The road to the train station was quiet. Even the birds knew enough to stay silent.
Dwyn sat beside me in the passenger seat, her satchel at her feet, her hands folded in her lap like she was praying. She stared out the window, lips pressed into a line, eyes unreadable. But I knew that look.
It was her mother's.
I gripped the steering wheel tighter.
She looked so much like Naia now. Same skin tone — deep, rich, beautiful. Same eyes — silver, stormlit. Same quiet fire in her bones, like she belonged more to the sea and the sky than to the forest that raised her.
But she wasn't Naia. She was mine and wholly herself.
And I was sending her away.
The fog thickened as we neared the station — that lonely thing tucked near the cliffside, always smelling of rust and salt. The train wouldn't come for another fifteen minutes, but I already felt like I was losing her.
I parked, cut the engine. Neither of us moved at first.
Then she sighed — soft, shaky — and opened her door.
I followed.
She stepped onto the gravel path, arms wrapped tightly around herself despite the warmth in the air. I wanted to fix the way her shoulders sagged. I wanted to lift the weight I knew had been breaking her back since that gods-damned ceremony.
But I couldn't- I couldn't fix this. I could only let her go.
She turned to me, eyes shining. Her lips wobbled, but she smiled anyway.
"You packed extra socks?" I asked, voice hoarse.
She gave a breath of a laugh. "Yes, Papa."
"Knife?"
"Always."
"Cinnamon tea?"
"Mom snuck some in," she whispered. "I saw her."
I nodded. "Good."
There was a silence then — one that felt like it stretched years wide.
Then I whispered, "I don't want you to go."
She swallowed, voice trembling. "I know."
"But I know you need to."
She nodded, and that was when I saw it — the first tear sliding down her cheek. She wiped it quickly, like she could pretend it hadn't happened.
I stepped forward and pulled her into my arms. She didn't hesitate, she collapsed into me like she was still five years old and afraid of thunderstorms. Her body shook with a sob she tried to swallow. I held her tighter.
"I failed you," I whispered. "I should've stopped it. I should've never let them—"
"No," she choked out. "Don't. You didn't fail me."
I kissed her hair. "You were just a pup when she left. And I swore I'd raise you right. Strong. Whole. But you've had to carry too much."
"I'm still standing," she whispered into my chest.
"I know," I said, voice breaking. "But I hate that you had to stand alone."
Another sob tore out of her — muffled by my shirt, but sharp enough to split me open.
"You are my greatest pride, Dwyn. Not because you're strong. Not because of your blood. But because you're good. You're kind. You're light in the middle of a world that never deserved it."
She clung tighter. "I don't want to leave you."
"You're not," I said, pressing my hand to her heart. "I'll be here. Always. Every beat."
The train whistle sounded in the distance. She cried harder and I did too.
We stood like that until the train rolled in, steam hissing, wheels grinding against the tracks. I pulled back just enough to look her in the eyes — those silver, stormy eyes — and whispered, "Come back to me. Even if you change. Even if the world tries to make you forget who you are... come home."
"I will," she promised. "Even if it's just to remind you that I'm still me."
I kissed her forehead and then I let her go.
She boarded the train, wiped her cheeks, and didn't look back.
But I stayed there long after it disappeared into the fog. Alone on the platform, praying to the moon, to the sea, to Naia — to anything that would listen:
Keep her safe. Keep her wild. Bring her back whole.
-------------------------------
The train rattled forward like it was trying to outrun the past.
I sat by the window, forehead pressed to the cool glass, watching pine trees blur into nothingness. My throat still ached from crying, and the hollow space behind my ribs — where my wolf used to stir — throbbed with something not quite silence.
The further we traveled, the stranger everything became.
The scents were the first thing to hit me.
Humans didn't mask their emotions like wolves did — they reeked of them. Fear. Regret. Lust. Loneliness. It was all tangled in the air like smoke. My wolf — silent since the Mate-Giving — stirred faintly, unsettled. Not speaking, not shifting.
But listening.
Then came the sounds.
The screech of brakes on metal, the faint pulse of music leaking from someone's headphones two cabins over, the way a woman whispered a goodbye in three different languages on a phone call. I could hear everything.
It wasn't normal.
It wasn't just wolf hearing.
There was something else inside me now. Something that didn't just listen — it resonated. Like sound waves were brushing the inside of my skin. Like I could taste a boy's grief in the way his feet tapped the floor. Like I could feel the way sound wanted to move through me, not around me.
I closed my eyes.
And I hummed.
Just once. Soft and low.
The noise around me sharpened — then faded, as if folding itself back to give me space.
I opened my eyes, heart pounding.
What the hell was that?
By the time the train slowed to a stop, the air smelled different — not human anymore, not forest either.
Salt.
Mist.
And something... older.
I stepped off the train into a fog-draped station barely bigger than a cottage. The sky above was slate gray, the kind that promised storms and secrets. Behind the platform, I could just barely see the outline of water.
The sea.
My chest pulled tight.
And then—
"You must be Dwyn."
The voice was calm, smooth, and surprisingly close.
I turned sharply.
A woman stood leaning against a stone pillar, wrapped in a long dark coat. Her skin was dark like mine, her hair was ink-black and braided down one side, woven with glass and driftwood beads.
Her eyes were the strangest part — pale gray with a shimmer like silver caught underwater. Like mine, like she knew things she hadn't said in years.
She smiled. "I'm Margot."
I opened my mouth to reply — but every instinct in me shrieked at once.
Her scent was ocean tide and shadowed coral. She looked human. She sounded human. But nothing about her felt human.
"Come," she said, gesturing down the cobbled path. "You're safe here."
I hesitated, my wolf curled tighter. The part of me I couldn't name — the one that made glass vibrate when I sang too loud — whispered: Go.
So I followed.
The sea moaned in the distance. The fog thickened.
And something inside me began to wake.