Kaelen’s POV

The foyer was a mess of puddles and muddy footprints. Rain streamed off all of us, pooling on the marble in widening circles. I kicked the door shut behind me and the howl of the storm dropped to a muffled roar.

Lyra was still clinging to Elara’s neck. Her small legs dangled against Elara’s hip, bare feet dripping. Elara held her like she’d never let go again, but her eyes were wrong. Glassy. Unfocused. Like she was staring through the walls rather than at them.

"Daddy." Lyra lifted her head from Elara’s shoulder, her cheeks flushed pink. "Miss Vance left."

I stilled. "What?"

"I told her we needed to find Mommy." Lyra’s voice was matter-of-fact in the way only a young child’s could be. "She got her coat and left."

I filed that away. Dealt with later. Right now—

Elara swayed.

It was subtle. A slight listing to the left, like a ship taking on water. I was at her side in quick strides. My hand pressed against her forehead before she could react.

Burning.

Not the warmth of exertion or the flush of emotion. This was furnace-heat. The kind that cooked you from the inside. The kind that would have been impossible if she still had her wolf. A wolf’s healing would have fought the fever off before it ever took root. But without one—

"Elara." I said her name sharply. Her ice-blue eyes drifted toward me. Slow. Delayed. "How long have you been running a fever?"

She blinked slowly. "I don’t... I’m fine."

She wasn’t fine. She was barely standing.

"Valerius." My voice came out in the tone my son recognized. The one that meant now, not later. "Take your sister upstairs. Both of you change into dry clothes immediately."

Valerius looked at Elara. Something complicated moved across his face—longing, worry, the lingering edge of hurt he hadn’t fully released. But he nodded. He gently pried Lyra’s fingers from Elara’s neck.

"Come on, Lyra."

"But Mommy—"

"Daddy’s got Mommy." Valerius said it quietly. Firmly. Like a boy who’d learned to be old before his time. He took his sister’s hand and led her toward the stairs. Their wet footprints marked the marble like a trail of breadcrumbs.

The moment they disappeared around the landing, Elara’s knees buckled.

I caught her. Of course I caught her. My arm hooked beneath her legs, the other around her back, and I lifted her against my chest. She weighed nothing. Nothing. Less than she had before. I could feel her ribs through the soaked fabric of her dress. Each one distinct beneath my palm.

Her head fell against my shoulder. Her breath came in shallow, rapid pulls. The fever radiated off her like a living thing, pressing heat through my shirt wherever her skin touched.

I carried her up the stairs. Past the nursery. Past the guest rooms. Past Valerius’s door and Lyra’s. All the way down the corridor to the end.

Our bedroom.

I shouldered the door open.

Everything was exactly as she’d left it. I hadn’t allowed a single thing to be moved. Not the silver hairbrush on the vanity. Not the half-read book on the nightstand, spine cracked at the page she’d abandoned. Not the dried lavender she’d hung above the window, now brittle and colorless but still there. Still waiting.

Years. This room had been a tomb. A shrine. A wound I refused to let heal because healing meant accepting she was gone.

I laid her on the bed. The sheets were fresh—the servants changed them regularly on my orders, even though no one slept here. Even though I hadn’t been able to stomach crossing this threshold most nights.

Elara’s eyes fluttered. She tried to sit up.

"Stay down." I pressed her shoulder back gently. "You’re burning up."

"The children—"

"Are fine. They’re changing." I crouched beside the bed. Assessed. Her dress was drenched. Heavy. The fabric clung to every line of her body, and I could see—

I forced my gaze to her face.

But I’d already seen. The bruises. Yellowing ones along her collarbone. A faded purple bloom on her shoulder. Newer ones on her forearms, dark as thunderclouds. And beneath those, the faint white lines of old scars that hadn’t been there before.

Years of hell. Written on her skin like a ledger of suffering.

My jaw locked so hard my teeth ached.

