes hold mine, intense. “For what?”

The question lands wrong because I don’t know the answer. I only know something is coming, and my body knows it too, humming under my skin like the wolf wants out.

I lift my chin. “For whatever decides to come for me next.”

The words hang heavy.

Maxon’s posture shifts at the edge of the yard, the rigid stillness returning for a beat, and I realize again that he is afraid in a way he won’t name and that fear makes me angry.

Not at him, but at the world, because the world always finds new ways to turn survival into a war.

I turn back to Boone. “Again,” I say.

Boone grins, all teeth. “Again,” he agrees.