POV: Anthony
Dawn came bleeding through the cracks in the hut's walls, painting the dirt floor in shades of amber and red.
Anthony hadn't slept.
He'd spent the night outside, his back against a tree, his eyes on the dark silhouette of the hut where Sylva lay bound. Not watching for escape—the ropes would hold, and she was smart enough to know it. Watching for... he didn't know what. Assassins. Scouts. The ghost of his own conscience.
She called me a fool.
She wasn't wrong.
He pushed off from the tree and walked to the stream at the edge of camp, stripping off his blood-stained tunic. The cold water hit his skin like a shock, washing away the grime of battle, the dried blood, and the scent of her clinging to his memory. He scrubbed hard, as if he could scrub away the look in her eyes—that defiant, unbroken fire.
She should be afraid. She should be begging. She should be anything but what she is.
What was she? He didn't know. Couldn't name it. But the image of her face in the firelight, her gold eyes burning with hatred and something else—something that looked almost like understanding—was seared into his mind.
"You're brooding."
Dax materialized from the trees, a waterskin in one hand, his expression carefully neutral. He'd been Anthony's shadow since the night of the Binding, never asking questions, never offering opinions. Just... there. Solid. Loyal.
"I'm thinking," Anthony corrected.
"Same thing." Dax settled on a rock near the stream, watching the water. "Kael's scouts are ranging east. No sign of Shadowpine movement yet. They're waiting."
"Waiting for what?"
"Waiting for us to break first." Dax's eyes met his. "Waiting to see if the pack tears itself apart before they have to lift a claw."
Anthony's jaw tightened. "The pack won't break."
"The pack is already broken. The question is whether it can be put back together." Dax paused. "Isaac sent a messenger. Wants to meet and talk."
"About what?"
"About her." Dax nodded toward the hut. "About what happens when the Shadowpine come. About..." He hesitated. "About whether you're still his enemy."
Anthony stared at the water rushing over the rocks. The question should have been easy. Of course I'm his enemy. He took everything from me. But the words wouldn't come. Because they weren't true anymore. Not completely.
Something had shifted in the cave when Sylva spoke to him. Something had cracked when he watched Isaac hold the line against the Shadowpine. Something was changing, and Anthony didn't know if he could stop it.
Or if he wanted to.
"Tell him I'll meet him," he said finally. "Tonight. Neutral ground. The standing stones."
Dax nodded, unsurprised. "And the woman?"
Anthony was quiet for a long moment. She called me a fool. She looked at me like she saw through every wall I've ever built.
"She stays," he said. "For now."
Dax rose, brushing dirt from his trousers. "For now," he repeated. "That's not a plan, Anthony."
"I know," Anthony said, standing and wringing water from his hair. "But it's all I have."
He found Kieran at the edge of camp, sharpening his blade on a whetstone, his movements rhythmic and precise. The young wolf looked up as Anthony approached, his eyes guarded.
"Anything?"
Kieran shook his head. "Quiet. Too quiet. They're out there—I can smell them. But they're not moving. Just watching."
"Waiting for us to fight each other."
"Probably." Kieran set down the blade. "Are we going to?"
Anthony lowered himself to a fallen log, suddenly tired. "I don't know."
Kieran studied him for a long moment—the same look Dax had given him, the same unspoken question. Who are you now? What are we following?
"Whatever you decide," Kieran said quietly, "I'm with you. Dax too. The others... they'll follow if you lead. But you have to lead, Anthony, not just rage."
The words hit harder than any blade. Not just rage. Was that all he'd been? All he'd become? A vessel for fury, emptied of everything else?
"I know," he said. "I'm trying."
Kieran nodded, accepting. It was more than Anthony deserved.
He went to her at midday.
The hut was dim, the fire banked into embers. Sylva sat against the far wall, exactly where he'd left her, her bound hands resting in her lap. She looked up when he entered, and her gold eyes held the same defiance—but beneath it, something else. Exhaustion. Fear, carefully hidden. And that unsettling awareness that made his skin prickle.
"Come to gloat?" Her voice was rough from disuse but steady.
"Come to bring you food." He set a wooden bowl beside her—dried meat, berries, a waterskin. "Eat. You'll need your strength."
"For what? Dying dramatically when your brother's army arrives?"
He almost smiled. Almost. "For surviving. That's what you do, isn't it? Survive?"
Sylva's eyes narrowed. "What do you care?"
I don't know. The thought was a knife in his chest. I shouldn't. But I do.
"Eat," he repeated. He turned to leave.
"Anthony."
Her voice stopped him cold. Not because it was loud—because it was soft. Because it held no hatred. No challenge. Just... his name.
He turned.
Her face was unreadable in the dim light. "You said last night that you'd lost everything. What did you mean?"
The question was a door he'd kept locked for years. He had no intention of opening it.
"You wouldn't understand."
"Try me."
He should have walked out. Should have left her in the darkness with her food and her ropes and her impossible questions. But something held him there—her eyes, maybe. The way they looked at him was like he was a person, not a monster.
"When the moon chose Isaac," he heard himself say, "it didn't just take my throne." It took my place. In the pack. In my mother's heart. In the world." He laughed, a hollow sound. "I spent twenty-eight years being the heir. The strong one. The future. And in one night, I became nothing. A ghost."
Sylva was silent for a long moment. Then, quietly: "I know what that feels like."
He looked at her sharply.
"My father has five daughters," she said. "I'm the third. Not the heir, not the baby, not the favorite. I was useful—for alliances, for treaties, for bait. But never for me." Her eyes met his, and for the first time, he saw no hatred in them. Only a vast, weary understanding. "So yes, I know what it feels like to be nothing."
The silence between them was different now. Not hostile. Not charged. Just... there. Two broken people, staring at each other across a fire.
Anthony moved before he could think about it. He crossed to the hut and knelt beside her, his hands finding the ropes at her wrists. A moment's work, and they fell away.
Sylva stared at her freed hands, then at him. "Why?"
"Because you're not nothing," his voice was rough. "And neither am I."
He stood and walked out before she could respond.
Behind him, the hut was silent.
But for the first time in years, Anthony's chest didn't feel quite so empty.