POV: Everly
The ache didn't fade with the sun.
Everly had expected fatigue from the long hours and the weight of ritual prep, maybe even soreness from kneeling on stone or lifting bundles of saltroot. But what settled in her bones was deeper. Like she was being hollowed out one breath at a time
She hadn't slept. Not really.
Selene was louder now, not with words, but with weight. She pressed against Everly's ribs, paced behind her eyes. Like she was straining toward something Everly couldn't see. Still, the world went on.
By midmorning, she was scrubbing cauldrons behind the training hall her 'reward' for lingering too long after the Seer's summons.
No one spoke to her. Not even to curse.
She was becoming invisible again.
But not forgotten.
Not by the shadows.
After midday, her blistered hands stung with ashwater, her sleeves soaked to the elbow. She wandered, aimless, through the thinning trees beyond the garden wall, down paths wolves rarely tread.
There was a place there, half-forgotten. A flat stone outcrop surrounded by moss and quiet birdsong. The kind of place that looked like it had been waiting.
She sat without thinking.
The quiet was better than the halls.
Better than the whispers.
She didn't expect company.
So when Spirit sat beside her, silent and slow, it took Everly a moment to realize she wasn't alone.
"You're getting harder to find," Spirit murmured.
Everly glanced sideways. "I wasn't hiding."
"That's not the same thing as being found."
They sat in silence for a long time. The moss was cool beneath her fingers. The wind didn't carry the scent of wolves this far.
When Spirit finally spoke again, her voice had changed. Softer. Like she was speaking into a memory. "I knew a girl once," she said. "She bled light, but they told her she was made of mud. She tried to scrub herself raw, hoping to become what they saw. But the light stayed. No matter how deep she dug."
Everly swallowed. "Did she stop trying?" she asked quietly.
"No," Spirit said. "She broke instead."
The words shouldn't have hit so hard, but they did. Everly stared down at her hands, cracked, reddened, trembling.
Spirit leaned back on her elbows and looked up at the sky, her face unreadable. "They call us rogue," she said after a while. "Because we don't belong to the old chains. Because we chose to un-name ourselves from the lineages that marked us for pain."
"You speak like you've lived a hundred lives."
Spirit smiled faintly. "Maybe I have."
Everly looked at her. "Are you… really from the rogue camp?"
Spirit tilted her head. "Do you think I'd lie?"
"I think everyone lies," Everly replied.
To her surprise, Spirit laughed. "Good."
They sat again in silence.
Until Spirit reached into her cloak and pulled something from her sleeve. A small, carved disc of wood, no bigger than a coin. The surface was etched with a symbol Everly didn't recognize. It wasn't a crest. It didn't feel like a mark of ownership. It felt like a name. "This is what we wear," Spirit said. "Not titles. Not ranks. Just truths."
"What does it say?"
Spirit placed it in Everly's hand. "You'll know when it's time."
They didn't speak again for several minutes.
The wind stirred the trees gently. Distant birds cried overhead, but even their calls seemed far away, muffled by the weight between them.
Finally, Everly asked, "Why me?"
Spirit didn't answer right away. When she did, her voice was barely louder than the wind. "Because you still believe you're not worth saving."
Everly's throat tightened. "I don't…"
"You do," Spirit said simply. "Even your wolf knows it. But she can't save you alone."
Everly looked down at the wooden disc. It was warm now. As if it remembered being held. "You said the rogue camp was a place for people like me."
"I said it was a place for the broken," Spirit corrected. "But not the ruined. There's a difference."
"I don't feel broken."
"Then you're lying to yourself."
Selene stirred sharply at that. Like she'd been slapped. Everly looked up. "Do you always speak in riddles?"
"Only when the truth is too sharp to say plainly."
Everly exhaled, slow and uneven. "What would you have me do? Just leave? Where would I even go?"
Spirit didn't smile this time. She leaned forward, her expression deadly serious. "When the door opens," she said, "you'll know. And it won't wait long."
"What door?"
But Spirit was already standing. She dusted her hands off, then turned to look down at her. "You think this is a story about wolves," she said. "It isn't."
Everly blinked. "Then what is it?"
Spirit looked over her shoulder as she walked away. "A remembering." And then, just before she slipped into the trees, she added… "They called her Everly in this life… but names don't last forever."
Everly sat for a long time after Spirit left.
She didn't cry.
She didn't speak.
She just stared at the disc in her hand, trying to memorize every line in the symbol. Trying to understand why her heart ached more from hope than it ever had from pain.
And inside her, Selene breathed against her ribs.
Not loud.
But present.
And listening.