The Man Beneath the Monster

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At first, Raven was quiet for so long that I started to wonder if she had changed her mind.

Her gaze had settled somewhere beyond the fire, looking deep into a memory that I couldn’t see. The anger that had once sharpened her features was now long gone and had been replaced by something much heavier, like she was standing at the edge of a place she had spent years trying to not revisit.

“Back then, he was very quiet,” she finally began, allowing a small smile to spread across her face, “Turns out when you remove a High Mountain soldier from their home tribe, underneath all of their hostility and pride, they’re actually quite shy and rather unsure of themselves.”

I tried to picture Thorn moving quietly throughout the village, uncertain of himself, being careful not to draw anyone’s attention. The image refused to align with the therian that I had heard so much about.

The only person I could see behaving that way was me.

“The first week he was with us,” Raven continued, “He stayed close to Watcher and the other High Mountain soldiers that had come with them. They even shared the same hut for a while, looking very much like a litter of cubs watching the world from the safety of their mother’s den as they tried to adjust. Watcher? Well, he watched, and Breaker would watch him, and the others watched Breaker.”

I chuckled again at the image; Blaze peering out from a hut as he watched someone perform an unfamiliar task, with a young Thorn lingering behind him, studying his reactions before deciding what to make of it himself.

My brow furrowed and I leaned forward slightly as a thought occurred to me.

“Who was Watcher to Breaker?” I asked.

“He’s his care-kin.”

“And what’s that?”

“They’re a kind of guardian,” Raven explained, “Parents appoint one before their child is born. If anything happens to them, the care-kin raises the child in their place and makes certain they’re taught the values and traditions of their tribe.” She glanced up at me, “You don’t have anything like that where you’re from?”

“We have guardians that are similar,” I said, shrugging a little, “Godparents, sometimes. Foster parents, too. But that works a little differently.”

“Such strange titles.”

I chuckled again, “Well, to be honest, care-kin sounds like a pretty strange title to me.”

Raven gave a light chuckle, “Apparently, Blaze had been raising Thorn since he was only a month old.”

My smile faded.

That meant Thorn had lost both of his parents when he was still an infant. Yet another piece of his life that aligned itself eerily with mine.

Then I remembered Blaze sitting across from me in the grooming den, studying a face he had known since it was barely a month old.

“The truth is you don’t seem like the little lynx I once knew. Not from home, and not from here.”

A dull ache settled into my chest.

Blaze hadn’t tried to speak to me again after that night. At the time, I had assumed he simply wanted nothing more to do with Thorn. Now, I wondered if the truth was something far more painful.

Perhaps he had already begun to suspect that I wasn’t the child he had raised, and had chosen to mourn that loss in private.

“After a few days, Thorn started breaking away from Watcher to work with Bone,” Raven continued on, “He needed the help, even back then.”

“He was injured,” I pointed out, “I’m sure he did.”

Raven’s brows lifted, “Bone told you about that?”

I nodded, “Last night. He told me about the raid, and what sparing him had cost Breaker.”

“Wow…” Raven leaned back slightly, “Bone is usually rather tight-lipped about that. Must mean he trusts you.”

A small smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. “Yeah. He’s a good friend.”

Raven returned the smile as she turned back towards the fire.

“He was a good friend to Thorn, too,” she said, “Though neither of them would have admitted it back then. Bone hated needing help, and Thorn hated receiving kindness unless he could repay it. Helping Bone gave him a way around that. He could make himself useful without either of them feeling as though anyone was taking pity on them.”

That sounded familiar.

“What kind of work did they do?” I asked.

“Whatever Bone could manage,” Raven replied, “Repairs. Preparing hides. Making tools. Thorn handled anything that required lifting while Bone mostly sat nearby and complained that he could do it himself.”

I chuckled. “Yeah, that sounds like Bone.”

“It does, doesn’t it? Bone was one of the first people here who treated Thorn as though he were merely irritating instead of dangerous. I think that helped.”

I glanced into the fire, picturing the two of them working together. Bone, injured and stubborn. Thorn, displaced and desperate to prove that allowing him into the village hadn’t been a mistake.

“Gradually, he started coming around,” Raven continued, “Especially after he met me.”

My heart lurched slightly, and I fought the warmth that threatened to build around my ears.

“I remember the first time he ever made me laugh,” she said, “He thought red fish was poisonous.”

My brow furrowed, “What?”

A small laugh escaped from Raven. “I know! It’s his favorite food, and he used to think that eating it would kill him or make him sick.”

