The cart rolled slowly along the worn road, its every creak and jostle a lullaby to the quiet between them. Liora kept mostly to herself, eyes on the trees, but every so often, her gaze drifted—inevitably—to Veyra.
Veyra sat a short distance across from her, one hand resting on her thigh, the other curled loosely around the wooden rail. Liora had meant to keep her focus forward—on the slow blur of trees, on the soft hush of wind in grass—but instead, her gaze kept drifting.
Veyra didn't slouch. Even tired, even bandaged beneath her traveling cloak, she held herself with that same quiet pride, like tension strung through her shoulders and spine. A sort of habitual poise that didn't ask for attention but commanded it all the same. She shifted occasionally—rolling one wrist, tugging slightly at the binding under her collar—but never enough to betray discomfort. Even now, her fingers tapped lightly in rhythm with the horse's gait. Liora doubted she was aware of it.
And her scent—
Liora almost didn't catch it. The Silence still held tight, a firm, invisible net draped over her senses. But when the wind shifted and Veyra brushed her hair back from her neck, Liora's stomach did a strange, fluttering thing.
It was faint. So faint that if she'd been anyone else, she might not have noticed it at all. Like smoke carried far from its fire. Something grounded, crisp and cool like the bite of a mountain wind, touched with the barest trace of warmth—cedarwood and steel. It suited her, though Liora would never say so aloud.
She blinked, heart giving a tight thud. Stupid.
It wasn't just the scent. It was the way Veyra's eyes flicked toward the treeline at every shift of shadow. The way her jaw set whenever the cart hit a bump, though she didn't complain. The way she studied the sky like she knew how to measure time by it, then glanced at the horses with quiet calculation, already gauging their pace. As if staying still too long set something in her on edge.
She was… capable. Every motion restrained. Liora didn't know when she'd started noticing those things. Just that she had.
The cart jerked, hitting a deeper rut. Veyra didn't flinch. Her gaze snapped to Liora instead. "You're quiet."
Liora startled slightly. "Just thinking," she murmured.
"You do that a lot."
Liora let the corner of her mouth lift. "And you don't?"
Veyra tilted her head, and for a moment her storm-grey eyes narrowed, thoughtful. Liora looked away first, busying herself by adjusting the cloth-wrapped pack by her feet.
"Does it ever stop?" Liora asked, not bothering to disguise the softness in her voice.
Veyra didn't look up. "Does what?"
"The need to be ready. All the time."
That earned her a flicker of storm-grey eyes. Then a pause. "No. Not really."
"Even out here? Away from your court, your soldiers… your blood enemies?" She tried to say it lightly, but it came out quieter than intended.
Veyra gave a tight exhale, a small breath that might've been a laugh if it hadn't sounded so tired. "Especially out here."
Liora nodded, glancing down at her hands. She'd tied her sleeves back earlier to help the cart driver, and a streak of grease still ran along her forearm. Her fingers curled inward.
"You don't have to answer this," she said after a moment. "But why did you want to change things? You said that night—when we stopped to rest—you said the world wasn't right. That the way things are… hurt people."
Veyra didn't reply right away.
Then, with her eyes still fixed ahead, she said, "Because I saw what the old ways turned good people into. What it turned me into."
The words weren't loud, but they landed heavily between them.
Liora turned slightly to face her. "And who are you now?"
That made Veyra look at her—directly this time.
"I'm still figuring that out," she said. "But I know what I don't want to be."
There was something unguarded in her voice—raw, like she hadn't meant to say it out loud. Liora felt it twist something inside her, something she couldn't name. She didn't speak for a beat, letting the trees and the scent of pine carry the weight of it.
"You're different," Liora murmured. "Not just for an Alpha. Just… different."
Veyra arched a brow, but her tone stayed neutral. "And what do you mean by that?"
"I mean…" Liora hesitated, picking at the hem of her sleeve. "You think before you speak. You listen. You carry yourself like someone who's used to being obeyed, but you don't… demand it. Not with me."
"Should I?"
Liora huffed. "Most Alphas would've tried."
A long silence stretched, broken only by the rhythmic squeak of the wheel and the birdsong above. Then—
"You notice a lot of things," Veyra said.
"I do," Liora admitted. "Old habit. Survival, mostly."
Veyra turned toward her just a little, the line of her jaw softening. "Then tell me what you see."
That caught her off guard. Liora looked down, then up again—slowly.
"I see someone who's fighting battles I could never fathom. Someone who wakes up already braced for the worst. And still… you try. You keep going. You protect what's left."