"You need to get out of this dress." My voice was carefully even. "Can you manage?"

She tried. Her fingers fumbled at the laces along her side. Trembling. Useless. After a moment, her hand dropped back to the mattress.

"I can’t—" A breath. Frustrated. Humiliated. "I can’t feel my fingers properly."

"I’ll do it."

I didn’t wait for permission. I worked the laces free with quick, efficient movements. Then I gathered the hem of the soaked dress and pulled it upward, over her hips, her ribs, her shoulders, her head. It came free with a wet sound and I dropped it on the floor.

I kept my eyes on the wall behind her. Deliberately. Absolutely.

Not because I didn’t want to look. But because looking would mean cataloging every mark, every scar, every evidence of what had been done to her while I wasn’t there to stop it. And if I did that now, the rage would consume me. I wouldn’t be able to tend to her through the red haze of it.

I crossed to my wardrobe. Pulled out one of my old shirts—soft cotton, worn thin from years of washing. I returned to the bed and eased it over her head. It swallowed her. The hem fell past her thighs. The shoulders drooped halfway down her arms.

She looked impossibly small in it.

I retrieved the fever-reducing medicine from the washroom shelf. Poured water from the pitcher on the nightstand. Lifted her head with one hand and held the glass to her lips with the other.

"Drink."

She drank. Swallowed the liquid. Her eyes were already closing.

Soon, her breathing deepened. Evened. The tension drained from her body in slow increments, like ice melting from a wire. She sank into the mattress. Into sleep.

I pulled the chair from the vanity to the bedside. Sat. Watched the shallow rise and fall of her chest beneath my shirt.

She was here. She was home. She was alive.

I pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes. Hard. Until stars burst behind my lids. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

A soft sound at the door. I dropped my hands.

Lyra stood in the doorway. Dry now, wearing her pink nightgown, her damp braids re-done—Valerius’s work, probably, clumsy but serviceable. She clutched her stuffed wolf to her chest and peered into the room with enormous dark-gold eyes.

"Is Mommy sleeping?" A whisper.

"Yes, baby girl. Come here."

She padded across the carpet on bare feet and I lifted her onto my knee. She settled there, curling into me, but her gaze stayed fixed on Elara’s still form.

"Daddy?"

"Hm?"

"Is Mommy sick because we made her cry?" Her voice was very small. "Because we asked why she left? Did we make her sick?"

My chest tightened. I pressed my lips to the top of her head.

"No, sweetheart. No. You didn’t make her sick."

"Then why is she sick?"

I chose my words carefully. "Do you remember what Mommy said outside? About her wolf being gone?"

Lyra nodded slowly.

"When a wolf person loses their wolf soul, their body gets weaker. It can’t fight off sickness the way it used to. That’s why Mommy has a fever. Because her body is tired. Not because of anything you did."

Lyra considered this with the grave solemnity of a young child processing something enormous. "Will she get better?"

"Yes." I said it like a vow. "I’ll make sure of it."

Silence for a moment. Then—

"Daddy? Does Mommy love me? Even though I don’t remember her?"

I closed my eyes. Drew a breath that hurt.

"She loves you more than anything in this world, baby girl. She left because she thought you’d be happier without her. Because she was scared. Not because she didn’t love you."

"But she’s staying now? For real?"

"For real. Forever."

Lyra nodded. Her thumb found its way to her mouth—a habit she’d mostly broken, returned now in this vulnerable moment. "I missed her," she murmured around it. "Even when I didn’t remember her. I missed her anyway."

Her eyes were drooping. The weight of the night—the storm, the emotions, all of it—pulling her under. Before long, her body went slack against my chest. Asleep.

I rose carefully. Carried her to the bed. Laid her down beside her mother, in the curve of Elara’s body.

Elara shifted. Still deeply asleep. But her arm lifted. Instinctive. Unconscious.

It wrapped around Lyra. Pulled her closer.