“What made him think that?”

Some of the laughter faded from Raven’s expression.

“The Tribe of the High Mountains are very sheltered people,” she explained, “Anything brightly colored is treated with suspicion. They avoid berries almost completely, and apparently none of the fish near their home have flesh that color. In Thorn’s mind, a bright red fish meant danger.”

“So what did he do?”

Raven crossed her arms. “He knocked it out of my hand.”

I stared at her.

“One moment, I was sitting near the river, enjoying my meal,” she said, smiling broadly, “Then the next, there was a very alarmed High Mountain soldier standing over me, demanding to know who had given it to me.”

A laugh slipped out of me. “He thought someone was trying to poison you?”

“That was one of the dangers he had imagined. He demanded to know how much I had eaten, whether I felt ill, and whether I could still breathe.”

“Could you?”

“Barely.”

My back straightened slightly.

The air squeezed out of Raven’s lungs in a quiet laugh.

“I was laughing too hard.”

The image formed easily. Raven seated beside the river, doubled over with laughter while a younger Thorn became increasingly convinced that the poison was taking hold.

“He didn’t find it nearly as funny as I did,” she continued, “The more I laughed, the more worried he became. I tried telling him that the fish was safe, but I couldn’t get enough air in me to finish a sentence. Eventually, he offered to hunt something else for me if I was truly that hungry.”

“Well, that was thoughtful of him,” I commented.

“It would have been more thoughtful if he hadn’t thrown the rest of my meal into the river.”

I barked out a laugh.

Raven joined me, the sound lighter than anything I had heard from her since she had returned to the village.

When our laughter subsided, Raven brushed a tear from the corner of her eye.

“Even after I finally managed to explain it to him, he refused to believe me,” she continued. “According to Thorn, surviving poison once did not necessarily make it safe.”

I shrugged, “That sounds reasonable.”

Raven narrowed her eyes at me. “You would have liked him back then.”

The words struck somewhere deeper than I expected. My laughter faded, but Raven had already turned her attention back towards the fire.

“The next time I caught one, I offered him a piece. He refused and sat several paces away while I ate the entire thing, watching for any sign that I might suddenly collapse.” Her smile returned. “It took nearly a moon before he finally gathered the courage to try it.”

Judging from the fondness in her voice, I already knew how that had ended.

“He loved it,” Raven said, “Ate almost half of what I caught, and then had the nerve to complain that I hadn’t introduced it to him sooner. When I reminded him that I had tried, he told me I should have been more convincing.”

“How could you have been any more convincing?” I asked, struggling to contain my laughter, “He watched you eat it!”

Raven threw up her hands, “I have no idea. That’s just how Thorn was.”

I laughed again, and Raven’s smile lingered as she watched the flames.

“After that, he began accompanying me whenever I went fishing. He claimed it was because I clearly couldn’t be trusted to identify safe food on my own…”

I raised an eyebrow. “And you believed him?”

Raven turned to me and smirked, “Not for a moment.”

The two of us shared another laugh before the silence settled back in. For once that night, it wasn’t heavy or suffocating. It felt cozy, warmed by the fire and each other’s company.

“So…” I couldn’t help but drag the word out in the same way Raven had after our dinner on that first night. Only this time, I had no intention of playing games, “Is that how you two got together, then?”

Raven blinked at the abruptness of my question.

“Not exactly,” she replied, tucking a lock of hair behind one of her ears, “Actually, I believe it might have started before that.”

I leaned forward, resting my weight on my elbows.

“As you can imagine,” Raven started again, “People were as fascinated by Thorn as they were frightened by him. I just happened to be more fascinated than frightened.”

Her eyes drifted back towards the fire.

“Breaker. The soldier from the High Mountains. A living legend. Not here to raid our village or slaughter our soldiers, but living as a member of our tribe. Admittedly, I was curious. He was so much younger than the stories made him out to be…”

Raven’s voice trailed off as her cheeks flushed. Not out of grief this time, but out of embarrassment.

“So I started following him,” she confessed, “As he strolled about the village. While he worked. Whenever he ate by himself, which was most times. I couldn’t help myself. Admittedly, there were times when I was frightened by him. He startled easily, slept poorly, and reacted aggressively because of it.”

Raven’s expression softened as she rested her head in her hands.

“But after the red fish incident, I realized there was more to him than the large, terrifying soldier everyone saw him as. He could be thoughtful and was capable of kindness. So I decided to give the therian underneath all of that a chance.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

“I made a nuisance of myself.”