Veyra didn't reply. But something in her expression shifted—just slightly. The tension in her brow eased, and the line of her mouth didn't look quite so cold.
"And you?" Veyra asked after a moment. "What should I be seeing in you?"
Liora felt her breath hitch. Her fingers curled tighter. She chose not to answer.
The cart creaked and dipped with a soft jolt. A crow called from somewhere up ahead, its cry swallowed by wind and trees.
Liora shifted again, more restless now, as if the conversation had reached some thin line she wasn't prepared to cross. Her fingers played idly with a leather strap looped around a barrel behind her, a nervous little habit Veyra was just starting to recognize.
She watched her a moment longer.
And then, because she was tired of only watching—and more than a little curious—Veyra leaned in.
It was subtle at first. Just a shift of weight. Her shoulder angled slightly toward Liora's. The kind of proximity that would go unnoticed by a stranger.
But Liora wasn't a stranger anymore.
Veyra let herself breathe in, slow and quiet.
The moment stretched.
Liora didn't look up, but she stilled.
No flinch. No sharp intake of breath. But her hand paused mid-fidget, the only sign that something had registered.
Interesting.
Veyra didn't move back.
She let her voice drop, softer, low enough that the driver couldn't hear. "You flinch at questions, but not closeness."
Liora's eyes lifted slowly. They didn't widen or harden—just found hers and held there, unreadable but calm.
"Should I?" she asked.
There was no heat in the question—just the faint challenge of someone who'd spent years learning how not to react.
It made Veyra's skin prickle, not with alarm, but with something else.
She studied the slope of Liora's neck, the faint rise and fall of breath, the stubborn set of her jaw. She still smelled like pine and dried lavender—clean and quiet. There was something muted beneath it, like a note half-hidden under snow. Something she couldn't quite catch.
Too clean. Too smooth.
Veyra sat back a little, feigning a casual stretch of her shoulders.
"You're not like other Betas," she said, watching her closely now.
Liora raised a brow, but the rest of her face remained neutral. "You know a lot of Betas?"
"I know when someone's hiding something."
Liora looked away, letting her gaze drift toward the trees again. Her voice was steady when she answered. "We all are."
Veyra didn't argue. But the faint unease in her chest lingered.
There was something she wasn't seeing—something behind Liora's guarded calm and graceful silences. No Beta she'd ever met carried themselves quite like this. No Beta smelled… like that. Even dulled, it tugged at something in the back of her mind.
Not suspicion. Not yet.
But something more primal than logic.
And it made her want to lean closer again.
The forest had begun to thin, revealing glimpses of distant stone through the trees — the outer rise of Fort Dalen's watchtowers, still hours off but no longer imaginary. The cart jostled forward in a lurch as the path smoothed into an old trade road, cobbled and worn.
They had daylight left, but not much.
Veyra leaned forward, bracing one forearm lazily on her knee. Her body was angled toward Liora now, casually — but there was nothing casual about the way her gaze traced her.
"You're quiet again," she murmured.
Liora didn't flinch. Just gave a small shrug, her attention still half on the passing woods.
"Not much to say."
"Mm. That's funny." Veyra's tone was light, but something sharp glittered beneath. "Because every time you do speak, it's deliberate. Like you're weighing every word before you hand it over."
Liora's eyes flicked to her, copper-gold and unreadable.
"You don't strike me as someone who trusts easily," Veyra went on, voice low now, smooth and steady. "But you told me your name."
Liora didn't answer, not directly. Her mouth pressed into a thin line.
Veyra let the silence linger. Then:
"Was it real?"
This time, the question made Liora look fully at her — really look. The cart jostled. The driver muttered to his horses up front, unaware of the taut quiet behind him.
"Yes," Liora said softly. "It was real."
Veyra tilted her head, eyes narrowing. "Why?"
A beat. Then another.
Liora's voice was quiet, but not unsure. "Because I owed you something."
Veyra studied her — and then, slowly, closed the space between them again. Not abruptly. Not like before. This time, her presence crept in like a tide. The scent of her, sharp like rain on iron, wrapped subtly around Liora in the moving air. Her knees brushed Liora's leg. Her voice dropped to a whisper.
"And now I owe you something?"
It wasn't a threat. It wasn't even flirtation. It was something older. Something instinctive. A pull of tension Veyra didn't fully understand but followed anyway.
Liora didn't move.
Didn't recoil, didn't lean in.
But her pulse stuttered — just once.
