He looked as if something had closed over his throat. For a long time he couldn't speak. When he finally managed, the words came out strained.
"There's still my brother… he loved you."
I laughed.
I laughed for a long time.
By the end, my eyes were faintly red.
"He's already dead."
The moment you chose to fake your death, in my heart, you died too.
I didn't say that aloud.
But I knew he understood.
I looked at him, my gaze as still as dead water, without a single ripple.
He had nothing left to say.
Guilt crept up, bit by bit, and swallowed him whole. He stood abruptly, as though he couldn't bear to face me a second longer.
"I'll go check on Hazel Ashford."
With that, he all but fled the room.
I followed the healer's instructions and rested quietly at the infirmary for several days.
The day I was discharged, Magnus Marlowe called us all before him.
He beckoned me over with a slow wave, gesturing for me to sit at his side. The old Alpha's scent of oak bark and winter frost settled around me, steady and familiar.
"Hazel, today is the Remembrance Moon. Go see Sylvia Nightfang one last time."
When he said it, his eyes held a grief and a guilt he couldn't fully hide.