Page 23 of Sentinel of Talon Mountain
When I step back inside, Wren stands near the stove, holding out a steaming mug of coffee by the time I walk through the door. The faint scent of coffee and woodsmoke wraps around me as I take it from her hands, the warmth seeping into my chilled fingers like a quiet truce.
"Don’t get used to it," she says. "I just need your hands warm enough to shoot straight."
I take the cup, meet her eyes. "I can shoot just fine with cold hands."
"Yeah? Let’s not test that today."
I let the warmth bleed into my fingers, chasing away the last chill clinging to my skin. The mug anchors me, solid and steady in my hands. Across the room, her gaze lingers, intent and thoughtful, like she’s sifting through what’s left unsaid between us. I feel the weight of it—her silence, her questions—just before I break it.
"That team from Denali SAR—we talked briefly about what happened. Do you still think about it?"
Wren nods once. "Yeah. I think about what happened. The people who didn’t come back," she says, watching me carefully.
"Zeke told me once that back when he was still in the Lower 48, he’d heard a story making the rounds in some of the SAR forums—a woman with Denali SAR, tough as hell, led their medic team, then vanished after a mission went sideways. He didn’t know her name, just that the story stuck with him. Said it made him curious enough to look into a job up here when the Glacier Hollow sheriff post opened years later."
Her eyebrows lift. "Zeke told you that?"
I nod, the motion slow, deliberate. A weighted pause hangs between us, thick with memory and the things neither of us is quite ready to say. I set the mug down with a quiet clink, the sound oddly final in the hushed room.
"Yeah. I think about them." Her voice is low, rough—too raw to disguise. "I don’t just think about them—I carry them. The storm, the calls we answered, the ones we couldn’t save. They don’t fade. They stay lodged under my ribs, steady as scar tissue. Denali didn’t let go, and I guess in some ways, I never really leftit behind." She doesn’t say anything for a long beat. "Anything else?"
"No, but I appreciate you sharing. For what it's worth I think the assessment of 'tough as hell' is pretty much spot on. If and when you want to talk, I'll be here to listen."
Another silence falls, heavier this time—thick with all the things neither of us says. The kind that clings to the wall, settle deep in the chest, and hum like unfinished business.
She turns and stokes the fire, her movements steady but quiet, as if tamping down something deeper than kindling. The firelight casts shadows across her face, highlighting the tension she won’t name. I watch her for a beat longer, then let it go. For now. Some wounds stay buried until the next storm digs them out.
9
WREN
The wind dies down by degrees, leaving the trees in a breathless hush. Nate nods once, hand skimming the doorframe like he can feel the weather in the wood. "We’ll take the long route around the ridge," he murmurs.
I follow him outside, stepping into the fading light, the door clicking shut behind us like a seal. The snow crunches softly under our boots, that delicate, brittle sound the only thing marking our passage. The sky is darkening fast—clouds dragging thick and low—but there’s enough twilight left to move without lanterns. Just barely. My eyes adjust quickly, memory and instinct doing the work logic can’t. We descend through the thinning timber, stepping into the tension of what comes next.
My boots barely whisper against the snow-crusted ground, a fragile crust of ice crunching faintly beneath each step, but I still pause before clearing the tree line. The air bites cold—damp earth, frost, and a metallic tang that prickles my throat and raises every hair on my arms.
A breeze moves through the clearing, carrying with it the distant hush of branches creaking under old snow and something that smells faintly wrong, like the moment before a storm breaks. It brushes against my face, crisp and clean, andcarries a silence that rings too loud in my ears. Every instinct flares—a quiet hum of tension that tightens my spine and keeps my foot suspended in place. Instinct, not logic. A breath catches, held tight in my chest as I scan the slope above. Nothing. Just wind-dusted branches and rock. Still, I don’t move.
Nate’s presence behind me is quiet but potent. I don’t need to see him to feel it—solid, steady, close. The kind of nearness that vibrates along nerves frayed too thin. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t rush. Just waits.
A clearing is ahead, a wide patch of frost-laced ground where the snow has begun to crust unevenly, catching stray shards of twilight. Melt pools glint faintly in the dips and hollows, catching the last fractured slants of light that spill through the thinning spruce canopy. Pine needles are caught in ice pockets and wind-swept to the edges, pressed flat into the soft crust where the sun barely touches.
The space feels too quiet—like sound itself has been pushed back to the tree line. Cold air coils low against my ankles and rises harsh in the back of my throat. It is tinged with the faint scent of old fire and something mineral, like water run through iron. I don’t like how still it is, how exposed the open ground feels. My gaze skims the shadowy margins, pulse tapping harder behind my ribs.
It’s beautiful, in a bleak kind of way—but it’s the kind of beautiful that dares you to trust it. And I don’t.
Cold iron, sap, and the faint taint of old smoke—like something passed through that didn’t belong. The silence feels weighted, every breath suspended in a hush that presses against my skin. It’s the kind of place that makes instincts prickle, that hums with the memory of things watching and waiting, flattened by wind and edged in towering spruce.
Dusky light filters through the thinning canopy in fractured streaks, casting the clearing in muted glimmers—uncertain,half-hidden, and edged with shadow. Every instinct in me recoils, nerves drawn tight. It feels like stillness laid as bait—the forest holding its breath, waiting for our misstep. A breeze stirs faintly, carrying a scent that doesn’t belong—metallic, like old blood or the tang of fear. My gut tightens. Something’s off. Something’s watching.
We’ve both clocked it as a vulnerability. He’ll want to cross fast. I prefer cover. But when I lean my weight back, he’s already beside me, a low murmur near my ear.
"I’ve got eyes north and east. Movement, we hit the ground. Don’t stop."
I nod once and we move.
Crossing feels endless. Every step screams—a half-frozen earth beneath my boots that rings too loud in the hush. A hawk calls overhead and I flinch before I can stop myself. Nate steadies me with a brush at my lower back, short-circuiting everything for a heartbeat. Damn him.