I shot her a playful grin, “No. You?”

Raven lifted her head from her hands and narrowed her eyes at me, “I was young!”

“So you’re saying you’ve become less annoying with age?”

Raven scowled. “Watch yourself.”

I pressed my lips together to contain my laughter, earning another glare from her before she turned back towards the fire.

“At first, I simply stopped hiding whenever I’d follow him,” she continued, “I sat near him while he worked, joined him when he ate, and asked questions whenever I could convince him to answer one.”

“Did he mind?”

A more mischievous smile appeared on Raven’s lips this time.

“Immensely.”

That time, I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. I could only imagine how it must have looked. Raven following Thorn around, always managing to find him no matter how far he went, and him being unable to do anything to discourage her.

“Eventually, he became so frustrated that he demanded to know what I wanted from him,” Raven explained as her smile softened, “I simply told him the truth. That I wanted to know him better. Not Breaker, or the soldier from the stories. Him.”

“So, he let you stay?” I asked.

“Well, he stopped telling me to leave,” Raven replied with a shrug, “That was close enough.”

Raven continued to explain that Thorn barely spoke, at first. Whenever he did, a low mumble came before the words themselves – the mountain speak she had mentioned earlier. It was a dialect commonly heard among members of the Tribe of the High Mountains, supposedly having developed from generations of trying to speak with powerful winds blowing into their faces.

Allegedly, both he and Blaze had managed to train themselves into suppressing it after they had settled in. In Thorn, though, it would return whenever he was tired, angry, scared, or confused. Which was most of the time.

During the time Thorn and Raven spent together, he’d pretend not to listen to anything that she said. But she soon discovered that he remembered almost every word.

Thorn also wasn’t good with words. According to Raven, kindness made him suspicious, and affection terrified him more than anyone's anger ever did. But when he was given something to repair, carry, or hunt for her, suddenly he could say everything he was too afraid to put into words.

For weeks, he’d respond to the things Raven said through small acts she’d never asked him to perform. He once repaired a basket for her because it was supposedly bothering him. Whenever she’d had an unsuccessful hunt, food would appear outside her hut before sundown.

Slowly, the silences between them became less guarded, and Thorn began telling her about the High Mountains. Not about the battles or the soldiers from the stories, but about the way the snow gathered against the cliffs. The deep caves where his people slept. How Blaze used to sit awake beside him whenever Thorn would wake up from a nightmare.

They were small things. Normal things.

Things that, like the rest of the village, I’d thought Thorn incapable of doing.

“The first time he sought me out on his own, I almost didn’t recognize what he was doing,” Raven eventually said, her cheeks flushing again, “He came to me carrying a red fish.”

I raised a brow, “A peace offering?”

“That’s what I thought at first, too,” her smile widened, “He held it out to me and announced that he had inspected it thoroughly.”

“For poison?”

“For everything.”

I laughed, picturing Thorn standing before her with a dead sockeye in his hands and all the dignified seriousness of a soldier delivering an important message.

“He told me that since I was the one who had introduced him to it, it was only fair that he replace the one he had thrown away.”

“Took him long enough,” I chuckled.

“Thorn was rarely quick to admit when he had been wrong, even back then.”

Rather than leave after presenting it to her, Thorn followed Raven back to the riverbank where they had first met. He cleaned the fish himself, but insisted that she cook it, claiming that she had more experience with preparing suspicious food.

I already knew the truth that lay hidden underneath that statement. Thorn couldn't cook, and he didn't want to risk ruining the gift he had gotten for her.

“He sat beside me long after we had finished eating,” Raven said, “We didn’t say very much to each other. We simply sat there together, watching the water.”

The humor in my expression lifted. “That was when you knew?”

Raven pondered the question for a moment.

“I knew that I wanted him around,” she said, “I don’t think Thorn understood what he wanted yet. He only knew that he had started looking for me whenever I wasn’t there.”

A quiet warmth entered Raven’s expression. For a moment, she seemed less like a woman recalling her husband and more like the curious young therian who once followed a frightened stranger around the village.

“When did he finally figure it out?” I asked.

“When Bone grew tired of listening to him,” she replied, crossing her arms smugly.

I blinked, “Listening to him do what?”

“Ask where I was. Wonder whether I had eaten. Complain that I spent too much time alone near the river.” Raven laughed beneath her breath, “Apparently, Bone grew fed up with it and told him that if he was going to worry about me like a mate, then he should stop tormenting everyone else and speak to me.”

