Page 37 of To Carve A Wolf

“Fucking pathetic.”

“Please,” the boy choked out, collapsing to his knees, hands shaking. “We didn’t know what we were doing. We just—we just wanted to belong.”

“And for that,” Roran cut in, his voice like a blade, “you think mercy is earned?”

He stepped forward, boots crunching over ice and bones, the silver ring on his brow catching the morning light. “This is weakness, Andros. You want justice? Burn the villages that sheltered them. Scorch the memory of them from this land.”

I turned to face him, jaw tight.

He raised an eyebrow, the smirk twitching at the corner ofhis mouth. “So we let them crawl away? Tuck their tails and disappear like rats?”

“No,” I said again, voice low and dangerous now. “These humans will pay.These ones.But I won’t start purging entire villages because you’re too rabid to tell fear from treason.”

Roran sneered, but didn’t argue. He knew better—for now.

I looked down at the boy, trembling on his knees. I smelled no conviction in him. No strength. Just cowardice, the same as the others—thin, dirty, empty-eyed things, huddled behind false promises and the hope of power they were never worthy of.

“You sold your kind for fangs,” I said coldly. “You’ll die with nothing.”

I turned slightly. “Garrick.”

He didn’t hesitate. One nod, one sharp movement—and his blade flashed. The boy barely had time to scream. The others fell just as quickly. Throats opened in the snow, blood steaming as it soaked into the frozen dirt. Their bodies crumpled where they stood, no struggle. No glory.

Just silence. Cold. Clean. Final.

I stood there for a moment, watching the last of the blood soak into the white.

“They wanted to be wolves,” I muttered. “Let the earth bury them like beasts.”

CHAPTER 12

Lexa

The window was narrow, but it gave me just enough of a view to the courtyard below.

Snow clung to the stone in patches, melting slower in the shadows, and the wind carried that distinct northern chill—sharp and clean, like it had never known the soot and salt of the fishermen’s village I’d once called safety. But down in the yard, the cold didn’t seem to matter.

Dain was laughing. Wooden sword in hand, he moved in tight, awkward swings against another boy his size, both of them bundled in thick tunics, cheeks flushed from the cold and the thrill of pretend battle. The others joined in, a loose circle of pups barely older than toddlers, swinging blunted blades under the careful, calm eyes of two trainers.

Just as Garrick had promised. Not brutality. Not chaos. Not blood. Play. Controlled, practised, watched.

They weren’t training killers. Not yet. They were letting them be children. For now. And he looked… good. Healthier. There was colour in his cheeks again—real colour, not the sickly flush of fever or cold, but the warm pink of a boy who had slept in a real bed and eaten every bite of his meals. His skin had lost that pale, papery edge it used to carry, back when every night was a gamble against hunger and frostbite.

And the boots—gods, the boots.

One of the keep’s maids had brought them to him last week. Sturdy leather, lined with fur, barely used. He’d lit up like it was his name day, stomping around the room, laughing at the way the snow didn’t soak through anymore. He still looked small. Fragile. But less like a ghost.

I let my forehead rest against the stone. My breath fogged the glass. I closed my eyes for a moment. I could still see him—two years old, clinging to his mother’s body, lips blue from the cold, shaking with silence. She had been dead for at least a day. He didn’t cry when I pulled him away. Didn’t scream. Just stared.

I remembered kneeling beside him in the mud, brushing his damp hair out of his eyes, and whispering the words I hadn’t dared say out loud before.

I’ll take care of you.

Even though he couldn’t understand. Even though I didn’t know how.And the moment I said it— The runes on my back had burned.Not the steady, simmering ache I was used to. This was a searing flash of agony, like the magic itself waswarningme.

Like I was breaking the oath they carved into my spine. The promise of silence. Of isolation. Of never belonging to anyone. And I made a vow anyway.

I remember gritting my teeth through the pain and telling myself it was nothing. That I could handle it. That he was worth it.

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