Veyra's eyes caught it, just under the line of her jaw.
Another breath passed. Then two.
Liora's throat bobbed in a swallow. Her lashes dipped, and she reached for her satchel without a word.
Veyra didn't press — not this time. But she watched.
Watched as Liora's fingers found a small tin hidden beneath a fold of cloth. Watched the practiced way she palmed a tiny capsule — subtle, discreet — and tipped it beneath her tongue before chasing it with a sip from her flask.
A heartbeat later, the forest air changed.
That elusive warmth — lavender and honey, that faint sweetness she'd only caught hints of — dulled, smoothed, vanished beneath a blank stillness.
Like snow tamping down a fire.
Veyra didn't speak, but her jaw tensed.
Not fear.
Not certainty.
But something was off.
And whatever it was… Liora knew it.
Veyra leaned back slowly, her expression unreadable.
She didn't say a word.
But her storm-grey eyes stayed on Liora long after the woods had turned to open fields again.
The Silence burned faintly on her tongue — bitter, chemical, wrong. She swallowed around it, pretending she hadn't seen the way Veyra's eyes tracked every movement of her hand.
She hadn't said a word. Hadn't called her out.
But the air had shifted between them.
Gods. Liora exhaled carefully, willing her shoulders to stay loose, her face neutral.
That had been a test. Not a conversation. Not curiosity. A deliberate pressure — something instinctive in the way Veyra had leaned in, close enough for Liora to feel her breath, to notice the slow drag of her storm-colored eyes over her face like they were memorizing her reactions.
And worse — she'd felt it. The tug, the heat in her spine that her body didn't know how to bury fast enough. It had flared for a moment, subtle but real, before she'd tamped it down with sheer will and the bitter pill of Silence.
Too close. Too soon.
And still, there was the echo of something sharp and silken lingering behind her ribs.
She'd caught it — finally. Not full-on, not enough to overwhelm, but faint, like a thread of smoke winding through old stone: clean rain, cold metal, something iron-rich and wild.
Veyra.
Liora had spent days convincing herself that her suppressant was working too well for her to sense anything. That the strange pull she'd felt toward Veyra was imagination, fear, proximity. But that scent — gods, it had been there. Hints of it rising unbidden while the Alpha leaned close, like the world itself had flinched open.
And it wasn't just scent.
It was how Veyra watched her. How she moved — that purposeful stillness, the weight of command that she wore even when sitting still. But there were smaller things, too. Habits. Patterns. The way she always flexed the fingers of her left hand before dismounting. The way she swept her gaze in an arc whenever they paused, as if marking exits and weaknesses out of instinct. The way she looked at her — like Liora was a puzzle made of thorns she didn't mind bleeding to solve.
Liora's hand tightened around the flask in her lap.
She couldn't let this slip.
If Veyra caught even a thread of her scent—honey and lavender and everything she wasn't allowed to be—it would all fall apart. The name she'd given, the trust she'd tried to show… it would turn to smoke.
No. Not yet.
She stared out over the road again, watching the distant shadow of the fort rising on the horizon.
A little longer.
She just had to hold out a little longer.
The cart rumbled on, the path narrowing into a stretch of worn earth where deep ruts marked years of travel. Liora kept her gaze fixed ahead, watching the silhouette of the fort slowly sharpen against the sky — towers rising like the jagged teeth of a sleeping beast, all stone and shadow beneath the waning sun.
She didn't speak. Not yet.
Beside her, Veyra was silent too, though her posture had shifted again — more upright now, spine straight, eyes narrowed slightly as if she felt something pulling her forward. That was the soldier in her. The heir. She moved differently when they got closer to civilization. More deliberate. More composed.
Liora noticed it all now.
The way she kept her left hand close to her thigh, near where her blade would normally rest.
The slight tilt of her head, always listening, always assessing.
And even in the chill breeze that cut between the trees and stirred Liora's cloak, she could catch the faintest hint again — that rain-on-iron scent that clung to Veyra's skin like the breath of a storm held just behind her ribs.
It made her mouth dry. Or maybe that was just the aftertaste of the Silence still clinging to her tongue.
A little longer, she reminded herself.
Just a little farther.
The cart hit a patch of uneven stone, jostling them both. Veyra caught herself without comment, eyes still trained forward. She hadn't said a word since the "test." Hadn't pressed again. But Liora could feel her watching, the tension between them stretched taut like the thread of a bowstring not yet loosed.
Then the driver called back, voice rough and friendly.