“And what did Thorn say?”

“He insisted that Bone was mistaken.” Raven’s smile grew warm again. “Then he came looking for me.”

I found my smile warming alongside hers. For a moment, I finally understood. I could finally see why Raven had chosen to marry a man like Thorn.

Because Thorn wasn’t always the lynx people whispered about now.

Slowly, though, my smile fell and my brow furrowed.

“How long did things stay that way?” I asked.

Raven’s expression changed. The fondness that had warmed her features faded as her attention returned to the fire. For several moments, she said nothing.

“Until shortly after Shade was born,” she finally answered.

For the first time in a long while, I felt my throat tighten.

I swallowed, “Did something happen?”

Raven’s hands curled into fists atop her lap.

“It wasn’t Shade,” she said sharply, “Neither Thorn nor I have ever blamed him for what happened. He was only a baby.”

I lifted my hands and leaned back slightly. “I know. I didn’t mean—”

“I know.” Raven’s voice softened, but the tension remained in her hands. “I just want you to understand that.”

I nodded.

Raven stared into the fire, the dying flames reflecting in her eyes as her expression twisted into something bitter.

“It was those blasted beasts from the High Mountains,” she growled, “They came back.”

I felt a chill run through me as I resisted the urge to turn toward the ominous mountain that sat behind us.

“A raid?” I asked.

“Yes,” Raven replied, “They descended upon our village late in the night. I remember it vividly. We had been sleeping when Thorn suddenly raised his head. After a moment, he got up and immediately rushed out of the hut.”

Raven wrapped her arms around herself as I added another log to the fire.

“At first, I thought he had simply forgotten something outside, or that he needed to relieve himself,” Raven continued, “But a few seconds later, he ran back in and told me to take Shade and hide. Then he reached for his spear and sent a signal to Blaze to sound the alarm.”

Raven paused as a slight shiver passed through her body.

“I told him not to fight,” she said, “We had warriors to defend the village. Shade was only a few days old, and I didn’t want Thorn leaving us.”

Raven’s eyes lowered.

“But he knew the High Mountains better than any of us. He knew hiding inside the hut wouldn’t necessarily keep us safe. So he planted himself in front of the entrance and refused to move. Anyone who wanted to reach us had to go through him first.”

I blinked at her, “They wouldn't have tried coming for you and Shade, would they?”

A grave expression settled over Raven’s face. “Depends on what they needed.”

My jaw clenched.

“Typically, they only come here looking for the necessities,” she explained, “Food, hides, herbs, tools… But every so often they come looking for women and children to add to their ranks. It's rare, but it still happens.”

My stomach churned as the thought occurred to me.

“I imagine that the wife and child of Breaker would have been an extremely valuable find to them.”

Raven’s eyes narrowed, “Yes… Especially the child.”

I felt my own expression harden as I pictured Raven, crouched in the corner beside the bed with a tiny infant wrapped in her arms, and Thorn putting himself between them and the soldiers he used to stand beside.

Just like he had with Bone.

“Word travelled fast amongst the High Mountain soldiers once the raid began,” Raven continued, “When they found out Breaker was here and he had something that was worth taking up a weapon for, they came for him.”

“How many men did he fight?” I asked.

“I'm not sure. Some say it was at least ten. Others say it was more. At first, Thorn tried abiding by the rules Light gave him. He was permitted to defend his hut and family, but forbidden from joining the warriors and pursuing the attackers.”

The fire crackled as the flames began wrapping themselves around the log I had added.

“That didn't last long,” Raven added quietly, “One of the soldiers managed to get a hit in. I'm sure you're aware of the scar.”

She raised a hand and pointed towards her brow. My eyes widened as I lifted one of my hands and reached for the scar that cut through my brow on the left side.

“At that moment, his training kicked back in,” Raven continued, “He fought every last one of those soldiers with the same ferocity that Breaker was known for. When it was done, he had killed no less than ten of them, and wounded many more.”

My eyes widened as I tried to imagine it. Thorn standing at the foot of the entrance, exhausted, covered in blood with nearly a dozen bodies lying at his feet.

“Then what happened?” I asked.

Raven lowered her gaze to the floor.

“The village cheered,” she said, “They praised him for risking everything to protect his mate and his newborn son. Even Light gave him praise.”

I blinked. “Even though Thorn broke the rule that he gave him?”

“Yes. Light said we hadn’t lost a single soldier that night, and it was because Thorn had noticed the danger early and had been willing to fight.”

