The workshop beneath the Ravenscar compound smelled of iron filings, boot grease, and cold stone.
Unlike the polished cedar lockers at Silvercrest, this space was purely functional. Heavy timber benches lined the perimeter, equipped with vise grips, tension cables, and rows of black tactical gear.
Ronan stood over my opened duffel, sorting through the climbing equipment with practiced efficiency. He tested the spring on each cam, weighed the ice pitons in his massive calloused palm, and tossed aside anything that didn't meet Ravenscar standards. Asher leaned against a tool chest, tossing a whetstone between his hands, while Elias methodically oiled the latches on a pair of snowshoes.
Cassian stood near the door, his dark coat unbuttoned, watching in silence.
"Most of this is standard Silvercrest issue," Ronan muttered, his low voice vibrating in his chest. "Lightweight, decent alloy, but flimsy in a crosswind."
He unbuckled the small canvas repair roll I had kept tucked at the bottom of the bag. Inside was an older harness—the dark gray nylon webbing I had used during my solitary mapping treks across the northern ridges.
Ronan pulled it out by the waist loop, letting the leg straps dangle. He ran two fingers down the left shoulder support, then stopped abruptly.
His jaw set. The easy rhythm of his inspection vanished.
"Asher," Ronan said, his voice dropping an octave. "Look at this."
Asher caught his whetstone, pushed off the tool chest, and walked over. Elias paused his work, his sharp eyes flicking toward the bench.
Ronan stretched the load-bearing strap over the edge of the wood, angling it beneath the overhead work lamp.
"What is it?" I asked, stepping closer.
"Come see for yourself," Ronan said, stepping aside just enough to let me look.
The heavy nylon weave was split almost three-quarters of the way through, right where the strap met the primary chest carabiner. But the threads weren't frayed from friction against granite. They weren't torn by jagged ice or worn down by sunrot.
The incision was flat, precise, and completely clean.
"A sharp blade," Asher said quietly, his lazy smirk disappearing. "Scored deep enough to hold together while you put it on, but thin enough that fifty pounds of drop weight would shear it clean off."
My stomach turned to ice.
A sudden rush of memories hit me, sharp and disjointed.
The night before the Moon Hunt announcement. It had been past eleven, long after curfew. I had gone down to the Silvercrest gear bay to check the tension on my crampons. When the heavy door creaked open, someone had been standing near my locker in the shadows.
Brielle.
She had jerked her hand back from my bench, startled, hiding something behind her thigh. When she saw it was me, her easy, condescending smile had returned instantly. She claimed she had lost an earring during evening drills and wandered down to look for it. I had been exhausted, my mind consumed with the promise Nolan had whispered to me in the woods, so I let it go.
The next morning, when I threw my kit together before dawn, the strap had felt loose. Seeing the split threads in the dim light, I had assumed the webbing had finally rotted from months of frost damage. In a rush to make roll call, I shoved it into my repair pouch, pulled a backup harness from the rack, and never thought about it again.
Until now.
If I had worn that harness onto the frost cliffs—if I had taken a lead fall on the north shelf—the strap would have snapped instantly. I would have dropped three hundred feet onto the scree.
The workshop went dead quiet.
Ronan laid the harness flat on the bench, his knuckles white against the dark timber. Asher was staring at me, his eyes dark with predatory intent. Elias crossed his arms, his mouth set in a thin, hard line.
None of them moved to grab their weapons. None of them barked out orders or demanded that I march back to Silvercrest to confront the council.
Cassian stepped forward, his boots clicking softly against the flagstones. He stopped across the table from me, looking down at the severed nylon, then up into my eyes.
"You knew the strap was damaged," Cassian said, his voice entirely level.
"I thought it was worn out," I admitted, my voice barely above a whisper. "I found it split the morning of the roster announcement. I grabbed a spare and threw this in the repair kit."
"Who was near your locker?" Ronan growled, his chest rumbling.
"Ronan," Cassian said sharply.
The giant warrior fell silent, though the tension vibrating off his shoulders remained palpable.
Cassian kept his gaze locked on mine. There was no pity in his slate-gray eyes, nor the suffocating control Nolan had always exerted over my choices.
"We're not going to drag you to the elders," Cassian said calmly. "And we're not going to tell you how to play this. It's your gear. It was your life on the line. What do you want to do with it?"
It was the first time an Alpha had ever asked for my decision instead of issuing an order.
I stared at the clean cut in the webbing. My heart was pounding, but beneath the fear was a cold, sharp anger that cleared away the last remnants of my hesitation.
"I need to know something first," I said.
Cassian gave a single, slow nod. "Take your time."
I stepped away from the bench, pulling my phone from my coat pocket. My thumbs were steady as I tapped open the message thread with Nolan. His last message—*You'll come back before the Hunt starts*—still glared back at me from the screen.
I typed out a single line:
*Do you remember Brielle being down in the gear bay the night before the announcement?*
I hit send.
I set the phone on the edge of a nearby shelf and waited. Asher leaned back against the counter, watching me with quiet curiosity. Ronan stood guard by the bench, while Elias returned to his snowshoes, working with deliberate, quiet focus.
Less than twenty seconds passed before the screen lit up.
A single notification popped up.
Nolan’s reply:
*Don't turn an old strap into an accusation.*
The air seemed to leave my lungs in a sharp gasp.
I hadn't mentioned a strap.
I hadn't mentioned damage, a knife, or the repair kit. I had only asked if he remembered Brielle being in the gear bay.
He knew.
He had known about the severed strap before I ever tied the black iron ribbon around my wrist. Whether Brielle had told him afterward or he had seen the cut himself, he hadn't warned me. He hadn't pulled her from the roster for endangering a packmate. He had simply buried it, protected his Alpha-born female, and used the incident to clear my name from the mountain run entirely.
A bitter, quiet sound escaped my throat.
Nolan hadn't just replaced me for political advantage. He had shielded the person who tried to break my neck.
"Wren?" Asher asked softly, stepping half a pace closer. "What did he say?"
I didn't answer. I locked the screen, slid the phone back into my pocket, and walked over to the wooden bench.
Without a word, I grabbed the severed harness, rolled it up tight, and shoved it deep into the dark interior of my pack, pulling the zipper shut with a sharp, decisive rasp.
I looked up at the four wolves watching me.
"They have my old map," I said, my voice steady, carrying clearly across the quiet room. "They have my trail markers, my elevation notes, and the switchbacks I charted over the last two years."
Cassian’s eyes sharpened. "And?"
"And they think that's the only way up the mountain," I said. "They're expecting me to fight them for the north shelf. They're expecting us to follow the routes they stole."
A slow, vicious smile spread across Asher's face. Ronan let out a low rumble of approval from deep in his throat.
I met Cassian’s gaze, letting the black band around my wrist catch the harsh workshop light.
"Be ready before dawn," I said. "I'm drawing a new line. One they've never seen."
