The hollow wolf

Dirt fills my mouth before it fills my lungs, and that's how I know I'm alive. You don't choke on soil in the ground. You just rot in it.

I claw upward. My nails split against roots and stone, but I don't stop, because some animal part of me understands that stopping means dying again, and once was already too many times. My fingers break the surface first. Then my hand.

Then my head, gasping, spitting mud, screaming into open air that tastes like pine and frost and nothing I remember.

I drag myself out of the earth and lie there, chest heaving, staring up at a gray sky through black branches.

"No," I whisper. My voice comes out wrong. Too high. Too soft. Not mine.

I push myself onto my knees. My hands are shaking, and when I look down at them, they're shaking wrong - smaller knuckles, paler skin, a thin white scar across the left palm that I never had.

"What-" I start, and stop, because that's not my voice either.

There's a stream nearby, I can hear it, and I crawl toward the sound on hands and knees like something newborn. When I reach the water I look down and a stranger looks back up at me.

Dark red hair, tangled with mud. A narrow face. Eyes the wrong color - not gray, but something closer to violet-blue, wide and terrified.

"That's not me," I say to the water. "That is not me."

I press my palms against my cheeks, my throat, the collarbone visible above the torn edge of a dress I don't remember putting on. Everything is unfamiliar and everything responds to my touch anyway, warm and real and breathing.

"Mara." I say my own name out loud just to hear it, just to make sure it still belongs to somebody. "My name is Mara Quinn."

The forest doesn't answer. Nothing answers. I sit back on my heels in the mud and I let myself shake, because there's no one here to see it, no one to judge whether Mara Quinn is supposed to be strong right now or allowed to fall apart.

Four years. I remember four years ago. I remember a courtyard full of my own pack, my own family, watching in silence while I was marched out to die. I remember Cassian standing at the front of them, jaw locked, eyes like something carved out of stone, saying nothing while they took me.

I remember the moment it stopped. The dark that came after.

And now this. Mud and cold water and somebody else's face.

"Okay," I say, and my breath fogs in front of me. "Okay. Think."

I press my hand flat against my sternum and feel a heartbeat that isn't racing the way it should be for someone who just tore herself out of the ground. It's steady. Too steady. Like this body has done this before, or like whatever's inside it has already made peace with impossible things.

I stand. My legs almost give out, but I catch myself against the trunk of a birch tree, bark biting into my palm, and I stay upright.

The cold finally catches up to me. It creeps in through the torn dress, through skin that isn't mine, and settles somewhere deep in my chest. I wrap my arms around myself and force my legs to move, one slow step at a time, away from the hole in the ground that almost held me forever.

"Somebody put me there," I say, just to hear a voice, just to fill the silence with something other than my own ragged breathing. "Somebody dug that hole and put me in it and walked away."

The trees don't answer. They never do. But saying it out loud makes it feel less like a nightmare and more like a fact, something I can actually hold onto and use.

There's a bag half-buried a few feet from the hole I climbed out of - canvas, mud-stiff, forgotten. I dig through it with fingers that won't stop trembling and find a torn strip of paper tucked in an inside pocket. Ink bled soft from moisture, but I can still make out three words.

Selene Voss. Grimwood.

"Selene," I say the name slowly, testing the shape of it in my mouth. It doesn't feel like mine. It doesn't feel like anything, actually. Just sounds. Just letters someone else answered.

But it's the only name I've got besides my own, and my own got buried with the body they executed. Whoever put me in the ground wearing this face wanted me erased. I wanted whatever answers I had.

They should've made sure I stayed down.

A branch cracks somewhere behind me and every hair on my arms stands up at once. I spin, crouched low before I even decide to move, some old instinct taking over faster than thought.

Nothing. Just wind pushing through the trees, just the stream running cold over stone.

I press my hand to my chest again, feeling for something under my ribs I'm almost afraid to find - a low, familiar pull, an ache that isn't quite mine and isn't quite gone.

"Nyx," I whisper. "Are you there?"