My mind replayed Raven’s story, searching for the moment everything had gone wrong.

Thorn had fought. He'd survived. His wife and his son were safe. The village hadn’t lost a single life, and everyone praised him for it.

It sounded like it should have been a happy ending.

Then something occurred to me.

“They were afraid of him before,” I said slowly. “Even after he started working and trying to fit in, everyone still watched him.”

Raven’s expression tightened.

“But when he fought…”

“They cheered,” she finished.

My stomach sank.

For all the work Thorn had done to become someone other than Breaker, it was Breaker whom the village celebrated.

“Do you think that’s what changed him?” I asked.

“I think it reminded him how powerful he used to feel,” Raven replied, “And for the first time since his exile, that power made him beloved instead of feared.”

Despite the fire, I felt my body grow cold.

“It started off small, at first,” Raven continued, “He became restless and extremely vigilant. He began sleeping poorly again, and reacting violently when startled. Thorn still had occasional flashes of aggression before then, but he always expressed remorse afterward. Sometimes more than what the incident warranted.”

“And that changed after the raid?” I asked.

“Yes. Ordinary disagreements were seen as challenges. The work that he had once found purpose in started to feel insignificant compared to what he had done during the raid. He grew restless and quick to anger. He hurt people, and one by one, they began pulling away from him.”

Raven’s arms tightened around herself.

“The more ashamed he became, the angrier he grew. And the more anger he took out on us, the more he had to be ashamed of.”

Finally, she lifted her eyes and looked at me. They shone in the firelight as tears started to form.

“We tried to help him,” she said in a broken voice, “Me, Bone, the tribe, we all did what we could to get him to see what he was doing. We gave him every chance we possibly could… And each time that he failed, he became less willing to try again.”

Raven lowered her head, letting her tears fall to the floor.

“Eventually, the therian I had known disappeared beneath all of that anger, and the Thorn everyone remembers took his place.”

The heavy silence from before settled back into the hut.

The fire cracked between us.

I stared into it, watching the flames twist around the blackened wood as Raven’s story settled over me.

I had wanted to understand Thorn. Ever since I'd woken up inside his body, I had tried to piece together the kind of person he had been from everything he left behind. His hut. His family. The fear in Shade’s eyes. Bone's aloofness. The anger in Raven’s voice.

All of that had made it easier for Thorn to be a person I could hate.

Now I wasn’t sure what to feel.

The man Raven described didn’t sound like the monster I had imagined. He was scared, and desperate to prove that he deserved the place he had been given. He hated accepting help because he didn’t want to owe anyone anything. He made himself useful because usefulness was easier to understand than affection.

He worked. He hunted. He repaired things that no one had asked him to repair. He found people who cared about him and slowly began building a life among them.

Before now, the only person I could picture behaving that way was myself.

A chill crept beneath my furs.

“Raven?”

She wiped away the tears in her eyes with the heel of her hand. “Yes?”

My mouth opened, but the words caught in my throat.

I would have let them stay there. Raven had already given me more than I had any right to ask of her. She didn’t need another burden placed on top of everything else she was carrying. Especially one spoken through her husband’s voice.

But I knew if I didn't say anything, the thought would haunt me for the rest of the night.

It would follow me into every task I performed, every disagreement I had, every moment Shade looked at me with any expression that resembled fear.

“What if everyone’s wrong?” I asked.

Raven’s brow furrowed. “About what?”

I swallowed. “Me.”

Her eyes widened slightly as she waited for me to continue.

“Everyone says that I’m nothing like Thorn.” My hands tightened against my knees. “Rain, Flower, Light, Echo, Bone. Everyone who knows the truth looks at me and acts like the differences are obvious.”

Raven blinked. “They are.”

“But everything you just told me…” I grimaced. “It didn’t sound different.”

Raven stared at me.

“He was frightened when he came here. So was I. He didn’t accept help from anyone. Neither did I. He worked because it made him feel useful, because he didn’t know what else he was supposed to do.” My fingers pressed into the fabric over my knees. “He found people who cared about him. He started building a life here.”

The words became harder to force out.

“So did I.”

Raven’s expression softened, but she didn’t interrupt.

“What if I’m not different from him?” I asked. “What if I’m just where he was before everything went wrong?”

There it was.

The fear that had been following me since the mystery surrounding Thorn’s name began to unravel.

It sounded childish when I said it out loud. Thorn and I weren’t the same person. I knew that. Storm had confirmed it. Bone had known almost from the beginning. Raven had looked into my face and realized whoever was staring back at her wasn’t the therian she had married.

