Chapter 41: Chapter 41: Three Sets Of Prints
I nodded once in agreement and told him to double the night watch. The bond tightened in my chest. The twins kicked like they had heard the news too.
Rylan’s southern team rode in last, just as the light was failing. They brought back two full sleds of salted meat, fresh-cut pine for repairs, and several heavy bundles of snowberries and medicinal herbs.
Rylan swung down from his horse, snow crusting his cloak, and walked straight to me. He smelled like pine and blood and cold air. He didn’t speak at first. He just pulled me against him, careful of the belly between us, and rested his chin on top of my head for a long moment.
"We got what we needed," he said against my hair. "But those eastern bastards are getting bolder. I felt them watching us the whole way back. Three wolves. No colors. Moving like they own the ridges."
The bond flared hot between the four of us the moment he said it. Darius and Kane stepped closer without being called. Lila reached for Rylan with both hands and he took her, settling her on his shoulder like she weighed nothing. The pack finished unloading in silence, the mood in the bailey shifting from relief to something sharper.
That night the chambers felt smaller with all of us inside. The fire burned low and steady. Lila fell asleep early, exhausted from the day, her small hand still curled around Rylan’s finger.
I sat on the edge of the bed while Kane rubbed the ache from my lower back and Darius checked the map one more time by lamplight. Rylan paced once, then stopped and pressed his palm flat over the highest curve of my belly where the twins were most active.
"They’re restless tonight," he said with a wild grin.
"They’ve been restless since the first party left," I answered. A hard roll moved under his hand and he smiled, small and tired.
The stores were full again. The pack would eat well for another month. But the eastern wolves had left their mark on every report that came back. Tracks. Feathers. Eyes in the snow that never quite showed themselves.
The North had given us meat and timber and herbs this time. It had also sent back a warning that refused to stay on the ridges.
I leaned back against Kane’s chest and closed my eyes. The bond hummed deep and steady around us, but the edge was sharper now. Lila slept soundly between us.
The twins rolled and kicked like they already knew the fight was coming closer. And somewhere out in the dark, three wolves kept moving, asking their questions without ever stepping into the light.
The North didn’t give anything away for free.
But it looked like the east was finally ready to start taking.
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Three days later the scout rode in at a dead gallop, horse lathered and breathing hard. I was in the bailey checking the new root cellar beams when Garrick met him at the gate. The man slid from the saddle before the horse stopped, boots crunching snow, and handed over a small scrap of hide wrapped around a single black feather.
I pushed through the gathered pack, my belly heavy under my cloak, and took the hide myself. The writing was crude, burned into the leather with a hot knife: three sets of prints sighted at the old hunter’s lean-to by the dead pass. Fresh ash in the fire pit. Bones picked clean. No tracks leading away.
Darius was at my shoulder in two strides. Kane and Rylan closed in behind me, their presence solid as the stone walls. Lila was safe inside with one of the older women, but the bond still pulled tight in my chest like a wire drawn across bone.
"We ride now," Darius said. His voice carried no question. "All four of us."
I didn’t argue. The twins rolled hard under my ribs as if they agreed. Eight months pregnant or not, this was our ridge, our keep, our children they were circling.
I pulled on my heaviest cloak, strapped a short blade to my thigh, and let Rylan boost me onto the broad-backed mare they kept saddled for me these days.
The horse probably felt the extra weight and shifted, but she held steady; not as if it had a choice. Kane rode at my left, Darius at my right, Rylan taking the rear. The bond hummed between us, low and alert, the curse quiet but never gone.
We pushed hard through the fresh snow. The wind cut straight through wool and fur, stinging my cheeks raw. My back ached with every stride, a dull grind that sharpened when the mare lunged over a drift, but I kept my teeth locked and my eyes on the ridges ahead.
The twins in my belly kicked in protest at the motion, two distinct thumps that made me press a gloved hand to the curve of my belly and breathe through my nose. Kane noticed and slowed his horse a fraction, matching my pace without a word.
The lean-to appeared at dusk, a sagging shelter of pine logs and hides tucked against a rock outcrop. We dismounted fifty yards out and approached on foot, blades loose in their sheaths. Snow crunched under our boots. The air smelled of wet ash and old blood.
The fire pit was still warm. Embers glowed under a thin layer of fresh snow, and the ground around it showed three distinct sets of boot prints pressed deep, then overlaid with wolf tracks. Scraps of rabbit bone lay scattered, picked clean and cracked open for marrow. A single black feather had been driven into a split log at eye level, its shaft still straight.
Rylan crouched by the pit and held his palm over the coals. "The bastards left this morning. Maybe midday. They knew we’d come."
Darius studied the prints, ice-blue eyes narrowed. "They’re not running. They’re leading us. They are circling the keep like they’re learning the shape of it."
Kane picked up one of the cracked bones and turned it in his scarred fingers. "No message this time. Just the feather and the fire. They want us to know they were here. Inside our range."
I stood with one hand braced on a low branch, the other on my belly where the twins had gone still, as if listening. The bond thrummed heavier now, a live current that made my skin prickle.
The mark on my chest began to itch under my layers, which was the witch’s reminder that nothing stayed quiet forever. I looked at the three of them and felt the weight of every mile we had ridden, every law we had pushed, every night we had spent tangled together while the snow piled higher.
"They’re testing how fast we answer," I said. My voice came out steady even though my back screamed and my legs felt like stone. "They want to see if we leave the keep weak or if we chase ghosts and bleed ourselves dry."
Rylan stood, axe loose in his grip. "Then we stop chasing. We make them come to us."
Darius shook his head once. "No. We set the next trap. Double the eastern patrols, but pull the outer scouts in closer. Let them think we’re pulling back. When they step closer, we hit them hard and clean."
Kane met my eyes. "You ride back with us tonight. No more of this. The keep needs its queen breathing."
I didn’t fight him. The twins gave another hard roll, as if underlining the point. We mounted up again and turned the horses toward home.
The snow had started falling heavier, thick flakes that stuck to lashes and melted down necks. The ride back felt longer, every jolt sending fresh pain up my spine, but the bond kept me upright, four heartbeats moving as one through the dark.
We finally reached the gates just before midnight. Garrick met us with lanterns and fresh horses, his face tight. Lila was already asleep in the nursery, but I went straight to her anyway, boots still crusted with snow, and stood over her cradle while she breathed soft and even. Darius stayed at my back. Kane checked the windows. Rylan barred the door.
The eastern wolves had left their cold marker and moved on, but the message had landed. They were real. They were close. And they were no longer content to watch from the ridges.
I pressed my forehead to the edge of the cradle and let the bond wrap around the four of us like armor. The twins settled for the first time in hours. Lila stirred once, small hand twitching, then slept on. Outside, the wind howled across the bailey, carrying the scent of more snow and something sharper underneath it.
The keep was still ours. But the east had finally drawn its line in the snow.
And tomorrow we would start drawing ours right back.