Something stirs, faint, distant, like a voice heard through a wall. Not gone. Just quiet. Just as lost as I am, maybe, trying to find its way back into a body that used to be somebody else's.

I laugh, and it comes out broken, half a sob. "Good. Good, at least I'm not completely alone here."

I look down at the strip of paper again. Grimwood. That's where I am, then - Grimwood Territory, the wrong side of two different borders from where I actually belong. Rook Territory is east. Cassian is east.

My throat tightens at the thought of his name and I hate that it still does, after everything, after he stood there and let them take me without lifting a single finger to stop it.

"You don't get to still hurt," I tell myself, wiping mud from my cheek with the back of my hand. "Not for him. Not anymore."

But I already know that I'm lying. I felt it the second I said his name in my head - that same old pull, stitched somewhere under the new skin, under the wrong face, under four years of being dead.

Whoever did this to me - buried me under somebody else's name, wiped whatever truth I had left - they're going to answer for it. And there's only one place to start looking for answers about a murder I didn't commit.

The place where it happened.

I tuck the strip of paper into my sleeve, pull the torn dress tighter around my shoulders, and start walking east, toward Rook Territory, toward the man who watched them kill me and never said a word.

The paper trembles in my hand, and I fold it once, careful, like it might fall apart if I'm not gentle with it. It's the only proof I have that this body belonged to someone before I woke up inside it. Someone with a name.

Someone who maybe knew exactly what I'm only starting to guess - that whoever wanted me gone isn't finished, and that dying once wasn't the end of their plan for me.

"I'm coming back," I say, and this time the words come out steadier, more like the woman I used to be before all of this. "Whatever you did to me, whoever you are - I'm coming back, and I'm going to find out why."

I make it maybe twenty steps before I hear it - a low growl, close, too close, rising out of the tree line to my left.

I freeze. Whatever's out there isn't human, and it isn't friendly, and I am standing in unclaimed woods wearing a stranger's body with no pack, no name that means anything, and no idea whether Selene Voss knew how to fight.

The growl comes again, closer.

I don't run. I don't know yet if I even can.

The growl comes again. This time I saw him.

A wolf steps out from between two trees, it's dark gray and big and the teeth are already out.

I don't move. Every part of me wants to run but something stops me. You don't run from something like that, It'll chase you down before you get three steps.

"Easy," I say, and I keep my hands up so he can see them. "I'm not here to fight you."

He doesn't answer, because he's a wolf, not a person. But his ears go flat and his lip pulls back more, and I get the feeling this isn't some animal that wandered up on me by accident. He's working. This is a patrol.

A man steps out from behind him. He's tall. He's wearing a heavy gray coat, collar turned up against the cold. Maybe thirty years old. He looks at me like he hasn't decided yet if I'm trouble or just a headache.

"That's Grimwood land you're standing on," he says. "We don't get a lot of folks climbing out of the dirt at sunrise."

My stomach drops. He saw the grave.

"I don't know what you saw," I say, trying to keep my voice from shaking. "I woke up out here. Don't remember how I got here. I'm not trying to cause trouble."

"You got mud and blood all over you, half your dress torn off, and there's a fresh hole in the ground right behind you." He crosses his arms. "So forgive me if I want an explanation first."

The wolf growls again, quieter, waiting on him.

"My name's Selene," I say. "Selene Voss."

Something changes on his face. Not quite recognition, more like he's heard the name before and can't place where.

"Voss," he says. "Does that mean anything to you?"

"Should it?"

He looks at me for a while without saying anything. I try to breathe normal even though my heart's pounding hard enough I figure he can hear it too.

"There was a Voss family that used to run trade through here," he says. "Haven't heard that name in years. Guess you don't remember much, with everything going on."

"No," I say. That part's true, anyway.

"I don't remember much of anything."

The wolf sits down. His shoulders relax. The man crouches next to him, rests a hand on his head, but he's still watching me.

