The ridge was behind me, but the cold still clung to my bones. My fingers ached, and the ache in my legs was a deep, throbbing thing that promised I'd feel every step tomorrow.
We entered the camp just as the sun had cleared the treetops. A few wolves were already up, hauling firewood, repairing fences, or tending the smokehouses. But when Damien walked in ahead of me, the work slowed. Heads turned.
And when they saw me following him, boots caked with frozen dirt and my hair wind-snarled, the stillness shifted.
It wasn't admiration I saw in their eyes.
It was suspicion.
I'd been stared at before. In Silvermoon, the glances were always sharp, thrown like stones from a distance. Here, they were closer, more assessing as though they were measuring my worth and finding the scales unbalanced.
A tall, broad-shouldered wolf I didn't know muttered something to a younger one beside him. They both smirked. I caught the word pet.
We passed near the mess area, where a few more wolves sat eating. A woman with a scar running from temple to jaw watched me without blinking. She leaned toward her companion and spoke low, but the wind carried her words to me anyway.
"Didn't think she'd last two nights. Now she's climbing the Alpha's ridge."
The man chuckled. "Climbing more than that, if you ask me."
Heat flared in my chest, but I kept walking.
Damien didn't acknowledge the whispers, though I knew he heard them. His silence was either deliberate or simply habit I hadn't yet decided which.
When we reached the main hall, he paused at the threshold. "You'll rest for a few hours," he said. "Then we'll speak."
I nodded, but the weight of the stares behind us followed me like a shadow as I headed for the small room I'd been given.
It was barely more than a square of floor with a cot, a chest, and a fur throw. I sat heavily on the bed, rubbing at my knees. I told myself to rest, but the voices I'd overheard looped in my mind, sharper than the wind on the ridge.
Pet.
Climbing more than that.
They didn't know me. But already, they'd decided what I was.
Sleep wouldn't come, so I left the room and wandered the edge of the camp. From here, I could see the forest stretching away, the sunlight turning frost to glitter. A few younger wolves ran laps along the perimeter, kicking up snow. Others watched from the fence posts, their eyes following me until I was out of view.
I found myself at the small stream that cut behind the kennels. The water ran dark and fast, ice building in jagged plates along the edges. I crouched, dipping my hands into the freezing flow just to feel something sharper than my thoughts.
That was when I heard them.
Two women, their voices carrying over the sound of the water.
"She's not Shadowfang," one said. "She's trouble. Mark me Damien's letting sentiment blind him."
The other snorted. "Since when does he have sentiment? No, this is about politics. She's a pawn, and he's keeping her close until he decides how to use her."
"Either way, it's bad for the pack. Outsiders bring nothing but grief."
I rose, water dripping from my fingers, and walked away before they saw me. My pulse was a drum in my ears.
By the time I returned to the hall, Damien was waiting. He stood near the long table, a map spread before him. He looked up as I entered.
"Sit," he said.
I did, the wood chair creaking under me. He studied me for a moment, then leaned back against the table.
"You heard them," he said.
It wasn't a question.
"They don't bother hiding it," I replied.
His gaze was steady. "You let it get to you."
I bristled. "Shouldn't I? They're already making up their minds about me. About… why I'm here."
"Let them." His tone was flat, but there was something underneath it not indifference, but certainty. "The pack talks. That's what packs do. You can't kill every rumor."
"I'm not afraid of rumors," I said.
He stepped closer, the shadow of him stretching across the table. "You're afraid of what they mean. But here's the truth most of them aren't worth the breath it takes to answer. You can't survive here if you waste your strength fighting noise."
I held his gaze. "And if the noise turns to action?"
"Then you act." His voice was quiet now, but it carried the weight of something lived, not theorized.
For a moment, neither of us spoke. The only sound was the faint crackle of the fire in the corner.
Finally, he said, "Rest. Train. Endure. The ones worth proving yourself to will see it without you saying a word."
I left the hall with his words still coiled in my chest. They didn't comfort me not exactly but they anchored something.
That night, the whispers didn't stop. If anything, they grew. A few wolves eyed me as I crossed the mess hall for dinner, their gazes full of calculation. Others didn't look at me at all, which somehow felt worse.
I ate quickly and left, retreating to my room.
But later, lying in the dark, I realized something: the pack had been one mind when I arrived, united in their wariness. Now, there was a split in the way they looked at me. Some with hostility. Some with curiosity.
And curiosity was a foothold.
The next morning, training drills were called before dawn. I joined the others in the frost-white yard, stretching cold muscles under a pale sky. The air was thick with breath and anticipation.
When Damien arrived, the conversations died. He called for sparring pairs, moving through the group with a predator's calm.
When his eyes landed on me, he didn't call my name. He just tilted his head toward the center of the yard.
"Against Jorah," he said.
Jorah was built like a wall, his shoulders broad enough to block the light. His grin was not friendly.
We circled each other, boots crunching in the frost. The fight was fast and brutal Jorah's blows were heavy, his style meant to overwhelm. I ducked, blocked, felt the sting of his knuckles through my guard. My breath steamed in the air, my muscles screaming.
Then, on instinct, I caught his wrist mid-strike, used his momentum to twist and drop him into the snow. The yard went silent.
Jorah got up slowly, brushing ice from his jaw. He didn't look pleased.
Damien's eyes flicked between us. Then he nodded once not to me, but to the yard at large.
"Again," he said.
We fought until my arms felt like lead, until the cold in my lungs was almost unbearable. But by the time Damien called the session to an end, I caught something different in the eyes watching me.
It wasn't warmth. But it wasn't dismissal either.
That night, I lay awake with sore muscles and bruised knuckles, thinking about the ridge, about the fight, about the way the whispers had changed shape in just two days.
And I thought about Damien's words The ones worth proving yourself to will see it without you saying a word.
Maybe he was right.
But something told me the ones not worth proving myself to… might still try to make themselves heard.