by tourbillon
Eve Sol walks four hours through a Rocky Mountain blizzard to Blackthorn Manor. Seven years ago, on the night before the full moon, someone answered "Here" when the Alpha called her name, while she sat locked in the cellar. She was struck from the genealogy and marked feral. A feral wolf has no name, no valley, no stipend. Any pack member may hunt them. Snow has sealed the mountain. The doors lock from outside. Roll call is at twenty-three hundred. Twelve hours. Eve's name is not on the hall list. A dead man's is, the ink still warm. Two genealogies exist: one shown to the Allied Pack Council, one kept for the mountain. Six vacant seats still draw grain and blood-gold. Victor Sol needs a mouth to hold North Ridge. Ronan Sol, who once answered in her place, still has hot hands and a mate-scar that burns. Eve did not come back to be saved. She came to answer her own name, and to make the hand behind the knife show itself.