"Name's Torin," he says. "Run patrol out here. Lucky it was me that found you and not somebody with less patience."

"Thank you," I say. I mean it, even with the fear still sitting in my chest. "I need to get to Rook Territory."

He raises an eyebrow. "Long walk from here. Not exactly a friendly place either, for a stranger with no pack and no papers."

"I don't have a choice."

"There's always a choice," he says. "Some are just worse than others." He watches me for a second. "You got family there? People waiting on you?"

The question catches me off guard. I think of Cassian's face the day they took me. Not even looking at me. Jaw locked tight. Saying nothing while they dragged me out of the courtyard.

"Someone I used to know," I say. "It's a long story."

"Isn't it always?" He stands, and the wolf gets up with him, shakes the dirt off his fur. "I can't walk you there myself. Grimwood doesn't cross into Rook land without being asked. The last time somebody tried it, it turned into a whole fight over grazing rights, but I can point you toward the road. And get you something warm, since what you got on is barely hanging on you."

Something loosens in my chest.

"I'd appreciate that."

He takes me through the trees to a small cabin I hadn't even noticed, smoke coming up thin out of the chimney. Inside, the warmth hits me right away. He hands me a wool cloak and boots close enough to my size, I wrap the cloak around me and for a second I actually feel like a person again.

"Are you sure about this?" he asks while I lace up the boots. My hands won't stop shaking. "Rook Territory isn't known for treating strangers kindly."

"I'm sure," I say. I'm not, really. "I have to find out what happened to me."

"Well," he says, "whatever you're looking for out there, hope you find it before it finds you."

I don't know what to say back, so I just nod.

He walks me to the edge of his land and points down a dirt road cutting through the trees.

"The checkpoint's about two hours that way," he says. "They'll stop you long before you get close to Blackridge House. Their Alpha doesn't let strangers walk in without noticing."

"Thank you," I say again.

He looks at me a moment longer, like there's something else he wants to say. Then he doesn't. "Good luck, Selene Voss."

I start walking and don't look back till Torin and his wolf are far behind me. Till the smoke from his cabin is just a gray smudge in the sky.

The walk takes most of the day. My legs hurt. The boots rub blisters into my heels.

I think about Cassian the whole time.

His face, his silence when I was matched out. Four years I don't remember living through while he moved on without me.

By the time I see the stone walls up ahead, I'm about out of nervousness.

That's when I hear hooves behind me, coming fast. Someone shouts something I can't make out.

I turn around. Three riders heading straight for me. Rook colors on their coats. Their weapons were already drawn out.

The riders come fast, hooves tearing up the frozen dirt. I don't run, there's nowhere to run to anyway. Something in me, maybe just tired instinct, tells me standing still is safer than giving three armed strangers a reason to chase.

"Hands where I can see them!" the lead rider shouts. He pulls his horse up hard just a few feet from me. He's a broad guy with a dark beard, his crossbow already pointed at my chest.

I lift my hands slowly, palms open. "I'm not armed."

"That's not what I asked." His eyes go over me, the mud, the borrowed cloak, the boots two sizes too big. "State your business on Rook land."

"I'm trying to reach Blackridge House," I say, keeping my voice steady even though my heart's pounding hard enough that I figure he can hear it. "I need to speak with Alpha Rook."

The younger rider laughs under his breath. "Sure you do. Everybody wants an audience with the Alpha."

"I'm not lying," I say, sharper than I mean to.

The lead rider gets down off his horse, boots hitting the dirt hard, and walks a slow circle around me, like he's deciding if I'm worth the trouble of hauling back with them. "You got a name?"

"Selene Voss."

He stops walking. Something crosses his face. Not quite recognition. More like he's turning the name over, checking it against something he half remembers.

"Voss," he says. "Don't know that name offhand. Where do you hail from?"

"Grimwood, originally," I say, borrowing the lie Torin gave me without even meaning to. "I was attacked near the border, and I don't remember much before that."

"Convenient," the young one mutters.