But Thorn hadn’t always been the person they remembered, either.

Once, he had been someone Raven sat with beside a river. Someone Bone trusted with his work. Someone Blaze raised as a son. Someone who stood outside a hut and faced an army because his mate and child were inside.

If a therian like that could become the Thorn everyone feared, what made me believe I couldn’t?

Raven drew in a slow breath.

“You’re right,” she said. “The two of you have a lot in common...”

My heart sank.

“You’re quiet when you’re frightened,” Raven continued. “You try to repay everything anyone gives you, even when repayment isn't expected. You work yourself into the ground because you’re terrified that if you stop being useful, someone might decide you no longer belong here.”

Each observation landed with uncomfortable precision.

“So everyone's wrong about me,” I concluded.

“No.” Raven’s voice sharpened enough to bring my eyes back to her. “They’re trying to comfort you. They're just not doing a very good job at it.”

I almost laughed.

Raven moved closer to the fire.

“Pretending that you have nothing in common with Thorn won’t help you,” she said. “He wasn’t born cruel. He was frightened, wounded, and terribly unprepared for the life he had been given. But none of those things are what led to him becoming cruel.”

“Then what did?”

“The choices that he made.”

I frowned.

“Some were made out of anger,” Raven explained, “Others out of fear. They may have been easier for him to make than admitting that he needed help, but they were still his choices, and the consequences belong to him.”

She waited until I met her gaze before continuing.

“And when those choices started hurting people, we told him. We pleaded with him. We forgave him more times than I can remember.” Her voice trembled, but it remained firm. “Eventually, he decided that protecting his pride mattered more than listening to the people who loved him.”

My gaze dropped to the fire. “What if the same thing happens to me, and I don’t notice?”

Raven’s answer came without hesitation.

“Then listen when someone tells you.”

I looked up again.

“You aren’t expected to recognize every terrible thing you might do before it happens,” Raven explained. “That’s why you have people around you. Bone will tell you. Rain will tell you. Echo will probably tell you more loudly than any of us.”

A faint smile tugged at my mouth.

“And I assure you,” Raven added, “If you ever begin behaving like Thorn, I will be the first to inform you.”

I finally managed a laugh. “Somehow, I believe that.”

“You should.”

My smile faded as quickly as it had come. “But what if I don’t listen?”

Raven studied me for a long moment.

“Then that will be your choice,” she said. “But being afraid that you might become him is not the same as becoming him. Thorn stopped questioning himself. He stopped asking whether he was hurting us.”

Her expression softened.

“You’ve spent nearly every moment since I met you worrying about exactly that.”

I wanted to argue. Worrying about it didn’t make me good. Fearing it didn’t mean that I was safe. Thorn had once been capable of remorse, too, and that hadn’t stopped him from hurting the people that he loved.

Raven continued before I could express the argument that was forming inside my head.

“I cannot promise you that you’ll never make the same mistakes he made,” she said. “I cannot promise that you’ll never lose your temper, frighten Shade, or hurt someone without meaning to. You are not safe from becoming cruel simply because you fear it.”

Her honesty stung, but it was easier to accept than being told that I was nothing like him again.

“What I can tell you is that Thorn’s life story is not a path you’ve been placed upon. It isn’t waiting for you simply because you have things in common, or because you wear his face.”

My hand rose toward the scar cutting through my brow.

Raven followed the movement.

“You inherited the consequences of Thorn’s choices,” she said. “You did not inherit the obligation to repeat them.”

For a while, neither of us spoke.

The fresh log had settled into the embers, its bark curling as the fire slowly consumed it. Outside the hut, the night remained cold and still. The High Mountains stood somewhere beyond the wall behind me, but I no longer felt the need to glance over my shoulder and look.

“I’m still scared,” I admitted.

“I know.”

“What if that never goes away?”

“Then let it remind you to listen.”

Raven reached across the space between us and rested her hand over mine.

I stiffened at first.

Her hand was warm. Gentle. Nothing like the firm grip she had used when she confronted me outside of Bone’s hut. There was no anger in it now. No demand for answers.

She wasn’t reaching for Thorn.

She was comforting me.

“Yesterday, you asked me to believe that you are David,” Raven said quietly. “Now you need to start believing it, too.”

The fear didn’t leave me, but as Raven’s hand remained over mine and the fire warmed us against the cold, it no longer felt like something I had to carry alone. 132Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrRfOT6McUX

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