"That's Fort Dalen ahead. Shouldn't be more than half an hour, if the gods are kind."
He leaned slightly from the front of the cart, wiping sweat from his brow with a worn sleeve. "Might be a bit of a line at the gates this time of day, but you've got the look of folks with business. Shouldn't be too much fuss."
Veyra grunted in acknowledgment but didn't reply. Liora offered the man a small nod, thankful more than ever for the peace of his presence — a neutral buffer between her and the rising weight of whatever this was becoming.
The gates.
Once they passed through them, things would shift again. Masks would have to be worn. Names and reasons declared. Veyra would need to step carefully, and Liora would need to vanish—no matter how much her instincts itched at the thought.
She glanced sideways at the Alpha again, just once.
Gray eyes met hers. Steady. Knowing. Like stormclouds just beginning to churn.
Liora looked away first.
And she hated that it felt like surrender.
The cart creaked as it rounded a bend, drawing within sight of Fort Dalen's outer walls. The last stretch of the path was worn but clear, fringed with uneven grasses and stone outcroppings.
Liora's fingers tightened slightly where they rested on the wooden edge. Her gut twisted—not from fear, not exactly, but from the weight of everything she had not yet said. She glanced toward Veyra again, wanting for a second to ask something—anything—before they crossed that invisible line and stepped into the lion's den.
But then the wind changed.
It came suddenly, carrying more than the usual bite of pine and road dust. There was blood in it. Metal. And something else—rotten, feral, wrong.
Veyra's hand moved at once to her side, fumbling for a blade she didn't carry. Her shoulders stiffened, eyes flashing.
"Down," she hissed. "Now."
Liora didn't ask. She slid low as a figure burst from the underbrush in a blur of movement—a dark shape cloaked in dust and grime, springing onto the back of the cart with animal grace. The driver shouted in surprise, the horses rearing, but the figure had no interest in him.
The blade gleamed. A strike aimed for the back of Veyra's neck.
She turned just in time, catching the attacker's wrist with both hands. The force of it nearly knocked her from the cart.
Liora lunged.
The figure snarled—a man, she thought, though it was hard to tell beneath the cloth and filth and scent of sweat—and Veyra struggled to hold him off, her strength faltering under the weight of old wounds. Her side was bleeding again. She hissed in pain.
Liora didn't think. She reached for her belt, drew her knife, and drove it into the assailant's thigh.
He screamed and twisted, eyes wide with shock.
That's right, she thought. You didn't expect me.
He staggered off the cart, falling hard to the dirt before scrambling upright. Blood poured down his leg, but he turned and vanished into the trees, fast as he'd come. Veyra slumped against the side of the cart, breathing hard, one hand pressed against her side where the bandages had torn open again.
Liora caught her before she could fall fully, propping her up. "Easy. I've got you."
"You—damn fool," Veyra rasped, but the words held no heat.
Shouts rang out from the fort wall.
A group of guards was already on the road, drawn by the noise. They arrived swiftly—cloaks flaring, weapons drawn. One of them reached the cart and froze as his gaze landed on Veyra's face.
"Gods," he whispered. "It's her—it's the heir!"
Another barked a command. Two more approached, eyes sharp and suspicious.
Liora straightened but did not let go of Veyra's weight.
"She's injured," she said. "That man tried to—"
"We saw," the leader snapped. "You! Step away."
"She's with me," Veyra said, voice thin but edged with steel. "She saved me."
Liora felt the shift at once—the guards' eyes flicking to her. Assessing. Categorizing. Just a Beta, they would think. Unimportant. Beneath notice—until now.
"She came upon me on the road," Veyra went on. "And treated my wounds. I owe her my life."
"You'll both come with us," the lead guard said, motioning to his men. "The High Circle will want her seen. The Beta too."
Liora tensed. "I'm not—"
"You don't have a choice," the guard interrupted, tone clipped. "Move."
Hands gripped her arms. Not cruelly, but without question. She could feel the inevitability of it sinking in her chest like stone.
The cart was left behind. Veyra's horse was unhooked and led along. Liora tried to look for an opening, an escape, anything—but they were already within the outer boundary now. Guards in every direction. Walls too high to scale. Eyes on her.
She looked to Veyra, who stumbled but kept walking, her jaw clenched against pain.
Liora had promised herself she wouldn't get pulled into this.
But here she was.
Being led into the mouth of the fort, under false assumptions and thickening danger, with a pulse of lavender and honey clinging too close to her skin.
And Veyra's blood on her hands.