"It's the truth," I snapped. It comes out with more heat than I want, more me than Selene, and I catch myself, swallow it back.

The lead rider studies me another second, then looks over at the third rider. A quiet woman who hasn't said a word since they showed up, still on her horse, watching me like she's reading something written under my skin.

"What do you think, Wren?" he asks her.

She tilts her head a little. "I think she's telling half the truth and hiding the other half. But I also think she's not carrying a weapon, and she's not strong enough right now to fight off three of us if she tried." She looks right at me. "Are you strong enough to fight off the three of us?"

"No," I say, because there's no point pretending otherwise.

"Then I say we bring her in," Wren says. "Let the Alpha decide what to do with her."

The lead rider thinks about that, jaw working, then nods once. "Fine. But she rides bound, I'm not taking chances on some stranger who crawled up out of nowhere."

They tie my wrists in front of me with rough rope. Not cruel about it, just quick, like they've done it a hundred times.

They hoist me up onto the back of the young one's horse. I grip the saddle with both hands and try not to think too hard about what it means, riding in bound like a prisoner to a place I used to belong to.

"You don't have to be scared," Wren says, riding close beside us. "The Alpha's fair. Harsh, but fair."

"Is he?" I say, and I can't quite keep the bitterness out of my voice.

She glances over, curious. "You say that like you already have an opinion on him."

"Everyone's got opinions on Alphas," I say quickly, covering the slip. "Just heard stories, that's all."

She doesn't push, but I catch her watching me a few more times as we ride, like she's keeping a list of every strange little thing about me.

The land changes the further we go.

Thick forest thins out into open fields. Stone fences cutting up the pasture. Smoke rising from farmhouses in the distance.

It looks the same as I remember. It looks nothing like I remember. Both at once, somehow, the way grief works.

Then the trees open up all the way, and there it is.

Blackridge House.

The fortress rises out of gray stone, tall and hard, ivy climbing up one whole side like it's trying to soften something that won't be softened. Smoke curling out of a dozen chimneys, guards walking the outer wall, sharp-eyed, armed. It looks peaceful from far off, the same way a held breath looks peaceful right before it breaks.

My chest goes tight. My eyes burn. I hate that this place still feels like home to me, even now, even after everything.

"First time seeing it?" the young rider asks, mistaking what's on my face for something simpler.

"Something like that," I managed.

We ride through the outer gate and I feel eyes land on me right away.

Pack members stop what they're doing in the courtyard, watching the bound stranger get hauled in like cargo. Whispers start before we've even gotten off the horses.

"Who is that?"

"Where'd they find her?"

"Selene Voss," Wren calls out, loud enough to carry, and I watch the name hit different faces in different ways. Confusion on some. On one older woman by the well, something closer to fear.

They pull me down off the horse and my knees almost buckle, exhaustion finally catching up to me, but I force myself to stand straight, chin level, because whatever's coming next, I'm not walking into this house looking broken.

The lead rider grips my bound wrists and walks me toward the main doors. I focus on breathing. On keeping my face still, reminding myself, over and over, that no matter what name they call me, I'm still Mara Quinn underneath it, and Mara Quinn does not flinch.

The big doors swing open before we even reach them, and a man steps out onto the stone landing above us.

Black hair, broad shoulders, and amber eyes that land on me right away, sharp enough to cut.

My breath catches so hard it hurts.

Cassian.

Four years, and he looks harder than I remember. Colder. Like something in him got worn down to nothing but edges.

He doesn't move, he just stares at me like I'm something he can't quite make sense of. Something that shouldn't be standing in his courtyard.

"Alpha," the lead rider says, dipping his head. "Found her near the eastern border. She says her name's Selene Voss."

Cassian doesn't answer him. He's still looking at me, and something crosses his face I've never seen on him before.

Not suspicion, not anger, it something closer to fear.

Then his eyes narrow, and his voice comes out low and dangerous, aimed straight at me.

"Bring her inside," he says. "I want to know exactly who thought it was a good idea to send her here."